Riding a tricycle in Severe Weather

This longish page is divided into three parts:

Cold weather trike riding
Hot weather trike riding
Riding through storms on a trike

Read on...

1. Cold weather riding

Riding in cold subzero weather is a lot of fun... provided you are careful...

The picture at right was taken by one of my webcams as I headed across one of our snow-filled fields early one morning toward our driveway. The black spots to my left and straight ahead are deer tracks. I have learned to follow deer tracks when riding in snow - they always know where the easiest places to walk and hence ride, are to be found. And where the snow is strong enough to support their (and hopefully my) weight. an image - please see terms of use

Traction: Most tadpole trikes have the center of gravity just slightly toward the rear of the trike. Translation - it is difficult to get sufficient traction in snow. ICE offers a fix for this, but I have found that the best thing is to use studded tyres. Mine are from Schwalbe in Germany, but you can find several other manufacturers offering studded tyres online. They make a huge difference when riding on snow and ice. You will need three of them. The ones on the front of course are necessary to help you stop on icy roads.

Frozen-Brake-Lines: My brake lines have frozen solid in the cold. When the water from the road gets into the lines and it is very cold out, the water can freeze without you realizing it. So that when you grab a brake to stop for a car, the entire line can frozen - no brakes. This has happened to me during a long ride in the mountains in subzero weather. Even though I had matches with me, I could not thaw the frozen line. I rode all the way home with only one brake, testing it frequently and hoping it would not also freeze. Not fun. Once the trike was inside for a hour, the ice thawed and the brake worked again. My solution, which has worked well for me since this incident, was to order online a small bottle of Phil Woods Tenacious Oil, although any similar oil will also do. Every now and again before leaving home in freezing weather, I drip a few drops of the oil inside the brake lines and inside the gear lines. Even if water does get into the lines, the oil keeps them mobile. I have had no further problems with frozen controls since doing this regularly.

Clothing: You can suffer hypothermia when trike riding in subzero weather unless you are careful. Here’s how - you ride along, get hot, and remove some clothing. Then you go down a hill at high speed. In cold weather, the wind chill effect can be decades below zero Celsius. Your scalp, face, hands, feet, and any exposed part can freeze in seconds. This has happened here in the mountains to bicycle riders. Unpleasant way to loose a finger or two. Thank goodness trike riders are more intelligent than this. We trike riders know enough to carry and wear a helmet cover (mine is a waterproof breathable fabric), a very thin wool cap to wear under the helmet, a woolen wind-proof face mask, ear muffs, subzero-rated gloves, riding shoe covers, wool (warm even when wet) full length undergarments, fleece jacket and riding pants, wool socks, and windproof pants and jacket. My wife got some very high quality ski gloves for me for my birthday. These work very well on the trike - waterproof, warm, and flexible in extreme cold. I highly recommend these for your hands too.

Cold-Weather-Trike-Kit: Included in this kit are chemical hand and foot warmers. Mine last eight hours post activation. I carry four of each (two feet, two hands, times two) pulse two extra which I can stuff in my shirt to keep the heart warm in a real emergency. Never leave home in freezing weather without these! My kit also includes a large fluorescentt SOS banner which can be seen from the air when draped over a snow drift. I carry home made energy bars (plural) and tomato juice in sufficient quantity. I add a tiny bit of vegetable oil to the tomato juice. This helps prevent freezing. Also tomato juice does not freeze as solidly or easily as water. My cold weather kit also contains matches in water tight bags (necessary for melting tyre patch glue if needed or lighting a fire if needed). Finally my kit contains a small amount of antifreeze - you would be amazed at how helpful this can be when poured onto trike parts which you may need to work on in an emergency in the cold (just be careful to clean up after use - antifreeze is lethal to deer and small mammals, but tastes sweet to them. Clean up every drop after you use it on your trike.)

Lights: For some reason unknown to science car drivers do not expect to see trikes zipping along snow laden roads. Hence I have LED strobe lights on the trike which I use during the day. Drivers tend to see the flashing lights before they see the trike. Much safer. I always have my night lights lit up even in bright daylight when riding in snow and cold weather. YMMV.

When-not-to-ride: I never ride when there is a potential for black ice on the road surfaces. The trike is fine (studded tyres work well), but those poor benighted folks who ride their SUVs with summer tyres ... they are pretty dangerous. I never ride when there is a forcast for sudden snow storms. I never ride when hunters are out in the mountains. I never ride in temperatures below -20 C (anything above this is okay). I never ride on trails in potential avalanche areas.

In summary, I ride all the time in the cold and find it fun and safe. I highly recommend it. It is lovely to go out early in the crisp subzero morning air when not another soul is about, the trike making tiny crunching noises in the snow. Go slowly, prepare properly, and have fun!

