LEADERS:
- Colin Doyle: -13°F, 17.7 mi, 01/09/10, Collegeville, Minnesota, Honda Ruckus
“…#6 x 3/4″ self-tapping screws in the treads of both front and rear tires..” - Alan Van Tol: 0°F, 17.05 mi, 01/14/10
Bridgton, ME, Yamaha Vino 125 - Luigi G.: 2.5° F, 10.1 mi, 01/30/10
Dover, MA, 1970 Vespa GTr - Ryan Bastianelli: 5°F, 10.2 mi, 12/16/09
Chicago, IL, Piaggio BV250 - Jen Stich: 7°F, 10.3 mi, 1/30/10
Westerly, RI/Pawcatuck, CT, 1963 Vespa 150 VBB
More details from each rider in the comments!
THE RULES
- All rides must be on a two-wheeled motorscooter. No motorcycles. No sidecars. No three-wheelers (Yes, the Piaggio MP3 has three wheels and is ineligible.)
- Entries must meet the minimum distance requirement of 10 miles of continuous riding. List your distance in miles (to one decimal place if desired), and measure your route using a GPS or Google Maps if possible. Scooter odometers lie.
- List the ambient temperature in degrees Fahrenheit as listed by NOAA at the time and place of your ride. No, wind chill doesn’t matter when you’re already riding 30+mph. If the temperature varies over the course of your ride, post the average of the high and low temperature.
- Coldest temperature wins. If you go 100 miles in 20°F, and somebody else only does 10 miles in 19°F, 19°F wins. Distance is relevant only to break ties.
- This is just for fun, and on the honor system. Don’t lie or cheat.
- Your entry must be a ride you just did. Don’t post about how last year you rode in really cold weather. Don’t post about how hardcore your dad is. Your ride must take place between 11/27/09 and 02/28/10
- Contest starts at 12:01 am on November 27, 2009 ends at midnight on Feb. 28, 2010.
HONORABLE MENTION
People living in colder climates (aka, Minnesota) have an advantage in this contest so we also separate competitors by state. If you’re riding in cold weather for your neck of the woods, enter anyway, you might win honorable mention for your state. The same CWC rules apply.
HOW TO ENTER
If you’re not already registered on 2strokebuzz, go ahead and register. Your email address will be kept private.
After you’re signed in, cut and paste the following information into the comment form below. Be sure to fill in all the blanks. “Your Story” and photos are optional, but we’d love to hear/see them. 2strokebuzz reserves the right to repost your linked photos, especially if it’s a great photo or if you’re a current leader.
Name: **First name, last initial at least**
Temperature: **°F
Distance: ** miles
City/State: **
Date: **
Time: **
Scooter: **year make model**
Your CWC story: **optional**
Photos: **optional, (use tinyurl if possible)**
Map: **optional, (use tinyurl if possible**
NEW: Rye set up a CWC Flickr Pool if you’d like to include your photos there, or email them to illnoise@2strokebuzz.com.
Please use the comment thread of this page for entries only. Badmouth, backpat, and brag in comments to updates on the main site, not in this thread.
Good luck, and be safe. This is a non-commercial, totally unsanctioned event and is being held informally just for fun and bragging rights. The organizers accept no liability for injury or property damage. Riding in cold weather is even more dangerous than riding in warm weather, don’t ride outside your comfort level or take unnecessary risks Riding in snow and ice is particularly dangerous, we recommend riding only on clear days with good road conditions and visibility.
Name: Ryan Bastianelli
Temperature: 5°F
Distance: 10.2 miles
City/State: Chicago, IL
Date: Dec 16,2009
Time: 4:40 am
Scooter: 2006 Piaggio BV250
Your CWC story: Fingers got a bit cold even with heated grips and tucano urbano handlebar muffs.
Name: Bart Weitzman
Temperature: 24°F (http://tinyurl.com/yfu6alv)
Distance: 16.5 miles
City/State: Rydal to Phila. PA
Date: 12/17/09
Time: 7:00-8:00AM
Scooter: 1973 Sprint 150
Your CWC story: I was heading to the Philadelphia Parking Authority at 3101 Market Street for a meeting of the Motorscooter/ Motorcycle Coalition of Phila. to discuss the pilot program for MS/MC parking in the city. I wore “D” battery heated gloves with silk liners, layered T-shirt/ turtle neck shirt/ leather jacket with thinsulate liner, underwear/long johns/ Swedish military motorcycle bibs (fleece lined), thick socks and leather shoes. Only cold at the toes and fingertips. I added this only as a preliminary CWC ride because of the concerns the riders have been having with the city over their parking rules/ tickets. I’m sure we will get lower temperatures in Philly and have added entries. Last year, Sandor and Joe rode in 6 degree weather.
Photos: None
Map: http://tinyurl.com/yhwz59w
how do i back check for weather???
Name: David DeMoss
Temperature: 14 F
Distance: 17.9 miles
City/State: Cincinnati, Ohio
Date: 01/02/2010
Time: 7 AM – 7:50 AM
Scooter: 2009 Vespa GTS 250
Your CWC story: 01/02/2010 First ride of the year. 14 degrees at 7 AM when the ride started. Light snow falling, no accumulation on roadways. Facesheild fogging was an occasional issue. The cold will find it’s way through any opening, had to stop and redo my gloves and parka sleeves to stop the draft. All in all, a great ride, nothing like a sunrise with a light snow falling.
