We live in a rural area where there a bit of distance between houses, It was about 25F yesterday and snowing...My wife made baked goods for some of the neighbors and we rode the ATV to deliver them...Most of the ride was at maybe 10-15 MPH, we were dressed for activity outside, not riding...The ride back was about 1/2 mile with the ATV in 5 th gear, about 30 MPH...We were quite chilled and just sat in front of the wood stove to defrost......

1974 Waterville Valley, NH. six P.M. Sunday evening -24 below zero for 2.5 hours home, 110 miles. BMW R60 with Steib.

David

Back in the 1960's when young and stupid, went on the Dragon Rally from London Kent through the night several hundred miles to the Atlantic coast of West Wales in Mid Feburary the coldest time of the year. No idea of the temperature but the mountain pass was closed to cars and roads ice and snow. .Passenger had to be regularly helped off and de-frosted. Tent froze to the ground. Defrosted by sleeping too close to Huge bonfire got well toasted and black. Silly enough to do it again another year ,nearly drowned in Tempest of biblical proportions. I went another year but thankfully the memory has blanked it out.

Thirteen degrees F here this morning. I'm not even THINKING about riding.

I rode the lawnmower yesterday, cutting down some broomsedge in a 2-acre field, and I like to froze just doing that ....

Lannis

Bit chilly out on the trail bikes for 50 miles yesterday https://youtu.be/GazF9RBqUhk

I bought my first street bike in the Fall of 1980, I couldn't afford the bike payment, car payment plus insurance on both so the car had to go. When winter started creeping in I bought a well worn snowmobile suit. I never made any epic journeys but winters in Ohio can get pretty cold. The following Fall I bought an old Ford that looked like it had been through a demolition derby but it ran good and the heater worked.

What I want to know is ... How do people survive on snowmobiles?

I've ridden on bikes aplenty in the 20-degree and 30-degree range, on my former half-hour morning commute into work. You don't stay warm but you can make it and it's better than riding in a car.

But I note a couple things -

Modern sleds CAN go really fast (wind chill) and I hear that there are hundreds of miles of snowmobile trails in the North.

So if we're all talking about how tough it is to ride a motorcycle, even a faired motorcycle, in the wintertime, HOW do people do all-day trips on snowmobiles that will run 120 and average 45 mph on the trails, when the temperature is +10 or 0 or -10 degF?

It's the same sort of thing - straddling a mechanical contrivance with the wind howling past (even if there's a fairing and electric vests) - if someone can ride a sled at 0 degrees, why aren't folks out riding bikes (when it's dry) at 0 degrees?

Lannis

More difficult to fall off a snowmobile, although it can happen Motorcycle tyres generally perform poorly (on tarmac) below about 8'C / 45'F. My reasonably quick yet slightly tedious rice rocket rides on sporty tyres, very twitchy when the tarmac is cold.

While some motorcycles have fairings, I think pretty much all snowmobiles do. That probably helps. When I was 15 or 16 years old, I was staying at my parents' farm in northeast Pa. just south of Elmira, NY. It gets real cold there and the farm was basically the top of a small mountain, so the wind didn't make it any better. There was a blizzard and we couldn't get off the mountain. I got an asthma attack and was in a pretty bad way. My dad and a pal were holding me up over pots of boiling water on the stove. I couldn't breath sitting down and I wasn't strong enough to stand up any more. Any way, a local farmer who rented fields from Dad showed up with his son on a couple of snowmobiles. They took my pal and I down the mountain to the emergency room at the local hospital. It was probably about 7 miles away. We were there in less than 10 minutes, so they were moving right along. When we got to the hospital I was pretty blue from not being able to breath and from being frozen. A shot of adrenalin, and I was breathing and feeling fine in less than 10 minutes. The ride back to the farm was cold too.

Ed from NJ

Having fallen off both bikes and snowmobiles I can say it's not that difficult on either one It's been a while since I did any snowmobiling, but it always seemed a bit more physical than riding a bike, and the only dexterity needed was the right thumb for throttle and a left finger for brakes, so you could really bundle up without loosing any amount of control of the sled. Not so easy on a bike where you have to be able to balance, keep mobile enough to put your feet down, and use all four limbs for control. Yesterday though I had -17f at 5:30AM and I would not have even left the house had I not had to go to work.

I'm with you.

I'm not tough enough to live in Siberia, though - if you can't go around in a t-shirt at -10 F you ain't hittin' on nothin', apparently.

-62 F when this picture was taken, it says. Busses running, people shopping - I don't see how they do it. My eyes would freeze. I DO have one of those hats, and if you wear it over 10 F you'll burn up ...



Lannis

Lannis;

Remember the TSMR when we split into two groups after lunch? I went the full route but I think the group that went back actually had a worse ride. We were all sure wet and cold when that one was over.

I think that happened twice - once (maybe the second or third ride) when we came out of the Main Street Cafe in Mountain City, still wet and cold from the first half, and asked Gordon which way were were going, and he pointed up into the soggy freezing clouds engulfing Sandy Gap on top of the Iron Mountains and said "Up there!"

John French said "I'm off to the fireplace!" I said "I'm right behind you" and we went straight back to Boone down 421.

That was the only time I've wimped out. But that torrential rain at last year's ride between Laurel Bloomery and Mouth of Wilson was all I wanted....!

Lannis

People do exist in the coldest regions with minimal heat. If I recall correctly, Paul Theroux wrote of staying in a hotel in Harbin (China) in the 1970s, minimal heating available, everything piled up on top of the bed overnight, 0'C / 32'F in the hotel restaurant; wearing your coat and hat indoors helped.

Was riding my A7 SS combo 17 miles each way as an apprentice to work from Basingstoke to AWRE Aldermaston every day during that cold spell. 3 pairs of gloves 2 scarves as many jackets i could get on always Donkey jacket on top and a bungee strap to keep it all together.9. . At least with a sidecar I wasn't about to come off but I can still remember how cold I was

Sadly after passing my test and detaching the car I had a bit of an off and I sold it some time later..

Two wheel drive outfit for the snow. I want one please! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2fK6P6S4ZM