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Nice first ride in the COLD.

 

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Skip and David - thanks for the suggestion.  

I did eyeball bar mitts but didn't dive in, I stuck my hands in the pair my buddy has and didn't like the "locked in" feeling that I had to remove my hands in one direction.  But I might try the surplus glove idea, I am riding around in a pair of NOS cold weather tights I bought from a surplus store and even by themselves my legs were decently warm yesterday and today riding.

Just learned also that the fire near Armitage caused them to shut down trains on the elevated tracks south of Fullerton. It really pays to bike!

Rich S said:

There was a clusterflub of stuff this morning that caused traffic. The bus fire on LSD along with an elementary school fire by Armitage and Sheffield backed everything up on the north side. Elston was also bumper to bumper the whole way. A few drivers were getting impatient and driving in the bike lane. 

Days like today I'm glad I ride. It was a bit more hectic but I don't think the traffic added more than a minute or two to my half hour commute. Most of my co-workers came in late whether they drove or took public trans. 

Nights like last night when I caught a flat going home are the downside but oh well. 

I used Moose Mitts for the first time last winter and I had mixed feelings.

They work well to keep your hands warm, but if you leave your bike parked outside for more than a few minutes, the handlebars get cold and you spend the next several minutes with freezing hands, warming the grips and the air pocket back up.

Plus I was always paranoid that someone would take them if I left my bike out too long. And I didn't want to remove them each time because they're a bit of a pain to put on and off with my bar ends, especially when you're gloveless in cold weather.

But maybe in a more typical winter, without the extended polar vortexes, I'd like them better.



Skip Montanaro 12mi said:

Bar Mitts are my solution. I have both the drop bar and flat bar versions. The drop bar version, while meant for modern day brifter-ized setups, works just fine with older aero brake setups, and last weekend I even used them on my RRB with non-aero brakes. While they retail for $70+, you can often find them at discount on eBay.

This morning the double whammy of snarls on Lake Shore Drive and the north side elevated made me wish I had geared up and biked today.  It's supposed to warm up later in the week, though, and I've been getting my exercise after work with a few miles of walking through town before catching the bus.

I can see Bar Mitts won't work for everyone. Let me expand my original response with some context and the negatives as I see them.

My commute (and cycling, in general) environment rarely consists of locking up a bike I care about where thieves and vandals can get to it. (Once burned, twice shy.) So JeffB's concerns about theft don't pertain to my situation. I'm also fortunate enough to be able to park inside at both ends of my commute, so I have no problem with cold handlebars. I readily admit that if you have to leave your bike outside for any amount of time, leaving what amounts to an expensive set of gloves behind would be problematic.

As to functional negatives, at the moment I'm only using my drop bar mitts, though I think most problems would apply to the flat bar version as well.

  • They have a more-or-less vertical orientation. Something like this looking from above: |___bar___| ... As this is lighting season for most of us, this can be problematic, as the bar mitts tend to block view of your lights from either side.
  • Restricted insert/remove. As someone else mentioned, you are restricted in how you pull your hands off the bars. The same goes for connecting your hands to the bars (and thus to your brake levers). Yesterday evening, I was a few blocks from home and happened to have my hands out of the mitts (probably blowing my nose). Not paying close enough attention, I didn't notice someone approaching from my right at an intersection. I wasn't going very fast, but I still couldn't react fast enough to insert my hand into the mitt. I wound up braking in the usual fashion, just grabbing my levers from outside the mitt. This worked, but probably isn't recommended practice.
  • Fewer hand positions. If you want your hands warm, you leave them in the mitts. I can still use the tops of my bars, but there is a bit less space (mitts and lights), and as demonstrated above, you need a bit more time to get your hands out of and into your mitts. Also, in this weather, you won't want to leave them there for very long. I rarely ride in the drops, but I suppose that's feasible as well.

All that said, the positive aspects outweigh the negatives for my needs. Before using them I was never really able to find a good solution to keeping my hands warm, and would have effectively stopped riding my bike to work by the time the temps got down to freezing. My commute is about an hour each way, so my hands are probably a bit more exposed that most folks here with shorter commutes.

I don't get cold hand issues but rather cold toes and have taken to the classic (moms) plastic baggy technique.  When people say "you rode?"  I answer "Yes and or some reason I am just famished for seal meat" which either gets a laugh or drops dead.

Did anyone else feel like it was way warmer today than yesterday?

I was sweating to beat the band by the time I got to work today, felt like I rode in 50 degree weather dressed way too warmly, but I didn't change anything from yesterday and then I was a lot colder.

Road my fat bike to work.  Not as bad as yesterday.  Can't claim to be hard core as it's only 2.5 miles. 

I suppose it had a lot to do with the direction you were riding. I was riding north-to-south. Very windy. I was not too warm at all.

Dressed lighter today. Felt warmer. Completely comfortable today. Mostly comfortable yesterday. Go figure.

rwein5 - I never thought that 15 degrees when still below freezing would be such a heat wave!

Skip - Yeah, I am sure I'll be cold on the ride home.  I felt like the wind was helping versus hurting this morning...for once.

Skip Montanaro 12mi said:

I suppose it had a lot to do with the direction you were riding. I was riding north-to-south. Very windy. I was not too warm at all.

She ain't singin' yet...

50° on Sunday. I hesitate to pack my shorts and sandals for the season.

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