How to Ride Bikes All Winter Long

It takes thick skin to ride a bike all winter long in New England. But it also takes the right clothes, quite a bit of knowhow when it comes to keeping your kit and bike clean, it takes the right set of fenders, and a vacuum water bottle… among other things.

Tune in to see how Ted grits through three, four, five, six hour days on the bike riding through a harsh winter in his 2024 pursuit of getting back his World Tour fitness (or at least some fraction of it!).

@velocioapparel Winter Cap, Signature Collar, merino long sleeve base layer, Signature Soft Shell Jacket, Zero+ Glove, Utility thermal tights, wool socks, Zero+ Bootie.

@SunGod Airas sunglasses with photochromic lens.

@CannondaleBicycles71 Synapse Carbon 1 RLE.

@SRAM eTap AXS 2x, 50-37 front, 10-36 rear.

@zippspeed Firecrest 303.

@untappedmaple Ginger Mapleaid and Grape Mapleaid, served hot. (Don’t hate it til you try it!)

@ReneHerseCycles 700×31 Orondo Grade in Endurance Casing and fenders.

Hey it’s a great day for skiing it’s winter it’s early 2024 but I’m not here to talk about skiing I’m here to talk about how to ride a bike in the winter flip the season upside down we’re hearing from I’m going to show you the tips and

Tricks that I go through in order to get out and enjoy Embrace or at least tolerate riding in a winter in Vermont here we [Applause] Go Hey y’all so here we are wrapping up a ride which is basically going to be a three-part Series in this video it is going to be quick so don’t you worry the first part is about the clothes that I ride the second part is the bike that I

Ride and the third part is how I clean up my bike so I can get inside get refreshed get warm quickly as possible so this is also to answer the questions of like hey Ted do you use studded tires or how do keep your fingers and clothes

And body and and face and everything else warm as well as answer questions about my bike how do I keep the clothes clean because look I just rode 2 and 1 half hours and I’m spiffy and clean and and happy as a clam so let’s begin all

Right similar game I play with hazel we’re going to play a game of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes in order to go top to bottom about the clothing that I use to stay warm so this is not a sponsored video but I am sponsored by volio so all the clothing is volio to

Begin I have the winter cycling cap now it’s recently been redesigned I absolutely love the new design the previous one didn’t fit me as well this one is amazing keeps my ears nice and warm keeps my head warm it is very Sleek Under The Helmet so it’s not like a big

Bulky thing that you could be concerned about second this is the signature collar they have two collars they also have a much warmer one that I want to say is a Marino 210 that uh is one that I air on if the temperature is dropping

Down let’s say into the sub 25 sub 20° range going back here this is a set of sunod AIS sunglasses it’s supremely light secondly it’s uh photoch chromic lenses so these if it’s super dark they’re going to begin um being pretty clear and then over the course of the

Day as the sun comes out as you can see right now it’s actually quite bright I have great visibility and the lens has changed so this is great for this time of year when the days are quite short and you need something that’s going to be changing throughout the day these are

Wonderful set of Shades now truth be told what I’m wearing is the same thing here when it’s 35° and a little bit spitting precipitation as if it were I don’t know again down to that 25° range below 20 I might be wearing a slightly warmer Bas layer but I have a

Long sleeve base layer a basic Marino wool so it works to keep the warmth in regardless of precipitation regardless of uh how much humidity I’m creating on the inside and then this is the signature soft shell jacket signature refers to something that Loa really wants to put their name on put their

Name behind uh this amazing piece it’s got some great water repellency it’s not fully waterproof but in a day like today where we saw a little bit of rain a lot of fog it was snowing a little bit uh I mean I’m warm as toast to be perfectly

Honest fero gloves these are warm and cozy if it’s absolutely free freeing then I’ll put the bar mits on the front of the M uh on the front of the handlebars that’s going to protect them from wind but my hands are warm as toast and then Alpha is something that they

Also have in a similar jacket called the alpha jacket which has this soft Marino fluffy interior which is pretty darn amazing but I don’t need that now that’s something I use when it’s super duper cold here are my thermal tights there’s the minivan here are some

Thermal tights big fan of these um often times I have the utility tights which are awesome because then you can store stuff in the side some food some nutrition some tools your phone easy access to all those things um the zero tight is one that I use when is

