Tag Archives: cold weather riding

He Blinded me with Science

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I no longer look at the weather before I head out. I know it’s cold – that’s a given – I won’t be too hot wearing my stretchy pants. Don’t need to carry my shorts for the warm ride home because there isn’t going to be one. It’s going to be windy, likely a crosswind in the morning with a head/crosswind on the ride home. The wind will be okay in the morning and anywhere from annoying to hurricane level in the evening when all I want to do is get home and relax. I know all of this in the back of my mind, yet when confronted with it as I stare into my iOraclephone first thing in the morning, it can be enough to send me out on four wheels. If I’m going to continue to ride this winter, it’s best I don’t know just how bad it’s going to be. Which reminds me, I’m might need snow tires soon.

When I started writing, it was ostensibly because I wanted to pass on my newbie experiences to the next budding Fredcyclist. The idea being I could answer some of those new-rider questions not with any authority, just the results of my own trial and error methods. It’s veered away from that and into a blather of this is what happened on my little commute today and that’s boring. Part of that detour off course is a result of this: I’m at a post-newb plateau.  I’ve learned the easiest stuff…maybe?

I’m not smart or learned by any means. My authority on matters cycling comprises the following nuggets: don’t pedal while leaning hard unless you enjoy pavement-surfing with your flesh; make sure you have air in your tires; ride as often as possible. On the other hand, here’s what I’ve learned:

• Yes, you do want stretchy pants with a chamois if you ride any distance unless you like friction burns on your most sensitive areas.
• “Slicks” or street tires on your mountain bike are definitely smoother and quieter but they were not the limiting factor in my quest for speed. The factor turned out to be me.
• Lube your chain or the squeaking and squawking will make you even more insane.
• Tires don’t hold air indefinitely – my 80psi slicks drop to 40 over a couple of weeks but make for a handy lie excuse reason you can tell yourself when you get Chicked.
• There may not be any car traffic on the bike paths, but a rear light will keep the rest of us from running you over in the dark because we are riding with
• The 3-LED headlight from MEC – makes an excellent targeting device for on-coming cars and may keep other riders from clipping you in the dark. Also serves as an excellent defense against establishing effective night-vision while simultaneously completely failing to illuminate anything far enough away to still avoid. Note to the city of Calgary – if you really loved cyclists, you’d fluoresce the yellow stripe in the middle of the path.
• If you insist on using a 1 million candle power strobe-light on your helmet while riding on the darkened bicycle path, I reserve the right to push you into the canal while claiming disorientation and blindness thanks to your head-mounted smugness device. Save it for the road where it’ll flash in everyone’s mirror after they’ve passed you and are no longer in a position to nudge you with a bumper.
• The colder it gets, the slower I go. I blame the increased air density and layers of clothing. It has nothing to do with laziness.

It was most definitely this increase in clothing layers and air density that turned me from rabbit to rabbit-chaser this morning. As is typical of my rides these days most of the path traffic is on-coming, which is good because my MEC night-vision-disruption light which as the name implies handily keeps my eyes from adjusting on the darkest sections of the path, combined with riding sans prescription glasses means I’m essentially navigating to work by muscle memory and feel. When I was kid with a big-block drum-brake hotrod, I learned all about over-driving your brakes – travelling faster than your brakes could stop you. I’m now over-driving my eyesight as, even at my reduced winter speed, there is little chance I will be able to avoid an unexpected obstacle.

Anyway – back to the engrossing tales of What I did on my commute this morning. I was passed, unexpectedly and totally off-guard by a high-cadence-pedaling rider whom I’ve seen once or twice before. My first instinct was to ignore the obvious Cat 6 race we were now in and continue as I was but as Dwernie noted last week it is not possible to simply ignore this challenge. I gave chase and didn’t lose any further ground until we got to the pedestrian bridge. I managed to maintain some semblance of speed but failed to stand and hammer when he did (note to self – stand and hammer is appropriate when in Cat 6 mode). By the time I’d reached the end of the bridge, he’d almost disappeared and our diverging routes put an end to the match. I was however given a small reward as I wound under 17th Ave and tried to run over a flagging rider making the climb up to 26th. I allowed myself a small degree of pride as I pedaled past him and he got off to start pushing. “At least I’m not pushing” I thought as I wobbled up the slope.

