Yesterday we saw how not to ride in cold weather if you don’t want to bite the asphalt and damage your bike. But now we stumbled across this video showing you how to win against nature.
Even if there’s no ice on the road or snow, riding in the winter is way harder than in the warm season. The cold makes your fingers less responsive, and traction will be very limited so mastering the smooth inputs is key to success.
However, the cold is just one enemy. You can be assaulted by its other two friends - water and dead leaves on the asphalt. Mix everything into a corner along with speed, and you get the perfect deathtrap.
How to avoid a crash in such conditions? Well, for starters you could find another way of transportation during the winter. But if “Danger” is your middle name you should start with riding way slower than you normally do, at least in the corners.
Next thing you should do is concentrate on the road ahead trying to predict what the traffic will do. Braking with cold tires on wet is like picking a champagne glass with a pair of pliers - squeeze to hard and you make a mess.
You’ll need to spot danger from way ahead to give you time to slow down without needing to use a handful of front brake. Start by using engine braking and resort to your front and rear brakes when the former isn’t enough. Always be careful to weight shifting, let your front fork compress before braking harder.
When it comes to cornering, the best advice would be to try and keep your bike as vertical as possible, which automatically means to slow down. Keep an eye on what lies in the corner, especially dead and wet leaves which are as slippery as ice. If you’re approaching such a corner, try and find the best line to avoid as many leaves as possible, even if the line isn’t the fastest one as you got accustomed with so far.
A video example of how to do it can be found below, where this rider is commuting to work at 4 am on a wet road and leaves scattered in a corner. To top it off, the temperature is just 35F (1.6 C).
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