Absolutely frigid that’s when it’s down in the teens and Below but this is just the standard tight and then moving down to the zero booty now what you see here is obviously quite a bit of sand and grit and SL liim that is the only part

Of my body okay save my shins that have seen quite a bit of exposure but conveniently the zero booty has a great deal of protection from the horrible elements so yeah there’s a little bit of spray coming up from the tire largely minimal as a result of something we’re going to talk about

Shortly um but my feet are warm and the only other thing to notice is something that I’m going to talk about in the interior so that’s a zero booty the rest of it is kind of like a hamburger if it’s super duper cold you’ll have a booty a shoe a sock my

Foot the sock the shoe on top of my shoe I will put one of those chemical tow warmers and then I’ll do the zero booty on top of that so the whole Crux of that arithmetic is the chemical tow warmer outside of your shoe but inside the

Booty so now that you’ve seen what I am wearing head to toe Head Shoulders Knees and Toes let’s take a look at the bike unless we’re going to look at me cleaning up my bike we’ll see how the order of oper ation goes all right you finish up a ride

You’re kind of soaked a little bit head to toe whether or not it’s precipitating or you’re sweating or whatever you’re going to want to clean your bike as quickly as possible so that you can get back inside get a nice meal get a shower and be happy and ready to go ASAP

Furthermore you don’t want to just put your bike against the wall or in the garage or whatever because the next day you see your bike it’s going to be completely covered in Rust and and and you’re just going to be in a very bad mood so here’s my quick tips for

Cleaning a bike ASAP afterwards let me point out this is a very unintentional ad for my friends over at Home Depot Home Depot does not sponsor this pod I mean this video cast however if they want to I accept your uh royalties anyway everything you see here

Is stuff that I have gotten at the Home Depot beginning with and the keynote item is the Ryobi 1 this is a 700 100 psi pressure washer it is battery powered courtesy of this bad boy Ryobi 1 refers to this battery system this battery is something that you can power

Your weed whacker your your jigsaw your your uh brush crudder I mean anything it’s amazing how many things they do including this amazing pressure washer I saw they had a previous model of this thing that had 300 or 350 PSI and I was like that’s kind of lame that’s

Basically putting your thumb on the end of a hose so when this came out I put it on my Christmas list and I am very grateful to my father-in-law who got this for me this is an amazing item highly highly suggested next you want some pretty intense rubber gloves you

Get your 5 gallon 6 Gall bucket you get your utility sponge which I’m going to put my hand into in a minute but first up just get her going and spray the bike down there is a tiny bit of lag in this thing no lag there’s the LB stand [Applause] By spray one side do your best to avoid smashing water into the bearings any mechanic would cringe if they watch me do that spray the other side get yourself your nice brush oh let me talk about the Ryobi again it comes with this there’s a variety of different ways to get access

To your water this is like a 15t long hose and then with this handy filter on the end you can be putting it into a pond into a pool into a bucket whatever you want or hook it up straight to a hose it’s sweet get yourself some

Soap and clearly low on this gallon of soap time to go to Costco brush her down real quick at this point your toes your fingers might be getting a little chilly but you’re already feeling that warm shower hit the rims hit the derailer the frame clean off your chain Rings other

Side clean off the cranks rims once again I like to clean my rotors because if your rotors are filthy much to the chrin of probably 50% of the viewers if your rotors are filthy and they start to corrode uh then you basically have to be changing your rotors every two weeks in

Weather like this so I like to clean off the calipers clean the rotors rinse rinse rinse what did I do that was realistically 40 seconds hit it again there are three settings there’s a low medium and high needless to say I’m always in high similarly there’s a 15°

Turbo or rinse setting rinse is kind of lame I’m often in Turbo which is sort of like a typhoon of Power there’s that lag again that’s the only draw back sometimes there can lag go again now if you’re feeling really up for it highly recommended go inside take a rag to the chain back pedal on your chain dry it off go take your shower come back

Down and then Mo your chain your bike will be spiffy rust free corrosion free you’re going to be a very very happy camper bonus points watch your wife’s bike film crew here is my wife who is suggest that I should wash her bike and given that I’m actually kind of warm