In recognition of the Cyclist’s Imperative to Chase Rabbits, I wish to congratulate Dwernie on his first blood. A successful pass and defense of position – job well done!  Way to represent Canadian Cat 6 riders abroad.

Dwernie

I Do and I Am…Maybe

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Lacking any modesty, I use any opportunity to pronounce my new-found religion.  Meet for lunch?  Only if it’s nearby – I cycled to work today.  Give you a lift?  Sorry – rode my bike this morning.  Lost weight?  Thanks, yeah, 30 pounds now, riding my bike all the time.  This is typically greeted with a positive response – Really?  That’s cool. – followed almost immediately by one of the following.

You don’t wear spandex do you
This seems to be the primary concern of my friends.  It’s almost as if they’re afraid of catching some heretofore unproven-but-suspected sickness that might render them powerless against showing up at the office Christmas party or the Friday-night poker game in head-to-toe spandex.   Ken, completely bonkers downhill racer, a man I’ve known since before either of us could shave and never noted as a conformist rolled his eyes “oh gawd, you’re not wearing those black spandex shorts are you?”, the disgust dripping from his words.

In truth, I don’t but that’s not because I’m unwilling…now.  When I was 40 pounds overweight (as opposed to the optimistic 10 I am now), you wouldn’t have been able to bribe me into them in public at any price.  I rode in my cargo shorts with the stealth chamois shorts hidden underneath.  I thought it was perfect but then single-digit temperatures arrived.

It didn’t take too many mornings in the almost-freezing air to figure out I needed something to cover my knees if nothing else.  Enter my first stretchy-pants – the MEC winter cycling tights.  When asked recently if I wear those shorts I replied “no – I have stretchy pants, like tights” just to watch the reaction.  As predicted, my friend reacted with horror, disapproval and disappointment.  You’d have thought I’d just told him I’d been having an affair with the neighbour’s poodle.

It’s not like I’m asking them to join me in my new-found clothing choices.  I’m comfortable in my choice of clothing – I don’t need someone else to validate it for me.  Yeesh – it’s not even like we’re riding together and they can’t handle being seen with a lycra-clad rider in the group.  Doesn’t matter though – switching back and forth between the cargo shorts and the stretchy-pants leaves no doubt – stretchy-pants rule and stretchy shorts are a foregone conclusion when the temperatures relent.

You’re not going to be one of those guys
Jason and I went for lunch recently and the topic of my riding came up…because I brought it up.  Jason, who doesn’t ride and hasn’t expressed an interest to (yet) has no problems with my stretchy-pants though he expressed some degree of relief that I wasn’t wearing them in the restaurant.  Jason was supportive and complimentary, arguably the most supportive of my small cadre of friends.  He came from a different angle.  “Are you going to ride this winter” he asked, to which  I replied with an enthusiastic maybe.  “I’d like to” I told him “but we’ll see how much I want to when there’s snow on the ground and no room in the lane”.

“Noooooooooooooooooooo” was the immediate response, his head shaking .  “Don’t be that guy!  Put the bike away and just drive a car like a normal human”.   Now, I could see if I was his courier or pizza delivery service how my desire to pedal through the winter might cause him some concern.  Luckily for both of us, I am neither of those.  So, what’s the issue?  We don’t work or live in the same quadrant of the city and virtually none of our respective commutes or general travel overlap…so what if I ride?  The reaction is almost reason enough and Jason is not alone in his disapproval of my plan.  Well, not really a plan so much as an idea.

 

Now these are all friends that have eaten my food, who have fed me and my family.  They’ve taken their weekends and evenings to move me – in the case of Ken, 3 times in a single 12 month period.  These guys aren’t peripheral or fair-weather friends – they’re the real deal and I’m lucky to have them.  So what is it about cycling that makes even your closest friends hang their heads, cluck their tongues and nod disapprovingly?  If I’d bought a motorcycle and we were talking about leather chaps or riding in the rain, there wouldn’t be any such reaction – unless I demonstrated my predilection for wearing the chaps without anything underneath them.  What is it about bicycles that puts everything on its head?

