Well, after a long discussion with my neighbor Don across the alley, and I'd been reading a lot of blogs in the meanwhile, we came to the obvious conclusion that my tires were ice cold when I started up the bike and rode into a sharp angle on a 31 degree day right out of the coffee shop parking lot.
Man, I feel stupid, but at least educated. The bike had been sitting there for hours. I'm sure my tires were close to zero at that point, far from the 135+ degrees needed for 'sticky magic' to happen. For anybody's benefit who may be reading this and considering cold weather riding, here's the best blog I found so far on the subject:
https://rideapart.com/articles/5-must-know-cold-weather-riding-tips
Happy riding, and I hope you all keep those wheels on the ground where they belong. For my part, lesson learned the hard way, that won't happen again.
We just got another 18 inches of snow dumped on the streets and next week it's supposed to dip into the negatives temperature-wise again. Winter goes on, but I can't wait until that first spring ride. It'll be such a good feeling to get out and move like that again.