Cuz it’s a balmy 36° right now I might go wash her bike but there you have it byebye thank [Applause] You all right I lied I said we were going to talk about the bike but then we went and cleaned the bike now now I’m going to talk about the bike itself so what you are looking at is a Canon nail synapse 1 rle there are three things that I really

Keynote about this bike one is the tire clearance that allows big tires and it allows fenders I will talk about the fenders in a little bit because that is actually not one of the keynote things two the gear ratios being that this is a road bike call me a traditionalist i as

Much as I love one by this is a two by setup I have a 5037 front paired up with a 1036 rear so almost with a 1:1 ratio um not that you’re going to be grinding up any massive climbs this time of year but it is really nice to have

That kind of gear ratio and three this is the canadale synapse one RL e with Smart Sense so what this battery here is doing is powering the front light light and rear light and the rear radar this is a Garmin varia radar so on my uh on

My garment up front and you’re cycling computer it’ll tell you if there’s a car coming especially this time a year on a cloudy day on a foggy day on kind of a gross day I feel so much safer so much happier having that system on my bike

Obviously I’m in a lucky position that I have a winter bik and I have a summer bike so not everybody’s going to go out and get a new bike but the future is with a system like this a single battery that is controlling so many different features of the

Bike so as I mentioned and absolutely love these are freshly installed Renee Harris Cycles fenders now I put a lot of fenders on my bikes in my day there these are hands down the best fenders as a result of a couple different things one the full coverage so going from

What’s this 9:00 to 4:00 on the rear similarly you’re going from oh I’d say you’re about 1:00 to 7:00 down here in the front the amount of water that is spraying up over the front is nil the amount of water spraying up here on your feet is nil also courtesy of this wide

Angle thing at the bottom of both fenders super cool system that collects so much water and does not allow it to go splashing up on your feet on your butt one thing you’ll notice is that my clothes are remarkably clean here at the end of a filthy ride I absolutely love

That the other part is they’re aluminum all metal Parts between the stays that go out and place the fender in position metal here metal here incredibly light system but incredibly rigid so that it doesn’t doesn’t go clanging around banging around your bike I’ve used a lot of plastic fenders in my

Day and holy moly this is just a game changer obviously this is not going to be for everybody because you need to have a bike that has eyelets which is one thing that’s great about this canadale synapse um eyet here back here Down Yonder here pretty amazing setup I can’t

Recommend it enough check out Renee her cyes fenders they have uh a whole bunch of color options whole bunch of different Aesthetics a whole bunch of different ways to get get set up there are amazing people over at Renee Harris check them out highly highly highly recommended and lastly let’s talk about

Hydration as you know I’m dyed in the wo with untapped it doesn’t hurt that I co-own the company but one thing that I absolutely love is hot maple a on a cold day so if you put hot water hot drink mix into your uh water botle bottles

They’re going to get freezing in a very short period of time but not when you put a vacuum water bottle with hot water in it and drink mix so in here you have hot ginger mapola in here believe it or not is a hot grape so this one is going

To get cooler considerably faster so I’m sipping on this one but as soon as this is out I take the piping hot still boiling water and put it into here that is the hot brand new grape Maple a um it’s extraordinary I’m not just saying it because I I co-own the company I’m

Saying it because it’s extraordinary oh here’s another one for you these are the brand new Arondo grade 700x 31 tubeless compatible Tire um I this is the most narrow tubless tire that Renee hurse makes and then this time of year I have no qualms running there endurance casing uh just a

Little bit more protection I don’t want to be on the side of the road changing a flat staying rolling staying with air in the tires so just how cold is it I don’t know I could probably go inside but you know what I got to go wash Laura’s bike right now um it’s

These little tricks that allow me to get through a winter to get through a day like today I love riding inside too to be perfectly honest uh tomorrow I’m going to be doing a 4-Hour day inside because it’s going to be pouring rain the entire day and

About 36° whereas today was just a little bit of precipitation and that kind of temperature so I got a 4-Hour trainer ride going to be on my Sarah trainer and my mp1 motion platform I don’t know I think it’s time for a meal and a shower thanks for watching over and out [Applause] bye-bye car back game on