Winter on a bike in Dublin

quozl

How do you decide if it's going to be dangerous on the roads in Dublin due to the risk of frost?

I'm new to cycling so don't have any experience to call on and I hear that it's going to be getting cold over the next few days.

Do you keep an eye on met.ie or the AA or what?

I don't want to spend 80 quid on two studded tyres as I hope they'd get very little use.

Idleater

quozl wrote: »

How do you decide if it's going to be dangerous on the roads in Dublin due to the risk of frost?

Cycle your bike and if you get to your destination without falling off, the roads were grand.

07Lapierre

Experience (Good or Bad)

daragh_

We had an ice watch thread on here last winter which was very handy.

Jk_Eire

I usually stick my head out the window and look at the path below. There's a few patches in view that frost up pretty easily. If they look frosty from 20ft away, that's usually a bad sign. From experience, if these parts are frosted over, a lot of bike lanes on my commute will be too.

I've risked it a few times, but I've had some hairy situations though that would put me off doing it again.

Plastik

Educated guess. Combination of cycling forum, weather forum, met.ie, yr.no and windguru.cz

Jawgap

Experience and educated guesswork.

Generally, main roads tend to be always fine - it's the side roads, back lanes and estate roads that are bad, if any are going to be bad.

From experience, I generally avoid manhole covers, Luas / railway tracks and (not always possible) level crossings - the rubber compound they use on some of them seems to be particularly prone to icing.

......you might want to consider whether or not to use off road cycle tracks - they're generally not gritted.

Lumen

If I make it out of my estate without falling off, I know I'll be grand.

Up until last winter there was a "comedy corner" on the inbound Phoenix Park cycle track where almost everyone would come off on the first day of any icy spell, but then the buzzkillingtons at the OPW starting gritting it.

instinct

If overnight temps are below 0 then you can presume it will be icy. Definitely in the housing estates it will be bad but main roads tend to thaw out quicker. Tiptoe your way out and keep the wits about you. If you can wait to leave until sunrise it will be better.

And as I type I am checking all the decent weather sites for info. Looks like the its the windchill that will make it baltic and hopefully it wont ice up as much. I think its more of a risk on the clear calm nights that frost and ice can build up.

instinct

I find this site quite useful and accurate for Dublin area.


http://www.belgingur.is/opna/en/1/gfs/dublin/1/vindur

Wishbone Ash

In my experience, the biggest danger is black ice on sheltered spots on bends. You could be several km's into the commute and going along nicely with no evidence of any frost when suddenly you and your bike part company.

instinct wrote: »

If overnight temps are below 0 then you can presume it will be icy...

It depends on the moisture content/recent rain etc. It can be minus 5 with dry frost free roads.