Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Dressing for 7°

Top:
  • Gore Sleeveless base layer
  • Giordana Silverline lightweight long sleeve jersey
  • Castelli Insolito Radiation Jacket (with the space blanket liner)
Bottom:
  • Descente Coldout bib tights
  • Novara Stratos rain/wind pants
Feet:
  • Descente winter socks
  • Toe warmers (that never activated)
  • Pearl Izumi Barrier GTX winter shoes
  • Endura MT500 shoe covers
Hands:
  • Manzella liners
  • Outdoor Research Gripper gloves
  • Trail's Edge Moose Mitts
Head:
  • North Face balaclava
  • Oakley O Frame MX goggles
  • Bell Metropolis helmet with winter liner and rain cover

All in all, I was very comfortable on my way to work. As you can see, the only exposed skin I had was my nose and just a tiny bit of my face.

I will say it over and over again. Those moose mitts are worth their weight in gold. Hardest part is waiting for my fingers to warm up on their own so that the mitts can retain the heat for them.

Hoping that I can get the toe warmers to activate for the ride home. My feet were fine, but they were starting to get chilly by the end of my twelve mile commute. Without the MT500 shoe covers, they'd have been blocks of ice.

2 comments:

Robbie said...

Tomorrow is gonna be a balmy 17 for the ride home.

Michael said...

We seem to have a very similar set up. Only real differences:

Feet - I wear thin merino wool socks inside a thin fleece lined neoprene winter sock ( water proof), normal Sidi MTB shoes and then two neoprene booties, over the top. One tip I learned is to not over tighten shoes etc. Allow for some wiggle room, promotes blood flow. I will NOT get cold feet ever again. There was this little incident with frostbite a couple of years ago ....

Head - I have a neck tunnel that pulls up to cover front of face and sits underneath a good quality merino wool winter cap that then goes underneath my helmet.

Hands - My Pearl Lobster Mitts have been fine so far. Coldest ride last year was 2 hrs with avg temp of 1 f and hands stayed nice and toasty.

The biggest challenge can be striking that balance between riding fast enough to get somewhere and not breaking into a sweat. Sweat is a bad thing on cold days like these.

Ride safe.