My 1st gear is a little reluctant first thing on a cold morning. After a couple stops it loosens up. That said, I'm talking Chicago cold, not North Carolina "cool". I had a BMW before the Z and it had the most wonderful gearbox...it didn't matter if it was -10, it went into each gear like butter. Hated the damn clutch though with it's Clutch Delay Valve for guys that didn't know how to drive a stick. What it did was smooth shifts by slipping the clutch which resulted in premature wear which resulted in BMW making a fortune on new clutches. I had my valve removed.

The reason why its grinding is because the fluid is still too thick when its cold. Synchronizer's job is to grab the gears to match the output/input shaft speed and thick fluid delays the time it can do so. holding down the clutch pedal longer does nothing to help the issue, but slowing down the motion of the shift knob will help because it gives the synchronizer more time to match the speed before you jam it into gears. Thinner fluid will improve synchronizer speed in cold climate also.

just do 'double clutch'.

I'd find a way to screw that up worse than the clunk going into 2nd haha