Thoughts about this year's Beijing winter

Winter in Beijing is usually very dry and cold from mid December until after the spring festival, a reasonably short break from riding. The 2008 - 2009 version of winter has been very mild, letting us ride until early December and restart the bikes early February with 150 days of no precipitation from October 2008 to February 2009.

Winter started unusually early on November 1st 2009, with the first snow and a cold front. Ever since it was cold, partially f...... cold (dare you to fill the spaces :rolleyes1:) and today, mid March, we got yet another load of d.....d ..c...g (fill the gaps if really want :eekers:) snow delivered right to our doorsteps. We had a record of 10 times snowing in Beijing this winter with an accumulated total of 90 cm snow and there is another chance of snow next week.

I prepared three times to ride and every time the bike was ready, winter struck again by pouring the white s..t (don't even think about filling the gaps :naughty:) on us again.

While the snow is perfectly fine for nature, it isn't for us riders. We hope to say goodbye to the f.....g (you may fill the spaces :icon10:) winter soon and are looking forward to a f...i... (don't fill the blanks :lol8:) fine riding season.

I just have read, that Heating will be provided until 22.03.10. That is good News, otherwise our Homes will be cool very fast.
I have stocked another Bottle of Rum for making "Grog".

Seems to be a cold and snowy winter for pretty much everyone in the northern hemisphere this year. May be bad for riding but there are plenty of water starved places in the world that will appreciate and fight over the runoff!

:swords:

CC

Sorry to hear about your troubles Andy, even Guangdong ended up getting unusually cold and wet... right after Felix took me up on my offer to come down and ride. Fortunately the warm weather is back, so the season is underway here. Hope you thaw out soon :naughty:

Cheers!
ChinaV

Yes, and as a side note to other riders here; never invite me to come and ride with you as i will bring the irish weather along with me.

Living in Shanghai and I have just spent the last three weeks driving to work in the rain each day so no sympathy from me. Last Friday it actually warmed up to 17 and the sun was out for the whole day, giving me notions of going for a real ride. Then of course Saturday and Sunday bring along a truckload of rain and I'm stuck riding in all my raingear to work this morning, again.

Now, with the labor day weekend at the doorsteps, the cold seems finally gone. There have been some days with good riding conditions, but it has been still chilly in the mountains around Beijing.
This Monday, April 26th, the peaks of surrounding mountains were white and in some shady spots above 500m, remains of snow can still be observed.

The real :riding: season seems to start now :clap:

The long and strong (in Beijing terms) winter hopefully leaves mother nature as winner :thumbsup: