What is the coldest temp / worst weather you ever rode in?

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Phoenix doesn't offer a lot of opportunity to ride in extremely cold weather. I think for me a low of about 26 Degrees Fahrenheit was as cold as I've ever seen on a motorcycle. I have been caught in some absolutely brutal dust storms, we get some that can blow 50 mph with zero visibility. It feels like getting sand blasted.
That happened to me a couple years ago and I had to spend a whole day cleaning crap out of every nook and cranny on my bike, including taking my air box off and cleaning filters and dumping sand out of them.
In fact I once was riding at 50 mph into a 50mph headwind and it snapped my windshield off.
So....how about you?
 
Back in the eighties I was stationed at Mt. Home AFB in Idaho. One morning in Jan-feb my car wouldn't start... f*ck! I lived out in the country (high plains) and it woulda took all day to thumb my way to the base 20 miles away. So, I hopped on my XS and headed off. Was about 10deg F. with light snow. When I got to the gate the airman at the gate stopped me and said "you can't ride that bike in the snow!" Why not I said? "cause it's against the law" he said. I said that I'd give him that it was pretty f*ckin stupid, but it wasn't against the law. Had to sit there for ten minutes while he called the duty sgt. out. Duty sgt. chewed his ass and waved me through.... Damn that was cold!
 
Jus' call me stumps. :doh:

But the coldest I've ever been? A bare XS1B in about 1975, rode it to Florida on spring break in March. All went well until we came back up through Illinois to Madison Wisconsin in 20's and snow. about 6 hours of that, at the end of a long chilly day. Good thing I was young.
 
Forget the actual temps but do know they were in the negative ºF. But then it was only for the short ride to work and back that is maybe 1 mile each way. What was bad is when I got home I realized I did not have my keys and had to run back to the shop for them!

What did make my day is just as I got in the driveway the first time a UPS truck pulled up to deliver a package with two people in the truck. The one guy said to me that he was just bitching to the driver about the cold weather we were having when this crazy guy comes down the road on a motorcycle!
 
Anytime somebody talks about riding on snow I don't believe them.
 
I was just kidding. Of course I believe it. I do it myself all the time.
 
In 1978 my Madam duJour was a geological engineering student and she was working at a mining survey camp just north of a place called Wawa Ontario (check it out - just look waaaayyyy up north along the east shore of Lake Superior). Well, it was mid-May and she’d been gone up north for a few weeks and she called me (no texting or sexting or email in 1978) and she said...”I’m lonely and I miss you - A LOT ....or words to that effect. :heart:

Well, me, being the red-blooded Canadian boy (i.e. walking hormone overdose) that I am...errrr, ...was....well anyhow, I decided that the smart thing to do was to ride my 1975 XS650B up to Wawa from my pad in Kingston, ON to her partially heated tent in Wawa after work on Friday. :rock: The distance was around 1200 km or about 720 miles and Google Maps lists the travel time as about 11 hours and 25 minutes (not including fuel and food stops plus multiple stops to “drain the dragon”). Anyhow, I figured that if I set off right at 4:00 PM, I could be there by around 5:00 AM and that would give us plenty of time for....well, you know. My plan was to ride back on Sunday during the day so that I could see a bit of the countryside (the trip north was mostly at night of course).

All went well until I turned the corner at Sault St. Marie (pronounced “The Soo”) at around 2:00 AM or so and then, the temperature dropped from a balmy 60 deg. F down to a refreshing 25-30 F (about -6 to -1C). I think it got colder than that as I headed north, but I didn’t care to know any more details. I didn’t have an electric suit or anything like that (remember, this was an XS650 with the brushed alternator etc.) and so I got really f@cking cold. Holy crap - I was the human popsicle. The distance from the Soo to Wawa is about 230 km or around 140 miles and baby, it was rough. It was dark but clear so I could see the northern lights through the frost on my face shield and that is all that kept me going. I kept reaching down and putting my left hand on the exhaust valve cover to warm it up. As I recall it, I had a throttle lock that looked like a nutcracker and that allowed me to do the same thing on the right hand side occasionally.

There are essentially no towns or other civilization and not even much other traffic at night in the north. In fact, there are only a couple of truck stops on that stretch of the Trans Canada Hwy. (fuel is always a concern for bikes along there - at least in those days) and so each time I stopped, the truckers would laugh as I came in the door. One guy said, “She must be a really good piece of tail for you to ride north in this weather boy”. All I could do was shiver and grin. He had no idea how right he was.

Anyhow, I made it (get it) to Wawa, arriving just about on schedule at abut 5:20 AM as the sun started to peek through the pine trees. I suppose it’s possible that I had exceeded the speed limit at some point along the way...

The rest....I’ll leave to your imagination. :cool:

Pete
 
November 11th. working on my XS yet ? He!! no, my BMW dual sport was out in the rain today. Very slippery road snakes and wet leaves. As for snow riding ? Who are you trying to kid ? Street bikes are scary as he!! on snow.. XJ650RJ was that last experience. Pretty much both feet down , limited vision, but I made it to the Aframe in the Central Ore forest. Squeezed in another day today, whew :)
 
Boy , some of you guys were going for distance in the winter! It's one thing to make a short hop, such as myself, but fo be in the middle of a road trip and have the temps plummet. It's soak time that really freezes your nads, once it gets bone deep, you're in trouble!
 
We don't usually tell the southerners but once the ground/roads are frozen HARD snow is no big deal, it's when it's wet slushy that it's so treacherous..

Used to make ONE run to Milwaukee in February each year, about 100 miles. Couple times it went down to zero F or below, with prep you can bear about anything for a couple hours. Like Pete swapping hands onto the engine really helps. For sheer misery rain in 50's F is worse than hard cold.
 
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