I hate and love this time of year. Its really cold in the morning, just lovely to ride home in the afternoon. Mid october to late November in Chicagoland, you just have to have layers to pile on in the morning and shed in the afternoon. So I switch to my steel racked bike, and layer up in the morning and cart the stuff home in the afternoon. A typical morning ride to work this time of year consists of lower tights, or lower tights with Nashbar sweats over them, tight fitting shirt (aka target/walmart synthetic tight stuff) plus a wool jersey, wind blocking jacket (currently an Illuminite jacket). Wool gloves with cycle gloves over them but dedicated winter cycle gloves are available, then helmet liner or balaclava under a helmet. Actually, screw Al Gore, this month is more like November, usually I don't need half this crap this time of year. But I am riding in anyway.

Since I have a trunk bag and a bunch of cycle crap, I will experiment with wool thermals under the tights( hey, I lost a bunch of weight, those tights aint so tight anymore) instead of the nashbar fleece over the tights, wool thermals as a baselayer instead of the walmart/taget synthetic crap, and myriad combinations of all sorts of stuff. By next spring I will have an uncanny skill at selecting the exact clothing combo for the particular weather forcast of my region, and I will welcome the warmer weather because cycling will seem so much simpler.