Update:

In response to a couple of people who wrote that a person should always carry a cellphone in cold weather... Yes, this makes very good sense and I should have mentioned it. For me personally however, this is not possible for two reasons: Firstly, there is no cell coverage that can penetrate the mountain passes in which I ride. Secondly I am aphasic, making it impossible to use a telephone of any kind. Such is suchness.
Someone wrote to suggest that no one in their right mind would go cycling on a trike, alone, in the mountains in subzero weather. I completely concur. Clearly the only sensible way to live is to embrace normative behavior at all times!

2. Riding in the heat

We are having a heat wave here as I write this - hottest ever recorded.

Here’s what I do when it gets hot:

Clothing - UV proof long sleeves and long pants. I use a brand from Australia which is very loose fitting. Loosely fitting is much cooler than tightly fitting clothes. I also wear road shoes with lots of air vents and socks with moisture wicking capabilities. Tight "technical" clothing does not cause evaporative cooling during long arduous trips the way the clothing manufacturers advertise. The pores in the material clog. But loose, light weight, high weave, UV protecting clothing really does help keep me cool and protects from the sun much better than sunblock.

Water - Do not drink a lot of water when cycling in the heat!! Water depletes electrolytes and you will fatigue/boink early. Do not drink a so-called ‘power’ drink such as gator aid or similar. Any caffeinated sugarized drink will harm the gall bladder, liver, etc. particularly when under exertion. My own water bottles are filled with tomato juice to which I add sea salt, a little turmeric (an Ayurvedic aid for heat), and some spices to my personal taste. I also add a large scoop of whey protein powder to each water bottle. I have never boinked with this mix when riding in the heat, although I certainly have with other drinks. And oh yes - small sips as you ride along, not long drinks. Carry more than you think you will need! A good rule of thumb which works well for me is drinking one-quarter to half a litre per hour.

Sunglasses - Wrap around, UVA- and UVB-proof. They must also beshatter proof to laugh off small stones which cars can send your way! If you need prescription lenses, wear your glasses with a wraparound overframe (available quite inexpensively from any optometrist). Wraparound lenses block UV ingress from the side.

Sunblock - lots of it on the face, earlobes, back of neck. I use a brand which blocks UVA and UVB but does not contain nanoparticulate matter. Titanium Dioxide is an excellent natural sunblock but when processed by the drug industry into sunblock, is machined down to nanoparticle size which when applied is absorbed directly through the skin. Once absorbed it can enter the blood stream and causes all sorts of potential problems in the liver, gall blader, and brain. Other sunblock materials are even worse. Do your homework - read the list of chemicals and understand the implications of each before just assuming the brand you like is save. Get something which works but does not make for potentially worse problems as it accumulates in the body.

Food - Anything with glucose will aggravate heat fatigue. Fructose is much better. Generally I do not like ‘power bars’ - a careful reading of the ingredients shows even the best not to be that great. There is almost nothing in the scientific literature on the efficacy of power bars, other than studies paid for by manufacturers. Most powerbars result in temporary sugary elevation which gives the illusion of energy but really take a toll on the body over the long term. I make my own vegan powerbars with lots of oats - take a look at my recipe here. There are plenty of healthy recipes - find one you like. It only takes about half an hour or so to make a month’s supply.

Helmet - Despite all the advertising to the contrary, the fact is that fewer holes provide the best cooling and sun protection. A properly designed helmet will maximize cooling air intake somewhat like a ram scoop, jetting air over the scalp. My helmet has only five openings, but it provides maximum cooling compared with any others I have tried over the years. Mind you it cost more, since it is well designed. Fewer openings also keeps the hot sun from the scalp. Don’t fall for the myth that a lot of air vents are better - the opposite is actually the case, again assuming your helmet is well designed. The US Helmet Saftey Institute recommend few holes too, but for a different reason - if you are in an accident there is less chance that an object will penetrate your helmet if there are fewer, and smaller, openings therein.

Survival-blanket - For really hot weather riding in no shade, I carry a survival blanket. It is coated with a highly reflective Mylar coating and weighs just a few ounces. Hanging it over the bike with me under it provides me with instant cooling shade.

Rest - I rest more frequently when it is really hot, even if I do not feel tired, and tend not to push nearly as hard. The sun can fool you into thinking you are stronger than you are. Rest often!

Misting- spray - I do not use a mister. I have found that most run out of water pretty quickly. They add weight as well. And they really do not provide much by extra cooling. Loose clothing for me is the very best, since the air gets under it an provides shaded evaporate cooling.

