Icy this morning

[jj12]

After shelbourne I bailed, how did the rest of the ride go? Safely I hope.

[Plawless]

I rode A to Ash then turned to warn the B & C groups about the ice. Never saw the B's and rode with the C's to coffee straight back Shelbourne. I saw at least 12 people on the deck - 5 at one time. 2 folks took the bus!

Only 5 folks ended up at coffee. Maybe post to say if everyone in your group made it ok..... it would be nice to know no one is hurt - then we can count our winter gloating points

[katew]

B got to Cedar Hill X before our first big skid happened. We never saw the Cs' headlights and decided they'd been smarter than we were. We debated what to do at each intersection and made the general decision that heading for the water was smart. We hacked east across Feltham: at Gordon Head, the first major split ("No *way* am I going down there...") happened and we lost a bunch of folks who turned south. I hope they're OK. The remaining pack eased down Arbutus and almost got cocky until ice turned up in every single little dip and hollow.

"It will be better in the Uplands," they said. So we went up Caddy Bay hill.

One rider down (sorry, I don't know his name), a bunch of skidding later, most of us were walking bikes up the sidewalk. Evan announced that *he* was going to ride the waterfront come hell or high water and headed off down Beach. The rest of us crept up Caddy Bay, coffee and survival the priorities now.

"Good thing we have a doctor with us," someone said. "He can patch us up if someone goes down on the ice."

"That doctor is an infectious disease specialist," I thought. "He can patch us up if someone goes down with Dengue Fever." I resolved to stay vertical.

Evan suddenly reappeared, cheerfully noting that Beach was a big sheet of ice and that when he hit the deck, he'd slid, like, 12 feet, dude, and isn't that cool?! <eyeroll>

We were down to seven by the time we got to the first open coffee shop we saw, the Serious across from Oak Bay High. We never saw the As at all, at all. "They leave their wounded behind for the vultures," said someone. Actually, Chris Fraser (?) drifted past. We waved cheerily, he didn't seem to notice.

When I got home, I rousted David from his bed and tried to look winded. "I rode B! It's not so hard! Don't know what I was so worried about!"

"Nobody turned up, eh?"

I threw a pillow at the wretched boy. I may try to crash the Oak Bay High ride this afternoon and get some km in that way.

[steve]

I got "Dropped" by the A's over Ash as I was too scared to try and keep up with them. I ended up taking 45 minutes to get from there to Bay street and have a nice raspberry on my left hip for my efforts.

Golden rule - ice on my car in the morning means its not going to be safe to ride, should have listened to my little voice!

Steve

[Rolf]

You guys are all insane. Bravo!

But Kate: you should write a ride report every day. Entertainment GOLD!

[John D]

But Kate: you should write a ride report every day. Entertainment GOLD!

Agreed!

>"That doctor is an infectious disease specialist," I thought. "He can
>patch us up if someone goes down with Dengue Fever."

Best laugh I've had in days!

John

[Quentin]

A's didn't fair any better.

Marcus down twice: before Ash and on Ash. Chris (?) went down as well. We went over Ash and then we thought that continuing towards the water would be better. We were wrong!

We weren't trying to slit each other's throats this morning, we were all being very cautious. But we did split at Caddy Bay. Josh, Greg, and others: did you continue up Caddy Bay as had originally planned? Brian, Brian, Marcus and myself decided that we didn't care about the original plan, we just wanted to get home, so we went down Uplands on the usual route. Marcus had enough and peeled off to go home. How are you Marcus?

I slipped and fell on Uplands. Tore my bibs but I am ok. Then later I felt another rear tire slip or maybe I was just being uber-sensitive because of my earlier fall, so I got off and walked for a bit. Then I realized that there was no way I was going to walk all the way home. Brian and Brian turned around (thanks guys) and I got back on my bike and two of us rode to coffee.

YIKES!

[Marcus]

As I left the Pareto parking lot this morning with the first group, I thought to myself I hope I survive, but this wasn't what I had in mind. I did keep up on Ash though. I left Beach Drive at Windsor Park and Kevin continued on. Everyone else peeled off so far as I know. Thanks for going around me Greg. Much appreciated.

[Josh.E]

Kevin, Chris and I went left into uplands at caddy bay too. By then I'd had enough of riding at 15km/h, and swung off for home so I could still get in something resembling a workout. Got in a good hour on the spin bike, which was nice.
Glad it sounds like everyone got home OK.

[AlW]

We hacked east across Feltham: at Gordon Head, the first major split ("No *way* am I going down there...") happened and we lost a bunch of folks who turned south.

