SuZir
Well-Known Member
Yes, engine block heaters are absolute must. And the heaters that also heat inside the car make life much more comfortable. Also, if you do not have warm garage (like most around here do not have at least for all of their cars, because heating them would be so darn expensive), you make sure to park your car to warm garage of some mall etc. once or twice a week to melt it throughly.
We also use mostly studded tires, because ones without just are not very good at ice. They tend to work well on plain snow, but when it gets icy they have even double the stopping distance compared to studded tires, and we live next to big body of water, so roads always get icy.
And when it comes to clothes, we have as a country given up being stylish half of the year. We simply all dress in sport clothes during the winter. Also sweaters etc. are nonsense when it is really cold. To actually survive, and be comfortable, outdoors when it is cold, you dress to technical sports clothing. Starting with either wool or technical thermo underwear (yes, I'm speaking of longjohns both for men and women) and add layers, and right kind of layers and cover it all up with technical, wind/rain/storm/everything stopping cover. It's in fact difficult to find a jacket around here that would not have Goretex (or some other similar) coating in it. When it gets cold, your are likely wearing for example three or four layers of pants at the same time. No snowpants or heavy down jacket is enough to keep you warm, if you don't have enough, and correct, layers under them (for example, you simply do not use cotton in your under layers or you are sure to freeze. Or at most you may have cotton sweater over wool or technical undershirt under your winter jacket. But fleece or wool is much better.)
We are strongly in opinion that there is no bad weather, there are only people dressed badly and plain wrong. Of course we never get too hot weather and it is much easier to dress against cold than hot.
We also use mostly studded tires, because ones without just are not very good at ice. They tend to work well on plain snow, but when it gets icy they have even double the stopping distance compared to studded tires, and we live next to big body of water, so roads always get icy.
And when it comes to clothes, we have as a country given up being stylish half of the year. We simply all dress in sport clothes during the winter. Also sweaters etc. are nonsense when it is really cold. To actually survive, and be comfortable, outdoors when it is cold, you dress to technical sports clothing. Starting with either wool or technical thermo underwear (yes, I'm speaking of longjohns both for men and women) and add layers, and right kind of layers and cover it all up with technical, wind/rain/storm/everything stopping cover. It's in fact difficult to find a jacket around here that would not have Goretex (or some other similar) coating in it. When it gets cold, your are likely wearing for example three or four layers of pants at the same time. No snowpants or heavy down jacket is enough to keep you warm, if you don't have enough, and correct, layers under them (for example, you simply do not use cotton in your under layers or you are sure to freeze. Or at most you may have cotton sweater over wool or technical undershirt under your winter jacket. But fleece or wool is much better.)
We are strongly in opinion that there is no bad weather, there are only people dressed badly and plain wrong. Of course we never get too hot weather and it is much easier to dress against cold than hot.