This is Not a Dream

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Before we get started, I’d like to alert you to a new term.  I created it in honour – it’s clearly an honour to have me bestow a term in reference to your actions – of a former co-worker and ardent cyclist who’s stretchy pants and stiff-soled shoes provided some level of juvenile amusement to the rest of us.

Ever since Best Wife surprised me with a Birthdayish celebration and gifted me a new set of MEC Roubaix stretchy pants, I’ve been anxious to try them out.  Unfortunately the weather has been unseasonably hot though I’m not in any way complaining.  Fortunately for me, fall is now officially upon us and Mother Nature has kindly delivered the required morning temperatures to make donning the stretchy pants appropriate.

Wednesday was my first ride and you know what?  I like them.  No really, I do.  It’s hard to put my finger right on it but the difference is nice.  How nice?    I might step up to stretchy shorts next summer and leave the cargo shorts and my modesty at home.  They feel…sleeker, like there’s less stuff going on.  I wouldn’t have guessed there was anything going on before but its absence is noticeable.  There’s less friction between my legs and the seat now, again – I wouldn’t have said there was any until it wasn’t there.  Subtle little things.  I need to adjust my seat again now – it’s no longer positioned just right with my new slippery pants.  I’d said to nobody in particular that I planned continue riding in my cargo and other non-stretchy shorts in pseudo defiance of the cyclistas who would proclaim my non-conforming attire an indicator of my ability and I would ride them off my wheel when I found them.  This has not happened.  To date, I’ve only been dropped almost exclusively by cargo wearers so perhaps the I can outride you in my work clothes while riding my grandfather’s cast-iron bike is way over-done anyway.  The stretchy thing is good – really it is.

Of course the overarching benefit of my great new stretchy pants is that they make me look good.  No, the real benefit is keeping my knees warm.  The last couple of 5°C rides were not entirely uncomfortable but caused me some level of concern just the same.  Given the importance of my knees in day to day life what was that?  uhm no…that’s not what I meant <ahem>.  Considering how dependant we are on functional knees, I am keenly aware of keeping them healthy and happy.  And warm.   So now I have nice warm knees, even when the temperature hits the (literal) freezing mark as it did this morning.

I didn’t think to bring along my cargos for the journey home so, as I did yesterday I rode home with my stretchy pants in the 18°C sunshine.  I would say this exceeds the comfortable temperature for these pants if you’re putting any effort into your ride.  By kilometre three I was debating whether I should doff them and go in my supposed-to-be-under-your-cargos chamois-equipped stretchy shorts – finish the ride in my shiny grey padded underwear.  In the end I opted not to traumatize fellow path users that way and rode home too hot.

This morning however I arrived to find work in full swing already and before I could get out of my stretchy pants and sweaty shirt I was on the phone and answering emails.  Or was I meeting with my team in an emergency huddle tackling some tough issues.  Maybe I was sitting with my feet on the desk talking to a co-worker about riding.  Regardless I was clearly very busy, too busy to follow the cardinal rule of chamois shorts – don’t stew in your sweaty pants.  Half an hour later I finally opened my clothing stash drawer and had one of those moments.  Hey…uhm…wait…ohhhhh…aw crap…and I have an off-site meeting…<sigh>.  I’d been Thomas’d!  You ever had one of those dreams where you show up at work and realize you aren’t wearing any pants?  It was like that only I wasn’t dreaming.  The drawer was as bare as a roadie’s calves save for a lone t-shirt – I’d forgotten my pants.

Go forth and spread the good word – when you arrive at work with nothing but stretchy pants (or their length-challenged brethren stretchy shorts) to wear, consider yourself Thomas’d.

PS – no, I did not subject my fellow meeting participants to the wonders of my stretchy pants, I did what any man would do – I asked Best Wife to rescue me.  Her Bestness knows no bounds.