One Cold-Arse Ride!

These pics are from a Sunday Afternoon "Crazy Bastards West" ride out in Allegan Woods. That's Jasker in disguise on the upper left, CD, Me, Surly, JJ and Berger on the upper right and one of my infamous self-portraits to the left doin' the "Beard-sicle".
















Last Thursday Night I went to GR for the Crazy Bastard Ride that I try and do every week. (www.cbcross.com - but be forewarned of the chance of encountering adult language and rampant outbreaks of surliness and attitude!) The weatherman was callin' for temps in the 'teens so I was anticipating a small-ish turn-out.

Not.

As it turns out, 'tis weather that most folks would pass on riding in that pushes the CB buttons....Im shoulda known. I joined 10-11 other riders for a 2+ hour jaunt on the frozen dirt roads out along the eastern edge of Grand Rapids. We had a blast, there was a minimum of whimpering and whining and the post-ride chili @ The Honey Creek Inn went down oh-so-fine!
I was thinking that there might be some small level of interest in me goin' through the gear I employed ot stay warm @ 15 degrees..........for those of you that don't currently ride this time o' year but are intrigued by the idea.......so here's what was and wasn't workin' for me on this particular ride:
On my head I had a fairly thin lycra-fleece balaclava, IE one of those "hood things" that go under your chin and cover the lower part of your face. Not the thing ot be wearing if you stop @ a 7-11 perhaps but a must in temps below 32 or so. Some of my riding buds were wearing fleece neck muffs or some such thing, but my head was fine. A little more coverage wouldn't have hurt....I was a tad worried about a coupla dead spots on my cheekbones, but they came back okay.
On my upper body I was able to go fairly light....a sleeveless baselayer under a wool long sleeve and then my Pearl Izumi Vento jacket, since discontinued. A pity too, 'cuz that dude is way warm! This set-up was perfect, I even unzipped a bit once in awhile to cool off a bit.
I had Pearl Amfib bibs over knickers on the bottom half. First time I've done that and it might've been just a tiny little bit overkill. Kinda bulky........but warm!
I had Smartwool liner gloves under my Pearl Amfib gloves.......my fingers were numb 'til I warmed up then they were great. So great in fact that I gave the liners to Gid 'cuz his hands were not comin' back 80 minutes into the ride. Then my fingers got cold again, of course, but I made it back.
My feet were the only part of me that was uncomfortable for the whole ride.....I was tryin those disposable insole heaters but I was still hurtin' pretty much the whole ride despite the wool socks and booties. I'd say over half the dudes I ride with in the winter have some kind of insulated winter riding shoes and I might hafta try 'em. ( Actually I ordered some over-the-top Sidi rechargeable insoles.......I'll let'cha know how they work!)
So...that was the set-up. Worked pretty dang good when you think about being out in 15-ish degree weather @ 15 mph or so for 2+ hours. Still tryin' stuff, but I think I'm gettin' it down pretty good. My friends Dan and Danielle go out for much longer rides that that and they do okay too, so it ain't that hard!

Lots of other stuff goin' on, of course. The indoor rides have been rocking, we've been throwing in Sunday rides in addition to the scheduled ones on Wed and Sat and that's a special little slice of Hell to be sure! Join us here @ 8:00 on Wed night or Sat morning and we'll also be here @ 1:30 on Sunday this week.

The next 'Fun-Raiser" is 2/11.....it's the 2nd ever Soup Ride! 2:00 here for a road ride, then soup and beer and such. How could that be a bad thing?

Hard to believe that it's nearly Feb already! Damn...talkin' about how time flies is so cliche' but it's so hard to avoid! At this rate we'll be knee-deep in the season before we know it! And there's so much to do!

Ted's building up a sweet Gunnar Sport right now......I just glanced over to take a peek at it. It's a bee-yoo-ti-ful silver to blue fade, Rolf wheels, Ultegra compact........damn nice bike. They do good wirk over there in Waterford Wis and I'm glad we're hooked up w/ those folks.......even if it is hard to get off the phone when Richard calls!

Okay.....if I'm reduced to talkin' inside-industry gossip it's time to go! Talk at'cha again soon.