Cold Weather Riding

billyk

billyk

Guru
Yes to fairings! As a year-round commuter in rainy Seattle, I ride with a fairing on my Quest 661 about 6 months/year.

But from the pic it looks like you have yours mounted too far forward. That makes the bike a lot longer, for one thing, but also you don't get the full benefit of having your hands in the dry warm space behind the fairing.

I used to ride with a Zzipper fairing, but then built my own, including a much lighter and simpler mounting system than the commercial ones. I have about 4000 miles behind this thing and it is very robust. (Survived a couple of 20mph crashes).

See pics and detailed build instructions in the Q thread "new homemade fairing for Quest", Jan 5, 2014. Most people will skip the instructions and just look at the photos. First one shows the original Zzipper, the rest show the home-built.
 
Eric Winn

Eric Winn

Zen MBB Master
Aggieray74 said:
I am in East Texas
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Heh, as of this post it is 46F in Tyler, TX where I originated and 19F where I live now in Brighton, MI.

I switch to my velo or the indoor trainer for winter riding. :D

Judging by your handle I would also say Gig Em Aggies. I'm class of 1981, 3rd generation Aggie. Unfortunately both sons elected not to continue the tradition but my nephew did (his Dad, my brother, was a Baylor grad).
 
quickbeam

quickbeam

Well-Known Member
Eric Winn said:
Heh, as of this post it is 46F in Tyler, TX where I originated and 19F where I live now in Brighton, MI.

I switch to my velo or the indoor trainer for winter riding. :D
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It's all relative :)
I lived in Greenville, TX for awhile, but couldn't handle the stifling heat from May to Oct. There was about 3 weeks of good weather in April and Nov.
I moved there fresh out of college from northern MN, that was quite a wake-up call. Drove down to my job there in July in a car without air-conditioning (this was '91, air-conditioning wasn't standard back then). Then I bought a Texas car, but had troubles when I went back for Christmas. I remembered to check the antifreeze, but it got to -30'F while I was back home, and that car took forever to shift out of first gear! I really had to pull on the stick shift to do it too, but after a couple miles the tranny fluid warmed up enough that I could shift normally. :)

I have ridden one bike or another pretty much every month of the year, but mostly just as an experiment in Jan or Feb in MN.
OTOH, I had a college professor who rode to work every day in Duluth, MN. He had a sense of humor about it though, on his office door was a cartoon saying "people who ride bikes in snowstorms should be removed from the gene pool". The issue here is the bike paths aren't shoveled or plowed, and the streets are even more dangerous when the shoulders are covered in snow banks.
 
jond

jond

Zen MBB Master
downunda newcastle east coast = year round cycling

sorry to all you seasonal folk .
 
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