Ouch, hope you are not too sore later.
I had exactly this happen twice while winter commuting in Dorset. Ice on the road. Didn’t see it. One moment riding along minding own business, next instantly sprawled out on the road with no warning. I seem to remember landing heavily on my hip each time & thinking it would be an easy way to break a hip.
My workplace is caked in frost - its amazing just how much the temperature seems to drop across the river. Id’ve happily taken that as an excuse had we even had a sprinkling - but it just looked dry and cold.
Already bagged an early exit tonight to go home in daylight - not many alternative routes without potentially having a recurrence on a different bit of tarmac.
2 minutes into my commute this morning I stood on the pedals to set off from the lights and promptly snapped my chain 
Fortunately just a short walk home to get changed and then get the bus in to work
Your running shoes were broken too?
That happened to me once and it occurred right outside a bicycle shop. The shop guy saw it happen and was already getting the replacement chain off the shelf as I walked in. How’s that for luck, I wasn’t even late for work 
So I put a new chain on my commuter fixie last night and it turns out that having a new, well oiled chain makes a world of difference.
Who knew? 
Cleaned my rims and put on new pads last weekend - felt like it’s turned a commuter juggernaut into a dynamic agile machine. For the first ride anyway.
No ice so far thanks to the heavily trafficked roads of London but the cold air sure takes it out of you. The rides home are haaard work.
You snapped a 1/8” BMX/track chain 
Power man!
I’ve not changed mine for about 15yrs, when I upgraded it to a BMX one.
Do you still ride the same BMX down the skate park with the other kids?
Certainly not me
It was freezing cold on the commute this morning 
.
My commute is only about 20 minutes, but it’s a series of standing starts from the lights, so I usually get pretty warm, quite quickly.
Today I wasn’t at all sweaty by the time I reached the office.
Despite the cold, it was very busy on the cycle lanes today. Judging by the number of people who were looking at their phones as they were riding, I think there was a lot of New Year cyclists out there who didn’t really know where they were going
I made the mistake of only one pair of gloves this morning
There are some local traffic lights at the moment, and I’ve been diverting onto a footpath. No one uses it but I know that’s not a valid excuse. However, I feel I’d hold up cars cycling through the one lane system. Is it better to filter to the front of the queue and just piss people off?
It’s a tricky one that.
I generally don’t filter to the front in that situation, for the reason you state, but I also don’t like going through last as they don’t always build in a big enough delay and the other direction starts coming before you’re through if you get left behind.
I generally pull up in the queue wherever I am and then try and hammer it to keep up with the car in front. By the time everyone pulls away and is a bit cautious through the lights I can often stay with the flow.
Yeah that’s fair - if the queue is small I would do the same. The one holding me up at the moment is road work lights rather than normal traffic lights, the tail back can be quite big at the moment ~0.5 to 1k long (max was 1.5k!!), so if you don’t filter to the front you might not get through. As it’s on my commute it can depend how late it might make me for work 
Despite a merino headband and winter hat I had brain freeze this morning, jesus that was cold
Also had merino liners and thick winter gloves and still had frozen fingers
Double gloves this morning, I still couldn’t use my fingers to open the lock at work!
I normally cycle into work on a Friday but it’s supposed to be -3 (feels like -6) tomorrow so I’m not sure I’ll bother as it’s for no other reason than a change of scene.
I wore that for running… you need more for cycling!
Y’all need a can of MTFU 
Roasting today. A tropical -4° 
Feels like -8°? No way 
A 12 minute commute in and I couldn’t feel
My fingers by the time I had got into work. Properly Baltic!
