My leg works. I have felt much better the past three days and today was my first ride since my quad tore 5 days ago. I only rode 10 miles and no hammering. I can't say I felt strong, but I didn't feel injured.
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While one the ride I tested a new theory about cold weather riding. The way I see it there are five issues with riding in cold weather: mental, head, feet, hands, and body.
For mental blocks see
this.
The body thing is easily fixed with tights and jackets.
I have struggled with feet, but finally went with
insulated shoes. I always fight winter gloves.
They are bulky, have now padding so my hands go to sleep and once your hands are cold, they are toast. Enter
Bar Mitts. They look stupid but really work.
My head is easily kept warm with Smartwool skull caps and a few Cannondale ninja masks. I can layer and strip as needed. But the difficult problem area is my face. If you cover your mouth and nose your glasses fog and once the mask gets wet the rest of the ride is miserable. Oakley snow goggles work ok, but they restrict vision. I love using
embrocation, but would never put the stuff on my face.
Enter
Bag Balm. I purchased this stuff based on a Bicycling.com recommendation for wet weather riding. I wondered if it would help protect my face from cold. Call it a non-warming embrocation effect.
Today's ride was sunny, 37 degrees with a wind chill of 30. I
figured a recovery ride into the wind would put 26 degree wind chill on my exposed face. Normally I would ride in a skull cap and ninja mask. I slathered my face with the stuff and hit the road with only a skull cap. I noticed right away that the exposed areas on my neck and ears that I missed were chilled but my cheeks, nose, and forehead were not. They were not warm, but not cold either. I rode 40 minutes with no chilling noticed on my face. Fucking A! I don't know how a 2 hour ride would do, but I am excited to try this some more.
a
