Tom, for me, they don't have to be quite THAT big for 35°; I sweat in them when it's that warm, so I switch to thinner mittens or insulated work gloves.
Were your hands getting sweaty?

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I had a fun commuting day yesterday. It's been warm here, low 40s for the last couple days, but quite windy. It's a bit tricky though, because a bunch of snow melts during the day when it's 40-something, then overnight, it freezes again, so I've got to watch myself.

Even so, I was happy to take my urban commuter eBike, the Aventon Level.2, with its smoother-rolling tires than the eFatty.

I'm going out of my mind reading European regulations at work, I just HAD to get away from my desk, so I went out for a lunchtime ride and stopped at a local comic/toy place, and bought a couple small games. One is a small chess-like game with only three different pieces with different moves, the other is an 8+ player game I haven't looked into much yet.

After that, I continued uptown to my favorite local coffee shop and had a nice lunch before heading back to work. Lunch ride was about 5 miles, commuting was 4.2 with the grocery stop.


Marblehead's Games, Kenosha, WI. A nice little shop.



A couple of fun games. (I hope)



Prosciutto & mozzarella sammich for lunch, and locally made chips.



Grocery stop on the way home: A 12-pack (cans) in the left, head of cabbage + games in the top, and the rest of the ingredients for kielbasa & cabbage in the right. The left pannier JUST fit the 12-pack, but couldn't be zipped shut.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2048:

35°F this morning. It's absolutely crazy for South Dakota to have a morning temperature above freezing in January. This week has had highs in the 40s. Six years ago today I set my record for my coldest winter commute: -26°F air temperature.

Still hardly any snow on the ground, and none on the pavement. This is great for me taking the road bike to work, but terrible for the moisture outlook this summer. I think all told we've gotten a little over 5" total so far this season. I told a co-worker yesterday afternoon that, while I don't enjoy the process of getting snow, we really, really need to have a very snowy February and March. If we don't, we're in trouble.

Light headwind this morning, which would have been a slog had I been on a slow winter bike. But I was on the fast road bike, so it wasn't too bad. The wind is supposed to shift around this afternoon, so it looks like I'm going to have the same headwind on the way home from work as well.

This morning the headlight that I dropped on the ground on Monday went from being dim, to giving out slightly less light than I would get by holding a match in front of me. It was comically pointless, so I took it off the handlebar and put it in my coat pocket so I wouldn't have to worry about it flying off the mount in the dark. I used my backup light I have strapped to my helmet for the ride to work. The backup isn't as bright as my fully-functional headlight, but is way better than nothing. My replacement light should be delivered tomorrow. I think I can send my old light in along with $40 and have it repaired. Then I'll have a spare in case something like this happens again in the future.

An LED light going dim like that suddenly after a drop is often a result of battery contact resistance going up. If your light has removeable batteries, it might be matter of just cleaning the contacts and re-aligning the cells with the contact tabs.

Rode today. Last night did not ride to pub quiz... but anyway one of my team reminded me we had won a booby prize last week. It was a box of Crunch'n'Munch, which I took home for my kids. The box was that awkward size that's too big for one helping but not really big enough to put in the cupboard. I had completely forgotten about it from the moment I hit the bollard. It was still tucked in my jacket, though. I had no memory of unloading it at home. It just wasn't important. My wife tells me my oldest kid scavenged it off the couch where I took off my jacket, and ate it all himself.

That'll be it for a week, probably. The rain starts tomorrow. We'll get over an inch a day thru Tuesday and dregs til Friday morning if the forecast holds true.

I installed some new Planet Bike Cascadia ALX fenders on my commuter bike a few days ago. Rode today with the new fenders in very wet conditions. A happy commute.

I looked up that Martian chess and it's a good looking game. You can play it on a folded regular chess board with chess pieces so I'll have to give it a try with my kid. "Colors don't matter" is true, the colors are decorative, both for the pieces and the spaces. You control all the pieces on your half of the board. Pawns move one diagonal any direction, "drones" move two straight any direction, queens move like chess queens. Capturing is like chess. Play ends when a player has no pieces in his side so no move is possible. Then you tote up the pieces you each have taken, pawns worth one, drones two, queens three. You can see how you'd have situations where players are passing a queen back and forth doing massive damage, and that someone might end the game deliberately because they are ahead like gin.

