Until about 1983 I'd ridden all year round, but never went any long distances in the winter.
Easter break that year was almost tropical, and I headed down to a friend's house in the south of England, about 400 miles away. It was so warm on the way down, I was riding with minimal coverage, jeans and t-shirt more or less.
Towards the end of the break, the TV forecast looked a bit gloomy, but I was literally quite unprepared for what happened next.
Snow, rain, hail and ice covered most of the country for a day or two. Just out of virtually nowhere, with minimal warning. Of course, these days we'd have ample warning of that, but the long-range forecasts were a bit vague and unreliable. If there had been such a thing in place at the start of the week I'd have done things differently for sure.
Anyway, I'd postponed my return trip for a couple of days to allow the roads to clear and the temperature to rise a bit, but had no choice but to leave and head north again to get back to work.
That journey north was one I'll never forget. Because I was foolish enough to take only summer gear with me, I was caught out badly. My hands were frozen to the bars, and the totally inadequate gloves I had became torture intstruments as they got soaked and virtually useless. My upper body was ok, as were my legs, but my feet were like blocks of ice.
I discovered a trick, after being pulled over for slipstreaming too close to tractor/trailer units by motorway police. At 60mph, the long rectangular body of an articulated truck generates more than one calm air pocket behind it. There's the one that's obvious (and was too close) but there's another one about 100ft behind that, and a bike fits into it quite nicely. I spent the majority of the remaining 300 miles doing this distant slipstreaming.
Eventually I got home and soaked in a hot bath for hours.
For years after that, my fingers were acutely sensitive to cold, and I reckon I sustained some lasting injury. It gradually recovered, but I'm still averse to getting chilled there.
After that, I became a total convert to the benefits of full touring fairings , and did many similar journeys without the slightest problem. BMW's RT fairing, Vetter's fairing, any of them are better than freezing your ass off and losing control or your life. I couldn't give a rat's ass what a fairing looks like, as long as it does its primary job.
It was cool because the ice was clear and I could see the bottom 10 feet down. 
hmm what are all those funny looking little bumps I see on the ice? Turns out the ice was maybe an inch thick (no I didn't measure) and the "bumps" were small holes with little fountains of water coming through, the weight of the bike was sinking the ice! 
I um VERY carefully got my ass turned around and off of there! Yes I have all kinds of stupid cars on lake ice stories. 
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