Today was the first commute with snow on the ground. I had looked at the forecast over the weekend, and so I put the snows on last night.
The big black things on the bars are Moose Mitts, which are AFAIK the only pogies compatible with drop bars. First time riding with them, and they seem to work very well. This way, I can stick with thinner gloves for as long as possible.
It wasn’t very cold today, only -5 Celsius, and not too windy. The roads were mostly clear. It was peaceful riding in, with the sound of the studded tires alternating between silent gliding on packed snow and a reassuring cat claw scrabble sound on bare pavement.
My commute is not very long (about 30 min, slightly longer in the winter), and so I don’t have time to get seriously cold.
My medium cold outfit consists of:
- rain boots(Tretorn Strala Vinter) with wool socks (Woolie Boolie)
- Outlier Climber pants
- a wool jersey and thin pile vest topped with the Endura Luminite Jacket
- helmet with earflaps and a wool balaclava
A few words about the pants. They are made from a Schoeller fabric that is both wind and water resistant, and I find that they are good down to at least -10C. They are not cheap, but I guess a good chuck of this is the Swiss fabric. I have another pair of pants of the same fabric from MEC that are sewn in the far east, and are not as nice, and they are still $165. If you are tempted to get a pair of Outliers, bear in mind that the Climbers are cut quite slim. I have a pair of their 4season OG pants as well, and they are cut a little more generously, but I don’t wear them as much because I made the mistake of getting a khaki colour. Firstly, despite the nanosphere treatment, the pants can get grease stained. Secondly, no matter how they look when they are lovingly photographed, in reality when they are not black, they have a bit of the polyester pant suit vibe to them (according to the wife). Stick with black to be safe.
and since black is not the most visible colour, I had some reflective material sewn on the inside of the cuffs that I can turn up at night. In the end, something like these pants, but the outliers are really good for all year round, and anything short of a blizzard or a rain storm.
Studded tires came out this week too, i have MEC pogies on a flat bar… i can’t bring myself to ride the nice drop-bar bicycle in the salt so not too worried about moose mitts!