Leo C. Driscoll
Being stubborn, being Irish- I'm still commuting to work on my Jamis Exile and I'm ignoring warning like the following......
National Weather Service forecast for Boston
As of 4:25 AM
Overnight. Bitterly cold and windy with partly cloudy skies. Lows 9 below. Northwest winds increasing to 20 to 30 mph with gusts to around 45 mph. Wind chill reading as low as 40 below.
Actually, with high tech gear from Helly Hansen, Marmot, Boeri, EMS, etc. I'm doing better than my students at BU who still won't wear a hat or gloves. As I ride into the Alberta Clipper's arctic air, I hallucinate about my tour of duty as a young engineer in Edina, MN, an especially cold corner of Minneapolis. We were heading out for our morning Stolichnaya when we saw a guy in a T-shirt getting out of a truck delivering eggs to the canteen of Control Data. "We can b-b-b-barely breathe in this cold. Where are you coming from?" "I'm from Bismarck. It's real toasty here. Back home it's -40." (He was talking about the thermometer not the new metric of "wind chill" and "real feel" of this millenium.)
So the question- is anyone here from Bismarck or even is anyone here from Potsdam, Batavia, or Rochester- really cold places?
My question to Bismarck- how to you breathe when you bike at -40 (wind chill at -60?)
I tried Zen breathing (through the nose only, hold in the screaming lungs for 8 seconds, and expel s-l-o-w-l-y through lips coated with Dr. Hauschka's lip care wax as if you're playing a baroque oboe). Problem. The cardiovascular system wants none of this Zensense. It wants big rapid gulps of air through the mouth. It cares not that it's taking in the Alberta Clipper. It just demands oxygen. I then think about getting an oxygen mask- a desire that used to ride with me when I foolishly tried quickly going from sea level to biking in Durango and Crested Butte at 8.000-10,000 feet.
Back to Boston- I did try spinning instead of cranking into the Alberta Clipper. That reduces the cardiovascular load and gives momentary relief but only prolongs the arctic ride. Plus I'm now no longer able to compete with Boston drivers as a vehicle (by law). I'm forced over to the side of the road or even to icey sidewalks where I have to weave through frozen mummies who are looking at their feet and are oblivious to my little brass bell. No fun.
So again, anyone here from Bismarck?
:roflmao:
National Weather Service forecast for Boston
As of 4:25 AM
Overnight. Bitterly cold and windy with partly cloudy skies. Lows 9 below. Northwest winds increasing to 20 to 30 mph with gusts to around 45 mph. Wind chill reading as low as 40 below.
Actually, with high tech gear from Helly Hansen, Marmot, Boeri, EMS, etc. I'm doing better than my students at BU who still won't wear a hat or gloves. As I ride into the Alberta Clipper's arctic air, I hallucinate about my tour of duty as a young engineer in Edina, MN, an especially cold corner of Minneapolis. We were heading out for our morning Stolichnaya when we saw a guy in a T-shirt getting out of a truck delivering eggs to the canteen of Control Data. "We can b-b-b-barely breathe in this cold. Where are you coming from?" "I'm from Bismarck. It's real toasty here. Back home it's -40." (He was talking about the thermometer not the new metric of "wind chill" and "real feel" of this millenium.)
So the question- is anyone here from Bismarck or even is anyone here from Potsdam, Batavia, or Rochester- really cold places?
My question to Bismarck- how to you breathe when you bike at -40 (wind chill at -60?)
I tried Zen breathing (through the nose only, hold in the screaming lungs for 8 seconds, and expel s-l-o-w-l-y through lips coated with Dr. Hauschka's lip care wax as if you're playing a baroque oboe). Problem. The cardiovascular system wants none of this Zensense. It wants big rapid gulps of air through the mouth. It cares not that it's taking in the Alberta Clipper. It just demands oxygen. I then think about getting an oxygen mask- a desire that used to ride with me when I foolishly tried quickly going from sea level to biking in Durango and Crested Butte at 8.000-10,000 feet.
Back to Boston- I did try spinning instead of cranking into the Alberta Clipper. That reduces the cardiovascular load and gives momentary relief but only prolongs the arctic ride. Plus I'm now no longer able to compete with Boston drivers as a vehicle (by law). I'm forced over to the side of the road or even to icey sidewalks where I have to weave through frozen mummies who are looking at their feet and are oblivious to my little brass bell. No fun.
So again, anyone here from Bismarck?
:roflmao: