Winter is the best time to venture out for long Bike Trip in India. The severity of cold varies from state to state, city to city. There is always a struggle on what and how much to carry along to keep yourself warm.
With personal experience of riding into mild winter cold to bone shivering temperature of 3 degrees , below are some tips to keep the wind chills at bay during the trip, without overloading or compromising on the luggage.
Riding Gears
- Always wear the thermal liner of your riding jacket when you start during the months starting Nov – Feb.
- Make sure you have shin length boots and your pants are tucked in so that the cold does not seep inside.
- Wear shin length or knee length socks
- Cover your face with a balaclava that gets tucked inside your jacket with a full face helmet.
- If you have full gauntlet gloves, make sure you tuck in the jacket sleeve inside. In case of half gauntlet gloves, wear a woolen arm sleeve.
- Always wear winter gloves during riding. Regular leather gloves allow the cold wind blast inside, causing numb fingers
- Have anti-fog visor installed in the helmet.
- Wear sweat soaking cloth as the first layer with a full sleeve woolen T-shirt over this followed by your riding jacket(with Liner).
Compact Clothing
- Carry a good thick hoodie with a attached cap. This will help to avoid carry and change multiple cloths (cap, gloves, sweater etc.). Also helps to avoid multiple regular clothes too.
- Separable pants that easily turn into shorts. Saves you from cold and can be used as a night wear too.
- Woolen scarf that fits easily into small spaces and light weight.
Bike Health
- Warm up the bike well enough on a cold winter morning.
- Make sure you have adequate tread on your tires for winter riding. Traction is very important and cold tires do not provide much of that. Warm them up along with the braking before you hit higher speeds.
- Check Tyre air pressure every pit stop you take.
- Installing hand-guards is a plus
Riding Tips
- Maintain lower speeds on a cold morning as visibility is often low due to smog/fog.
- Reflexes are not quick at lower temperatures, hence try to maintain controllable speeds.
- Try to keep your self warm and immediately break off the ride if shivering increases.
- Keep your head-lights and tail-lights on 24×7 along with reflective straps on your jacket and luggage so that you are visible on the road.
- Take quicker breaks till the sun rises. Maintain your body temperature with some hot fluids, keeping yourself warm and alert.
Do share your experiences, suggestions and thoughts to put it up here !
Check out Bike-ride blogs and some other scribbled tales till I add few other Tips-Tricks-Pit Stops
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