That's where a few of decided to bail and headed south on Gordon Head instead. Made our way over to Henderson then down Foul Bay where conditions improved significantly. Got to Dallas road did a few laps of Beacon Hill (alone) before heading to coffee.

Coffee attendance was sparse. I showed up with Peter and one of the juniors (Mark Grant I think). Barton was already there (after 2 crashes he took the bus). Paul (crash), Mark Ford (no crash), Brian (no Crash) and Quentin (crash) arrived soon after.

The trip home was uneventful until I hit the top of Foul Bay where it got nasty again. Cut through UVIC (ring road was salted so might be the go-to place for next time) and stayed on the secondary roads thinking it would be safer. Not so much . Worst spot was on San Juan where I did a 2 wheel slide and almost went down in front of about 10 people waiting at a bus stop

[Paula]

I posted this in the Tripleshot category, but it seems to fit here.. so a repost


HI All,

What a crazy morning. I think most of us were surprised by the state of the roads. I always like to try and understand WHY something is the way it is.. althought I promptly forget once told. SO, I asked a friend of mine who I knew would know.. and he did. I suspect a number of you might be curious (or not).. so here is a quote from Markus Kellerhals about what the heck happened this morning.

"Last night was actually a really good set up for ice to form with an ample supply of water from the rain last night. Then turning clear and cold and the wind dying. Most clear and cold nights lack the wet ground to freeze so you have at most a bit of frost which isn’t as slippery as a real ice layer.

On a clear night the way things cool down is by the surface radiating away energy (in the form of infrared “light”) to the sky (and ultimately space). The ground is a very effective radiator, while the air is much less effective a radiator. So the ground actually cools much faster than the air. In fact most of the cooling of the air takes place by the ground cooling the air it comes in contact with. So on a cold clear night there is actually a temperature inversion with the ground at 0 or below. The air just above the ground might be at 1 degree and the air at face level might be 4 to 5 degrees. And if you could measure the temperature 100 metres up it might be warmer still. Environment Canada and other organizations measure temperature at around 1.5 metres above ground (this is by international convention). So it is quite possible for ice to form at the ground (0 degrees) and still have a few degrees positive temperature reported.

The surface freezing only happens if it is clear (clouds slow down the radiation of heat), calm (wind will cause turbulence that keeps mixing down non freezing air from above, and an open view of the sky (trees, houses and other sky obstructions also slow the cooling down).

The one other relevant thing is that certain areas cool off more than normal. Often little hollows (i.e frost pockets) where cooler (denser) air collects over the course of the night. These are prime spots for icing as they tend to be both cooler and wetter than average.

Here’s a neat blog post on roadway icing (a related phenomenon) http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/10/m ... on-in.html from a prof at UW"

Your eye on the streets intrepid reporter, who doesn't stop until she gets the answers to her questions (which drives MANY people crazy),

Paula

[Dylan J C]

Sounds like an exciting morning for all, after coffee at serious on the ride home I hit the deck by the university, walked the 4k home from there. I saw a bunch of commuter and warned them about the ice, many didn't listen, many crashed.

[AndreaR]

You guys are all nuts. I headed to Catalyst and sweated my butt off, thanks to Nic Hamilton. I think it's going to be a long winter.

[eric.partlow]

Paula,
You must have taken notes. Next time you attend a weather seminar envite me along as I am also fascinated by this stuff. I understand these principles but don't recall such an unusually heavy patchy frost. I think the inversion effect was particularily prominent this AM.
Because of the ground cooling effect I do worry about road frost down below 2 degrees C. This morning the school based weather stations reported temps of 4-5 C when we left home. However, those weather stations are mostly on school rooftops and down at handlebar level it was zero C on Hugh's weather station/GPS/odometer. Most days when it's 3 or 4C and there is frost on your car there is actually nothing to worry about. Like a bridge, your car cools much faster than the ground.

Glad to hear everyone made it home without major injury.

Kate, just so you know, I can't fix a raspberry on your hip, and I can't fix Dengue Fever either. It's one of those "take two aspirin and call me in the morning" problems.
Cheers,
Eric

[Brian S]

A 7:00 meeting forced my hand--seems that has become waaaaay to frequent a barrier to Friday mornings. Bt the look of the ice on my car that morning, I would add that there was probably some freezing rain in the mix. THAT is a whole other dimension to ice on a road. Time for some of this

http://www.thesufferfest.com/video-suff ... ls-angels/

[leftcoaster]

You should have come out this morning - 7 degrees and dry roads (at least until after Mattick's and the wind/rain kicked in).

Not one slippery accident in the group.