The pieces are called "Icehouse" and they are another invention of the guy who invented the game. The pieces are stackable and there are other games that use the stacking. pyramids - home | Looney Labs You will have to let us know if any more of the games are included with the rules. Most of the other games need a lot more of them, though.

There's a doubles version that uses a whole chessboard. Wikipedia offers up the idea that other numbers of players can play on boards imagined in non-Euclidian space and then does not follow that up, and so far trying to make sense of it has only made my engineer head hurt, so I'm going to leave it alone. It does seem like you could play six on a cube or three on part of a cube, but I don't think that's what they mean

No, my hands were not the least bit warm. They were, well, tepid. Something changed in my body in the last year or two. They're just not warm anymore. At the moment, I'm inside at home where it's 73º, and I'm warmly dressed. My hands are not exactly cold, but my fingertips are cool. This isn't normal for me. I will mention it to my doctor again. She asked me all the pertinent questions, and nothing else seems to be wrong, but it could be a foretelling of some kind.

I'm glad these huge mittens help. I wonder what temperature they will take me down to.

It was foggy this morning, somehow with a 14 mph wind. (shouldn't that blow the fog away?) I was glad for the excellent lights on my Aventon Level.2.

Later, it's supposed to change to just cloudy, with the wind increasing to 18 mph for the commute home.

I'll probably go home for lunch today, as my wife is working from home and she gets lonesome. (she's one of those super-extroverted people that always wants to be talking to someone)

I'm thinking about what bikes to bring on a road trip vacation to Ft. Collins, CO. I need to get the little Dahon Boardwalk single speed folder out and commute on it a few times to get a feel for whether it would do the job, with its single, rather high gear. Maybe I'll have time for that over lunch and will take it for the 2nd half of the day's commuting.

My commute is 2 miles one way, so while that is not quite long enough for what I feel like is real exercise, it is close enough that I can come home for lunch when I'm feeling like it. That results in 8 miles for the day, just in commuting and is enough exercise for an off-season workday.

Decided not to ride today or send the kids on their bikes, but it was a close decision. Rain showers begin to return in the afternoon and I just didn't trust the timing

Sun is finally up, had to ride. Coughing along the way.. Jakarta's air quality is just so bad.

Finally a completely ice-free ride to and from work. Although I did see an ice field past the little green bridge on the route I didn't take.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2051:

Some days you just don't "feel it". I woke up to see the thermometer showing an air temperature of 0°F, and the wind blowing at 16 mph making the wind chill -20°F. I sat down in my chair and fought the fear of riding my bike. This happens sometimes on really cold days. I know from experience that once I actually start riding, it's rarely as big of a deal as my mind has made it. However, that doesn't make the feeling of dread go away.

I forced myself to get up and put all my gear on. I was scheduled to ride 8 miles to our office. I briefly considered riding to a client's office instead, which would have cut the ride in half. But I decided that in the past I've ridden to our office on colder days, so I could suck it up and do it again today.

As is usually the case, once I was riding it was a much smaller endeavor than I had envisioned. There is still very little snow and ice on the ground here in Sioux Falls, so I took the road bike. This made the commute much faster, at the expense of colder fingers and toes. I kept flexing my fingers as I rode and the blood flow helped keep my fingers at a tolerable temperature. I tried the same thing with my feet, but my ventilated clipless shoes just let too much air through to allow them to stay warm. As I type this an hour after arriving at work and after taking a hot shower, my toes are still angry at me.

I'm already having fears about the ride home. The temp is supposed to get up to 16°F, but the wind is supposed to blow harder and I am going to ride straight into it the whole way home. I know once again my mind is probably making a bigger deal of it than it really is.

Sometimes when I feel like that, it's the dread of getting ready

Uber to the rescue! Then darkness descends.

Yesterday morning I rode my 1989 Dahon Getaway V 16" folder to work. I rebuilt it with a DIY steering mast latch made from brass plumbing supplies. It has never failed until yesterday morning about 2.5 miles from work.

The steering mast was feeling a little loose, but the cap nut felt tight. And then, at speed, the steering mast collapsed in towards me. Fortunately I ride in a road-bike position, hunched forward with the bar low. My weight held the bar forward until I quickly stopped. The cap nut was gone.

I didn't have 45 minutes to walk the 2.5 miles to work, I had a client meeting. I checked Uber and there was one 3 minutes away that quoted $8.95 to my work. I got to work just 15 minutes late, but in time to change for the meeting.

Later I realized I must have a spare nut in the saddle bag...but then I realized, this was the spare nut from when I replaced the original, which had become tough to loosen after a year.

The closest hardware store is 2.5 miles from work and a co-worker took pity and ran me out there to pick up a replacement.

When I removed the top bolt to take with me to make certain I bought the right piece I realized I could have used that in an emergency like this, since it is just there to make sure the bolt doesn't un-thread from the mast. Anyway, I will replace the brass cap nuts with ones with holes in them and then use quick release pin of some sort to secure them further,

Yesterday morning I had also decided to take my lightweight commute back pack since I wear it while riding the rackless small folder. I had transferred the headlight case, but, as it turned out, the headlight was not in it. I had forgotten to take it of the bike I rode yesterday. Luckily my helmet has a small headlight on it, but it defaulted to low beam after the USB battery reached a lower level. I still felt safe, but it was dimmer than I preferred.

Still enjoyed both commute legs more than driving.

BobbyG, you're a trooper! I always figured something like that was a get out of jail free card to drive the car home or call for a ride.

Let's see: crank broke, pedal fell off when the bearings shattered, tire tread separated and blew out... I think there was another incident like that, but it averaged once every five or six years, so I don't feel ashamed.

It's been cold and windy here in NYC, and I've been riding a bit every week. On Monday, I rode to the bike coop to work on my fork swap project. It's about 5 miles from home to the coop. I helped too many people and didn't manage to finish threading the new fork, but I had a wonderful time connecting with people and teaching them. I wore my new gigantic mittens, and yes, they kept my hands warm. But they reduce dexterity. Shifting and braking are slower, so it's a bit of a handicap.

Yesterday, I rode with regular gloves since it was a little warmer. I rode from home to class (5 miles), from class to evening rehearsal (2 miles), and from rehearsal to home (5 miles). On the way to class, along the edge of the Hudson River, the headwind was so strong that it nearly stopped me dead. I quickly decided to take to the streets where I would protected a bit from the wind. That worked out, but traffic was heavy enough that it slowed me down, and the wind wasn't brutal, but it did affect me. On the way home from rehearsal, I had a strong tailwind. Look at my GPS tracks is amusing as I can see my speeds were low in the morning and very high at night, thanks to the wind.

I'm really looking forward to not needing to wear so many clothes. But I'm also grateful that I'm riding a fair bit despite it all.

The 3rd would have been a fine day to ride, after all. The rain did not arrive til after dark. I got a lap in today between the storms. Friday is a day off. Another batch of storms maybe coming next week, but it does not look as serious as this batch has been.

You don't even wear shoe covers?! Or you're saying your toes were cold even with them?
I let my road bike sit when it's below 30, even with shoe covers.
Flat pedals + boots, and mittens for your hands is the answer in the winter. If you're worried about how long it'll take because the bike is slower, it might be time for an eBike.

You should either fix that steering properly or get rid of the bike. Commuting is dangerous enough without a sketchy bike.

We got a dusting of snow last night and the driveway and my street were not quite icy, but close. Slick snow. I looked at my car and decided to leave it dusted and take the bike out of the garage and commute with it. It's supposed to get above freezing by noon, so that dusting will melt away, and I won't even need to scrape it when I need the car this evening.

I walked my eFatty down the driveway before mounting up. No incidents.

My fancy rechargeable Ravemen tail light was dead, so I plugged it in and wore my (colder) helmet with lights in it. Took my leg band with the LED & fiber optic too, and the headlight was in courtesy mode. (on steady low, with a bright flash now and then) I didn't even need my overpants or mittens this morning. (I used insulated work gloves)

The face shield on my helmet does nothing to keep the wind from making my eyes water, I'll remember to wear my Wynd glasses next time and keep the visor up.

Tonight after I drop my daughter off, I'm going to check out a used Schwinn Loop folding bike for $120. People seem to love them; they're like a 70s design, but updated with more modern wheels, brakes and 7 speed derailleur. (instead of 1 or 3 speed)

I wear two layers of socks plus neoprene toe covers inside my clipless shoes. I have large feet and haven't found shoe covers that fit over the top of my shoes. I've ordered a couple of shoe covers that were supposedly large enough to cover my shoes, but when they arrived they wouldn't fit so I sent them back. I have a similar problem finding socks large enough to fit.

