Winter Cycling - A few unexpected "gotchas"

OK, it's actually not even winter yet, but already I had some funny things happen due to the cold. (I'm just talking high 30s low 40s.)

1. Powerbars freeze solid. Took one out of saddle bag this morning and bit into it and almost broke my tooth! (Water is pretty freakin' icy, too - brrr.)

2. In summer I was signaling turns by pointing with two fingers. But now it's not clear to drivers what I'm doing when I stick out my arm with a mitten on my hand. They can't tell whether I'm pointing, waving to them, or just shaking my arm to get warm.

3. Grabbing the brakes with two fingers is a lot easier than using all four fingers enclosed in one mitten. (Maybe mittens are not the best choice - but they're so warm . . .)

4. My computer seems to have froze to death in the chill!! Jeeze what the heck what a piece of junk.

5. A rain shower in the summer is refreshing. Not now though!! I got caught in a five minute shower a whew-hoo it was icy after that.

Similiar to 3; I wear these old skinny leather gloves that work really well except when I have to reach the brakes as they don't stretch quite enough between the thumb and forefinger. Had a pucker moment when I needed to stop quick in traffic and couldn't reach my levers without taking the palm of the handlebars.

Yeah, that's a good one on the Power Bars freezing. I'm interested in finding the answer to warm the air that I inhale on those sub-zero days. I don't like the balakava covering my mouth, need the breath unrestricted. Of course I am riding long distances, and putting in a lot of energy into the ride, so I'm sucking air, and can't get a breath through the damn thing. But then I run the risk of cooling my core with the cold air.
One of my gotchas was winterizing my Camelback. Insulated the tube, but not the bite valve. Gotcha, nothing like riding breathing and trying to unfreeze a bite valve.
My favorite is the icecles that form on my beard at the end of my commute.

Hey naisme did you see the thread where the guy posted about the face mask that warms the air as you breath in?

Just last week I went for a balmy 45° ride. I just threw on a fleece ... which was fine and followed my regular routine. Whoa that first drink out of my polar water bottle which included ice cubes and powerade brought tears to my eyes from the cold. My throat hurt! I think I can slow up on the ice cubes for a while.

Broke a crown on a powerbar a couple of winters ago. Came home all gap-toothed and hungry to a round of applause. Buggers.

I don't know if it's my imagination or what, but it also seems like I need to eat more before my morning ride. Used to be a banana was enough, but that's definitely not cutting it anymore. I'm get way to hungry and running out of energy earlier and earlier.