Map: http://tinyurl.com/y9548xv
Name: Bonegirl (Angie)
Temperature: 9°F (NOAA Cincinnati Lunken Airport location)
Distance: 15.6 miles (Google from home to church)
City/State: Cincinnati, Ohio
Date: 01-03-2010
Time: 10am
Scooter: 2006 Pink Buddy
Story: Today is my 54th birthday and when I woke up it was a beautiful sunny day. The streets were dry and the salt piles minimal. What a great day to celebrate my birthday. Dressed in lots of layers, hooked up the Gerding glove liners and off I went. Had to maneuver around a water main break and piles of salt but that wasn’t too bad. Continued on to church where I was met with dumbfounded stares. Lots of Harley guys frequent this particular church so I had a lot of confused looking folks wondering why and how a scooter could ride in this weather. We play several scooter tag games on our Forum so I decided to pick up an Alphabet Tag along the ride back. I believe it was a whopping 22 degrees for the 16 mile return trip a couple hours later. I had a blast and look forward to the next ride.
Here’s a good link for backchecking weather, papafern:
http://www.weather.gov/climate/
Name: Sean, C. (Speak)
Temperature: 12°F
Distance: at least 11.5 miles
City/State: Albuquerque, NM
Date: 12/04/09
Time: 7:45am
Scooter: 2008 Stella
Your CWC story: I was trying to be a good guy and get to work early. Only to discover that once I got there I had forgot my frikin keys to get in the building!!! Rode back home to get them and then circled back to work. Buurrr and stupid.
Map: http://tinyurl.com/yenlmy8
Name: Colin Doyle
Temperature: -13°F
Distance: 17.7 miles
City/State: Collegeville, Minnesota
Date: 01/09/2010
Time: 10:45 AM
Scooter: 2008 Honda Ruckus (with GY6 swap and studded tires)
Photos: http://tinyurl.com/Ruckus-CWC-Prep-09
Map: http://tinyurl.com/Ruckus-CWC-09
Your CWC story:
I prepped the Ruckus by putting no.6 x 3/4″ self-tapping screws into the tread blocks of both front and rear tires. I wore thermal “long john” underwear, Dickies work pants under nylon snow pants, cotton socks under fleece socks, cotton t-shirt under a button-down Dickies work shirt under a Carhartt jacket, an Arctic Cat snowmobile helmet with balaclava, insulated steel-toe work boots, and some winter work gloves under leather chopper mittens (which made turn signal operation difficult.)
To avoid traffic, I had originally planned to ride on the Lake Wobegon Trail (snowmobile trail) with my home-brewed front ski (made by shortening an early 70s Arctic Cat ski and triangulating a bracket off the top.) Illnoise couldn’t give me a definitive answer as to the eligibility of using a one-wheel, one-ski scooter in the Cold Weather Challenge, so I reinstalled the front wheel and took some back roads. I only encountered one other vehicle on my ride.
Name: Paul R. Jones
Temperature: 18°F
Distance: 22 miles
City/State: Richmond VA
Date: 1/07/10
Time: 0645
Scooter: 2009 SYM 300i
Your CWC story: Daily commuter, no heated clothing
Photos: **optional, (use tinyurl if possible)**
Map: **optional, (use tinyurl if possible**
Name: grandmaster shogun papafern
Temperature: 22°F
Distance: 14 miles
City/State: nyc
Date: 1/09/10
Time: 10:55
Scooter: 06 vino 125
sorry, i copy and pasted from my blog, http://www.indomitablescooterists.com pic and map r there
saturday morning i did a ride worthy to enter on the cold weather challenge on 2strokebuzz.com. i went to visit porn hair at his job and the plan was to install heated grips on my scooter and get the rust of the pipe on the vino and repaint it (more on that later). i left at 10:55 am from my apartment. the temperature according to weatherbug was 22 degrees. i usually take queens blvd down to the 59 st bridge or go down metropolitan to the williamsburg bridge. i decided on queens blvd because there wasnt gonna be much traffic. i had forgotten that the lights on queens blvd are set up for the people coming from manhattan and not going in. so i had to stop at every light because they were all red. this wasnt a problem when riding my elite 150. it has more power and i can make the lights but on the vino 125 that for some reason wont go faster than 30 mph when its cold until i ride for more than 30 minutes, then it will go 40 mph. the lights were really pissing me off so i decided to get to metropolitan and go the back way into the city. i did double the miles to get there but i probably did it faster than if i would of stayed on queens blvd. when i arrived at 23rd st and 6th ave yahoo weather said it was 21 degrees. i wasnt that cold, i have the hjc snowmobile helmet, and the teknic gloves i reviewed for the blog. and i also had a gaitor that im testing (works pretty good) and a powertrip waterproof jacket with quilted liner. i took the pic to show how cold it was. its a canal that goes under metropolitan av. oh, i forgot, its nyc
Paul JonesNo Gravatar on January 9th, 2010 7:34pm
Name: Paul R. Jones
Temperature: 13°F
Distance: 17.5 miles
City/State: Richmond VA
Date: 1/11/10
Time: 0645
Scooter: 2009 SYM 300i
Your CWC story: Daily commuter, no heated clothing
Photos: **optional, (use tinyurl if possible)**
Map: **optional, (use tinyurl if possible*
Name: **Alan Van Tol**
Temperature: **0 degrees**
Distance: ** 17.05 miles **Norway to Bridgton,ME: **
Date: **01/14/10
Time: **7 am
Scooter: **Yamaha Vino 125**
Your CWC story: **I take Rt 117 to work every morning. The roads were perfectly clear so I thought it would be fun to take the scooter out of storage. The hand warmers in the gloves did well but not well enough. MY finger tips were quite numb.**
Name: Brad K
Temperature: 30°F
Distance: 10 miles
City/State: St. Paul, MN
Date: 1/16/2010
Time: Noon
Scooter: 2002 Bajaj Chetak
Your CWC story: Warm day, still lots of snow on the side roads from Christmas. Ice was melted off the main drags so I went for a little ride. Slippery getting the couple of blocks to the main road, but then a nice ride. 30 degrees is a little wimpy, but thought I’d post. Commuted until Dec 2 this year, might get in a ride every month this winter.
Photos: http://mytinyurl.net/0d4a56
Name: Jen Stich
Temperature: 7 F
Distance: 10.3 miles
City/State: Westerly, RI/Pawcatuck, CT
Date: 30 January 2010
Time: 7 am
Scooter: 1963 VBB – Greyhound
Your CWC story: again, stupid amount of clothing and weak spot is the fingertips
Map: http://www.tinyurl.com/cl693y
Name: Paul R. Jones
Temperature: 12.9°F
Distance: 17.5 miles
City/State: Richmond VA
Date: 2/1/2010
Time: 0645
Scooter: 2009 SYM 300i
Your CWC story: Daily commuter, no heated clothing, no other scooters on the interstate today. Everyone thinks I’m crazy, but this is my transportation. I just have an extreme dislike for cages. Ok, make that cages using cell phones.
Photos: **optional, (use tinyurl if possible)**
Map: **optional, (use tinyurl if possible**
Name: Luigi G.
Temperature: 2.5 F
Distance: 10.1 miles
City/State: Dover, MA
Date: 30 January 2010
Time: 6 am
Scooter: 1970 Vespa GTr
Your CWC story: Same as 08-09 epic, but without the deer and warmer.
Map: http://tinyurl.com/luigi-09-10-cwc
Name: Jamie H.
Temperature: 24°F
Distance: 18.4 miles
City/State: Chicago, IL
Date: 1/29/2010
Time: 2:30 p.m.
Scooter: 2007 Buddy Genuine 50cc
Name: MikeScott
Temperature: 42°F
Distance: 11.8 miles
City/State: North Smithfield, RI
Date: 20 Feb, 2010
Time: 12:11pm
Scooter: 2002 Bajaj Legend (Homer)
Your CWC story: Since Luigi covered Massachusetts and Jennifer logged her miles in Connecticut, I figured I’d represent Rhode Island. Poorly. Let’s see if I can record the warmest entry…
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikescott/4373503160/
Map: http://tinylink.com/?IKmaCdw32z
Name: Jeremy Hall
Temperature: 36°F
Distance: 62 miles
City/State: Indianapolis, IN.
Date: Feb 20th 2010
Time: 2pm – 6:45pm
Scooter: 2008 China special
Your CWC story: Antisocial Scooter Clubs Annual Polar Bear Run http://tiny.cc/xQahp
Photos: http://tiny.cc/5ciHH
Name:Tommy Thunder
Temp:26 F
Distance: 17 miles
City/State Thurmont Maryland
Date: Feb 19
10am-11am
1964 Allstate
Your CWC story : Well I just finished the scooter in my shop and decided for a test run as the customer was not coming in till end of March but decided ti come today so I had to give it a good run.
So I fired it up and took it out . Now our shop is in the beutiful Catoctin Mnts. and we just had alot of snow but the roads were clear so I headed out. It was a great ride going up the mountain and I went a route I allways take Rt77 thru the park near camp David. As I started to come back down the other side of the mountain the road I was going down started to get a little bad .There was snow and ice and it got worse. When I got to the bottom I found the way I needed to go to be closed and going back up , no chance the scooter was slipping to much to make it up . So I went around the detour sign and down one heavily snow covered road but you know what the scoot did ok and I made it back to the shop with out a hitch ,except I had to pry my hand form the handel bars. Damn snow. Customer was here and hour later and he wanted to go for a test ride also so I told him to stay of the Mnt. Well he did not listen and returned two hours later with a story of how he got lost and came to a closed road but someone else had drove down it on a motorcycle or something so he followed their tracks. He said he had a tough time but was glad someone else had been there already. mmmm wonder who that was . Any way he loves his scoot .It has not ran for over 25 years and its first two rides where in the cold and snow.
Peace Out
Tommy Thunder