Adventure Bike Rider Forum

I have a thermometer taped to the handlebars, and when it gets down near zero or below, i go real slow and carefull, like grannie on Sunday.

My dew point is on the end of my nose, when It starts running I know it's cold so I ride I appropriately

After a long day in the saddle, you can imagine where my "dew" point is !!!

So much for trying to be helpful with a requested technical explanation!!!

I remember when I used to go to the States on business and drive cars all over the place, that there were warning signs at bridges "remember bridges freeze first".

Dark Knight wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:15 pm I remember when I used to go to the States on business and drive cars all over the place, that there were warning signs at bridges "remember bridges freeze first".

evaporative cooling is much more pronounced on bridges--greater surface area (above and below), low thermal mass (heat reserve from the day). --its a bit like the wet finger in the air to determine wind direction. The energy transferred is significant-for illustration---it takes the the same energy to evaporate one cc of water at 100 deg C from liquid to vapour as it does to raise one cc of water from 0 deg C to 100 deg C--the old term is latent heat of vaporisation.In this case the cooling effect of the evaporation is significant--hence the freezing . For motorcycling thats why it feels that much colder on a cool, damp day--water is evaporating off your surface due to air flow ---sucking the heat from you--much worse than a simple cold, but dry day. I have seen such signs here in the UK also.

Some top replys there ladies and gents. Some really made me lol - thanks for that.

Interesting re bridges though. I go over the Severn bridge at about 0600 every morning

I think there are too many variables to accurately surmise what the road conditions will be like on a commute to work. The temperature can drop by 3 or 4 degrees on my 18 mile commute and there is a bridge on the motorway which can have snow flurries on one side and be clear on the other.