On my two winter bikes I have platform pedals. When I ride those bikes I wear the same two layers of socks with the neoprene toe covers, but I wear hiking boots. The boots are warmer, but even then after enough time riding the cold will seep through them. This morning I took one of the winter bikes. It was 8°F with a stout headwind, and it took me about an hour to ride the 8 miles to work. By the time I arrived my feet were pretty chilly. After fighting cold feet for the last 16 years of winter commuting I've just accepted that's the way it is.

Riding the road bike in cold weather is a trade-off. My feet and hands are less protected (no boots or bar mitts), but because the bike is significantly faster I'm out in the cold for less time. So it kind of evens itself out. For example, this morning's hour ride on the winter bike would probably been less than 40 minutes on the road bike.

I'm too lazy to ride an eBike, as I know even in nice conditions I would always put the boost on full and not get the exercise I need. Riding a traditional bike keeps my cardiologist happy. Plus, I have concerns about leaving the bike locked outside in sub-zero temps for 9-10 hours while I'm at work, and coming out to a lithium battery that was dead, or even worse, ruined.

I most often commute by eBike and it's about as cold here as there. The cold causes the battery voltage to drop, so you get less range, but it won't harm the battery. CHARGING the battery when it's below freezing will harm it, but modern batteries' BMS system watch for that and prevent it. I bring the battery inside at home, let it warm up and hour or two, then charge it.

As for the lazy part, I can't help with that, other than to suggest that maybe you're NOT too lazy, as you're the type to choose now to ride a bike to work instead of driving. I'm NOT lazy, but people assume I am when they see me on an eBike.

Cold. Very cold. Two pairs of gloves.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2055:

Happy commutaversity! Nine years ago today marks the last time I drove a motorized vehicle to work.

Woke up a couple of hours early due to weird dreams. Then I couldn't get comfortable mostly due to the effects of a Superbowl food-hangover. When I got out of bed I got partially dressed, and then sat down in my chair for a while. Once again the "fear" of heading out in the weather sucked a lot of the motivation from me. This is one of the benefits of having a long commuting streak, as on days like this it forces me to ride versus throwing in the towel and driving to work. Eventually I got my butt out of my chair and finished getting dressed.

The air temp this morning was 8°F with a -7°F headwind. We had gotten a couple inches of much-needed snow over the weekend, and are supposed to get a few more inches today, so I made the decision to ride the fat bike. The side streets were covered in packed snow, but the main roads and most of the MUP were pretty clear. If it snows like they said it will, I'll be glad I have the fat bike for the ride home.

I made it a little more than a mile from the house when I suddenly remember setting my pannier bag down in the garage while I checked the air in my tires. I reached back to feel for it and sure enough, it was still sitting back in the garage. It contained my work clothes and my laptop computer, so I couldn't just go without. I uttered some words of dismay, and then turned around to head back home. Unfortunately, I live on top of a very large hill which meant I got to do the slow climb to the top on the return trip.

Once I got to the client's office I had ridden about six miles. It took me right at an hour, which using the power of math works out to averaging 6 mph on the fat bike. Ugh, I'm fat and slow. The good news is I was drenched in sweat and wasn't cold at all in the single digit temps.

I took a picture to commemorate the day:

I have had some snow rides where I averaged around 6mph. It's till more than twice the speed of walking in deep, wet heavy snow.

I applaud your gumption, especially after having to turn around.

After last week's near disaster, I re-did the steering mast latch on the 16" folder, using hollow bolts rather than end caps. Then I skewered them with a bolt I had handy. The safety bolt loosened slightly once on the ride home, but the main bolts stayed secure. The ride in was fast, and the bike felt solid. Halfway on the ride home I started to bonk and was worried I was getting sick. I was fatigued all evening, but I did have a little more sugar than usual yesterday at work, plus my wife offered me a sweet pastry for dessert. This morning I'm feeling better as the morning progresses, but I'm gonna drive as I'm running late and don;t want to stress myself out riding in case I am fighting off a cold or flu or worse.

It's a kludge...but it's my kludge.