A Litter Colder!

Yesterday was a blustery, windy day – too bad to ride. I mean it was windy! There were wind advisories issued, and forcasts of winds up to 60 mph. Personally, I don’t think it was that windy, but it was more than I wanted to ride in.

This morning the wind calmed way down, and we were left with a wonderfully crisp, cool autumn morning. The thermometer outside my kitchen window read 28 degrees, and the neighborhood flags were hanging almost straight down … perfect for an invigorating commute to work.

I’m trying to dress better for my rides this winter. Last winter I tried to get by on the cheap by using various layered items purchased at the local *$#mart. This year I coughed up some dough for “real” cool/cold weather biking clothes, and I’m very interested in finding out what works and what doesn’t. There’s very little accurate (read: non-commercial) information out there about cool/cold weather riding, simply because the U.S. cycling business is so oriented toward the racing wannabees. But I digress.

Today’s outfit consisted of :

Light balaclava, heavy balaclava, helmet, helmet cover
Base shirt, short-sleeved jersey, arm warmers, heavy cycling jacket
Heavy gloves
Cycling shorts, wind-front tights
Poly socks, wool socks, MTB shoes

Results:

Head and ears – warm
Face – cool nose and eyes
Neck – hot
Hands and arms – warm enough
Chest, shoulders, back and torso, butt and thighs – warm
Knees and lower legs – cool
Feet – too cool

So, it looks like I mostly guessed ok for this morning. I think I’ll not double-up on the balaclava again until the weather gets really frigid, because I don’t like my neck being hot. And it looks like I need to put winter riding shoes higher up on my wish list. Other than that I’m ok.

And the good news is that after spending so much time getting my riding stuff ready, I only forgot a few work-related items. So here I am happily at work going commando, with my shirt tail out to cover my belt-less pants, and wearing my cycling socks with my loafers. Ha! Cracks me up.!

Mirrors

I suspect that all you racer boys (and girls) out there will disagree with me, but I like to ride with a mirror. Yeah, I know they look kinda geeky, but come on, riding a bicycle in the USA is already considered kinda geeky anyway. Using a mirror is just a different type of geeky. Like there’s “cool geeky” and “uncool geeky”. Anyway, if you’ve ever ridden long distances on the open highways, especially by yourself or only one or two other riders, you’ve learned to appreciate mirrors. There are simply times when being able to see behind you adds a great deal of confidence and safety.
I’ve tried several kinds of mirrors on my different bikes with mixed success. I had an unsatisfactory experience with a helmet-mounted mirror several years ago. It was the kind that sticks to the side of the helmet with double-sided tape. It was hard to adjust, the mirror part was too small, it was hard to focus on the objects behind, and worst of all it kept falling off. When it fell off for the ??th time, I finally just left it in the road where it landed. Since then I’ve used a bar-end-mounted mirror on my straight-bar bikes and I like it pretty well (some brands work better than others). I’ve not tried the kind that wrap around the brake hoods on drop bars, but a friend of mine had one, and he said it buzzed and vibrated. The worst thing about bar-mounted mirrors is that they break easily if (I mean when) you drop the bike.
Several months ago I decided to try a mirror that mounts on the frame of my eyeglasses. I doubted that I would like it, but gambled on the $15 price. For some reason I've found that I really like this mirror ... it's called the "Take A Look" by Bike Peddler. It's an acrylic mirror with no frame and has a thin wire stem that mounts easily on my eyeglasses or sunglasses. It stays put, is easy to adjust, doesn’t vibrate too much, and I find that it's easy for me to focus. And since it’s mounted on my head and not the bike, I can turn my head and sweep all lanes behind me.

34 Degrees

We had a nice little cold snap this morning, with the temperature going down to about 34 degrees. The good thing is that the wind died down from about 20-25 mph to about 8-10 mph.

Today’s cycling kit consisted of (top-to-bottom)
Helmet cover
Thin balaclava
Long sleeve poly base layer
Short sleeve jersey
Arm warmers
Shell
Lined gloves
Shorts
Thin tights
Knee warmers
Poly socks
Wool socks
Summer MTB shoes

I was nice and comfortable without being too warm on my 4 ½ mile ride. I think today's outfit should suffice down to 25-30 degrees. Below that (or if the windchill is really low) I’ll go to my fleece balaclava, lined jacket and wind-front tights. I think maybe I should also get some really thin gloves to wear inside my lined gloves. And while I’m dreaming, why not order a pair of winter riding shoes?

Whatever I wear in the morning, I have to remember that it’ll probably be in the 50’s when I ride home that evening, so I need to bring light clothes to wear then. Ah, Oklahoma weather ... gotta love it !