The Cold wave is hitting hard

-38°C in Germany yesterday.

more than 100 dead in Western Europe

snow in Milano, Genova, Côte d'Azur etc.

And the winter is just starting.

How are you preparing ? How are you living it ?

This is the cold thread. brrrrrrrr

Bring it on..!

How to keep warm in the cold

Tell me about it bloody freezing here, and i have been banned from driving my daughter to school she walked this week in -9 it and it takes her about 30 mins aswell

Think positive! Can't remember who it was complained last year about Swiss fridges being too small, but now they can just chuck their shopping out onto the balcony for deep freeze

Well I actually still cycle to work at 7 in the morning. I have to
go through a forest, since the road is not cleaned it is now covered
with snow and ice. But with my spiked tires I have no problem .
And by now I can tell the temperature by how my hand are
frozen tips of fingers only: its -2 C, up to middle of finger: -6 C

I still cycle everywhere in the city.

But Zürich is only -5° at night these times,

The only problem I am having with the cycling is that there are lots of ice leftovers on the roads and sidewalks and then I can't go fast, I have to be careful to not slip and fall.

It's already getting warmer today.... in any case, I don't mind the cold that much - just the permanent grey weather in Zurich is very frustrating, especially when you know that its sunny in virtually all of Europe except for NE Switzerland....

After it never made it above freezing on my last ride, I've ordered some serious winter cycling shoes and got some liners for my gloves. Yesterday, I took my bike to visit a friend with an indoor trainer.

the same way I handle every winter, its nice living in Zurich where is doesn't get cold, it was only -5 the other day, and I cracked up laughing as my roommate informed me it was ass cold outside, I had just came in and it wasn't very bad at all. Okay so I grew up where most winter days are at least -25 plus windchill if not worse so.........this is wonderful!!!

I wear my tuque everywhere. Not very Swiss thing to do but this weather feels balmy as long as I can keep my head warm.

Chris. you haven't gone the TACX with the virtual reality trainer route yet.....I am get tempted by this urge to get it occassionally....for cold winter and early evenings.....

What kind of jacket do you guys recommend for cycling in the city?
I'm looking for something warm but that doesn't cause you to sweat

I would recommend tea with rum

difficult not to spill when dodging in and out of traffic

I just got back from 4 weeks in Thailand to a -5C greeting. It's freezing in here.

Layering is the solution.

I ride on the city on 3 layers, just as you'd do when you are riding with sports clothes, only those are not "technical layers" but city clothing layers.

• Base Layer : A cotton shirt or T-Shirt long sleeves to absorb the sweat, you don't sweat that much when it is that cold anyway
• Thermic insulation layer: I use a medium weight merino wool sweater I got from the Coop, Sergio brand, is thick but not bulky with a full front zip and high turtleneck collar. This is important, your neck has to be fully covered. I have a second one that I got from manor, it is fleece inside, merino wool outside, it is warmer but looks more sporty so I wear this one when I am in jeans, the first one gets used with trousers.
• Shielding outside layer: I use a Nike AGC jacket, superthin wind/rain jacker. this one is designed for treking it is not a cycling jacket, but has a pocket on the back that you use normally to pack it but it comes handy as a cycling pocket, even larger than the ones found on the real cycling jackets.
  This jacket is really great, it has a removable hood and you can also remove the sleeves, I use if as the wind/rain insulation.
  The jacket in fact is very uncomfortable to wear inside the house or when it is warm, it makes you sweat instantly as if you were wearing a shopping bag lol, but when it is cold or rainy it makes its work in spades. As an alternative I have a nice Adidas bike jacket that looks just like an standard bomber jacket but it is made with technical materials, and have bike features like reflective materials and back pocket, very thin but insulates a lot and is ventilated under the armpits and on the back, only problem with it is that it doesn't have a hoody, so I have to carry an extra cap for the rain, I use this more during the autumn and spring

I am cycling fast on the cold night and don't feel the cold with this setup and it is not bulky at all, the garments are close to the body as it should be.

Now that is very very cold I wear also a balaclava, otherwise my chin is frozen when I get to the destination

I have also an old Adidas Adistar Windfront climawarm cycling jacket that I use sometimes on the city, it is not flashy enough to be taken as a cycling garment. and it is also a good thing. but I much prefer the other 3 layered setup.

When I get there I remove my 3rd layer jacket, pack it nicely and I am dressed with normal city clothes.

Another thing is you could wear a cotton baselayer under your trousers ( long leg underwear ) they are kind of expensive here, I got many from home last time when I was there, cotton ones, and I have a wool one too.

The polyester technical stuff I only wear when doing sports, because otherwise they make your sweat stink on a bad way I don't like.

Natural fibers handle sweat less well but don't stink bad.

I wonder if we´ll get a Seegfrörni on the Zürichsee..

For each winter, if you sum up the mean temperatures for each day and it less than -350, than you´ll likely have a 12cm thick ice (which is needed to be safe to walk on) on the lake! Has not happened since 63 so I would say it´s about time!

Took that long to clear the backlog after the Bangkok airport blockade eh?

That's why the smart folks live south of the röstigraben. Beautiful blue skies in the Rhone Valley today but cold...very cold! No snow though. I remember when I was a kid in Yorkshire we would get six feet of snow every winter blown into twelve foot high drifts in places. We had to tunnel the three miles to school and often got there just in time for the 4pm bell for home time. So we turned round and tunnelled back. Times were 'ard back then but we were happy.

Who knows, maybe I'll get banned to Siberia for whatever reason and this is just the preparation for it

I do pretty much what Salsa_Lover said when winter cycling - just have a lightweight jacket on the outside, and then have layers underneath. I recently bought a super-bright neon yellow jacket that I use when riding around town. I think it should work year-round: In the winter with a shirt and sweater underneath, in the autumn and spring with just a shirt under it, and in the summer the arms can be detached and it becomes a light vest with a mesh back that I can throw over a shirt when it's dark out.

The hands and head are more difficult to get right in the winter. On your hands, you want some warm and windproof gloves, but not too bulky so that you can still operate the brakes and gears easily, which is why I just bought the extra liners for my other gloves instead of getting bigger, bulkier ones. For the head, I'll wear a cross-country skiing hat under my helmet when heading to work (6kms of downhill) but won't bother when coming home. If I'm not wearing a sweater that comes up around my neck then I'll put on a small triangular scarf thing like this to keep the breezes out, but is easy to remove if I get too warm. Heading down the hill I'll normally put on a pair of riding glasses with either clear or dark lenses to prevent me from crying in the wind, but again I don't normally worry about these when coming back up.

In Canada, where I used to commute in temps down to -20C, I would use a pair of clear ski goggles to protect even more of my face, and in those situations I would wear a winter jacket, but normally with the pit-zips open.

EDIT: BTW, there is an entire sub-forum devoted to winter cycling over at bikeforums.net, with a sticky thread entitled "Today, I Wore ...", you my find some of the hundreds of responses in there interesting reading.