At any rate, after a sleepless night in the hot weather I went for a ride in the mountains at 6:00 Am this morning. Whoo - even at that time it was really hot. Nothing moving. A brown haze from one end of the valley to the other. A stench in the air from a few farmers out spaying their crops with lethal chemicals. Sigh. But I soon climbed high above them, and the air became sweet again. Above the tree line it was still very hot, but lovely. I kept stoking the engine with my tomato juice cocktail, and wall was well. Wonderful views. I went slowly, drank frequently, and reached the summit of the mountain in just a few hours. The ride back was mainly downhill, so I was cool and comfortable despite the heat when I returned home - a great ride.

Finally while on the topic of riding in the heat, I should like to say a big thank you to various governments (especially the United States and China) for failing to meet a single international environmental commitment over the last five decades, and for quadrupling the amount of greenhouse gases produced during the same period. An additional big thank you goes to the United States for creating roughly 50% of the world’s pollution, then denying that such reckless greed and avarice makes any difference to climate change. Deep breath... one, two, three... there, I feel much better now.

3. Riding your trike through a severe storm and living to tell the tale:

Today I thought it might be fun to go into the city. It is about a six to seven hour ride depending upon my energy, mostly along a busy highway. But the highway has good paved shoulders, so it is usually a pleasant enough ride. And my experience around here is that the drivers on this busy road are pretty friendly and give me lots of room. The highway winds through a mountain pass then climbs up fairly high before descending into the city.

The sky was overcast when I left around 5:00AM, but the forecast had been for clearing later in the day, so off I went. The trike’s lights happily flashed and bobbed as I wove through the silent forest trails here towards a logging road. A few miles later the road led to a paved single track, and from there after a few more miles to a double track paved road. An hour or so after that, I joined the traffic heading for the highway. By the time I got there, the sky was clearing and I turned off my lights. The trike is covered in reflective tape, with two flourescent flags one at seven feet and one at five feet. I am easy to see Anyway, the ride was pleasant. People waved to me from their cars. The sky was a bit cloudy, and the weather was cool. Lovely views as I climbed through the pass, and a 75 plus descent on the other side. I made it into the city with no problems. After a pause for lunch and some sight seeing, I headed back. It was now early afternoon. an image - please see terms of use

I cycled along the highway’s well paved shoulder for a few hours and slowly climbed back up the pass. As I climbed, the sky darkened. I heard heavy thunder in the distance. Suddenly the sky was lit by lightening. The wind picked up. Cars started to turn on their lights. I turned on the trike’s flashers. The thunder got closer and louder. I continued to pedal slowly in to the gathering wind. The sky was completely full of black towering cumulmus now. As I reached the top of the climb, the wind really picked up. The lightening was everywhere and huge thunderous crashes of thunder all around me.

Then the rain started. It was cold! The rain came in sheets, but I could still see fairly well. I pulled out my rain pants and jacket from the paniers, and put the fitted rain cover over my helmet. The wind started to really howl. Now I was at the summit, and could hardly pedal into the wind. I had to keep going though, as the shoulder was very narrow at the summit and there was no place to seek shelter or get out of the way of traffic. My flashers are very bright so I was not worried about not being seen. Until the hail started.

When the hail came it was big - the size of small golf balls. It hurt as it hit me. It was so thick that it started to cover the highway like snow. Very, very slippery snow. I heard it bouncing off the passing cars, most of which thank goodness had slowed to a crawl. Now I was worried about a truck or SUV running into me, since the road had become very slippery. After about ten minuites the hail became so heavy and thick that whiteout conditions prevailed. I could not see more than a few feet ahead. Some cars pulled over onto the shoulder in which I was riding. This meant that I had to try and pass them by pulling into gaps in traffic - gaps I could hardly see.

Why not just pull over myself? The non-highway side of the shoulder was a shear drop off into the valley below. I knew that cyclists had been struck by cars when they (the cyclists) had stopped on the shoulder in heavy fog. The wind and hail made for conditions similar to fog. The advice of the police had been to keep moving if at all possible to try and find a safe place to pull over. Also, they had said that movement caught a driver’s notice much better than a stationary person with a bike. So I kept moving, hardly able to see, hail painfully impacting the body and trike, while horrendous thunder pounded and lightening flashed all around me.

Bottom line - it made more sense to me at the time given the nature of the storm and traffic patterns to keep moving. So I did. Very slowly and carefully to avoid sliding around too much. As cars and trucks passed, they sprayed dirty water all over the trike and its pilot. My riding glasses (never, ever, ride a trike without protective eyeware - cars throw stones up all the time) were covered with dirt and I had to stop every few hundred feet to clean them off. Anyway, things went on like that for a while. Then the storm broke, the wind changed direction, and the hail changed back to rain. I rode on for a couple of hours in that rain, until I got through the pass. At that point the clouds started to lift, the thunder and lightening stopped, and the sun broke through.

I made it home and soaked in a hot bath. Tomorrow I will clean up the trike. Great ride!