Weather Out There

I got the Blaze 1-Watt Dynamo Light this week, and got to installing it last night. Wowza! Dynamo lighting is everything I imagined, and more! (Well, it’s pretty cool, anyway.) I had it on while riding in this morning, and definitely noticed the extra drag; once I switched the light off, I could feel a little boost going up the Longfellow Bridge.

I’m still waiting for more inspiration on my homemade light; now that I have a baseline light for comparison, it should be a little easier to push myself to finish it up. I think for iteration 1, I will just attach a 350 mA buckpuck (cheating, I know), and save stand lights and voltage doublers for another time. I may also rely on some tool help to get the mounting for the light all set up.

Weather and Clothing

The beautiful conditions this morning call for a “fair weather” tag on this post. It was definitely on the lower end temperature-wise, but I could have gone down to a spring jacket and been quite happy (with gloves). With a high of 54, the day today is undeniably good for biking.

Temperature: 41

Road Condition: Mostly dry, still wet on the Longfellow Bridge for some reason.

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, EVO gloves, Timberland shoes

Comfort: I didn’t zip the coat, and I was still pushing the upper limits of comfort. Tomorrow will call for some lighter clothing (and rain).

I’m back on my commuter bike, with only a back rack (the horror!), although I rarely load anything onto it aside from panniers. Last night I switched back to my 3-season tires and ditched the studs, which will have to wait a while to see some ice.

Today was another one like the rest: 43 degrees, sunny, dry. Now that I’m at work without my rain pants, I see the weather says “rain” today. It seems like it may stop by the ride home, but that trip may be messy nonetheless. I took it slow because, well, that’s how I felt.

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, wool gloves, Timberland shoes, messenger bag.

There’s an interesting phenomenon after championship games, such as we had yesterday: there’s much less traffic on the road. You may recall yesterday I observed light traffic, but attributed it to an earlier commute time; the trip home was also quite light. On the other hand, the drivers last night were just plain awful. At Charles Circle (by the MGH T Stop), a biker in front of me got yelled at by illegal cross traffic. I had the satisfaction of yelling at him (the driver). Plenty of dangerous cutting off to urgently park in the bike lane was observed. For what it’s worth, back at my usual (tardy) commute time, today had lighter traffic as well.

The more I blog, the more I wish I had a camera on my bike so I could liven up this site. However, I’m also very lazy, and probably wouldn’t use it…

I knew it was dreary outside when I left, but within five minutes it was an outright downpour. As I was waiting at a light (with three cyclists behind me, mind you), the next person in line says to me, “If I had known it would be like this, I would have taken the bus.” I scanned over his bike, a mountain frame with wide tires, and noted, “No fenders, huh?”

I first understood the need for fenders in wetter weather than this. It was fall and I had ridden to my dad’s house without sight of rain, and only a light fall coat for protection. On the trip home (late, perhaps midnight), the rain was just straight downpour; the bike sent a gritty spray of sand up my back and also into my face. The bearings in the chain received a very heavy sludge that slowed my riding despite my desire to get home as soon as possible. I later found sand inside my pants.

Needless to say, I bought fenders the next week and have never regretted it for a second. Only much later, in a different heavy downpour I was compelled to ride through did I learn the value of proper rain attire, but that’s a story for another time.

Today’s ride went quickly because it was engaging: 43 degrees and water cooling on my face kept my body temperature down while I steered around relatively heavy traffic.

Clothing: Same as yesterday, heavy winter coat, wool gloves, rain pants, waterproof shoes. I got some water running down my socks, and that annoying “is everything inside my coat wet?” feeling, but it wasn’t. I did wish I had a hood today, though. I was so drenched my coworker thought I looked like a character from a horror movie.

I should announce in advance any time I have to wear a suit to work: it is highly correlated with weird weather. Often it’s a heavy storm or cold snap, but today it appears to be freakishly warm (46 degrees this morning).

Technically, wearing a suit is no different from wearing other clothing. However, for me it adds a few complications: the jacket (what to do with it, as it’s long and sticks out of coats), cleanliness (you don’t want to get grit or slush on that bad boy), and the shoes (I usually leave my shoes at my desk). If this were most any other season, I might consider just wearing everything. Since this is the Dirty Season (winter to the lay person), I wear my rain pants, any coat, my normal bike-to-work shoes, and pack the jacket and shoes in panniers.

Clothing: Rain jacket, rain pants, waterproof shoes. No gloves.

I got a little warm riding in despite the light clothing. The key is airflow. I already had the tie knotted, and the shirt tucked in; the rain clothes add extra constriction. However, the biggest factor that kept me from getting actually sweaty was the bag. Any kind of bag on your body (whether two strap backpack or a messenger bag) will effectively increase the temperature by at least 10 degrees. The reason is airflow, for two reasons. The first is that there’s no air whatsoever under the straps: your body tries to remove heat, and so it sweats and nothing can escape. This ends up soaking your clothing in weird patches. Second, the straps obstruct any air from circulating between your skin and the openings in your clothing (around your neck, arms, and maybe lower back), which raises your overall temperature. If I want to arrive someplace presentable, I go for panniers.

Since I’m recommending them, I’ll go ahead and say that most any pannier will work. I have Axiom Typhoon LX panniers because that’s what the store had when I urgently needed a bigger bag the night before leaving on a touring trip. (It turns out the saying is true that you will fill whatever size bag you have, however.) They’re dry bag style, totally waterproof, and a giant sack. That’s not ideal because whatever you need is inevitably on the bottom of the sack, however the waterproof property and tough material makes these a good buy.

Given the unseasonably warm weather in Massachusetts, I managed to persuade my fiance to go on an overnight bike tour around the Quabbin Reservoir spanning New Years. We followed the Seven Hills Wheelman King’s Tour of the Quabbin starting and ending in Barre, and staying in Amherst. (We made a wrong turn right at the beginning and added a few miles that way, and then darkness fell while we were still in Belchertown, and we took a cab to the Amherst Inn, where we had an awesome stay.) The trip was awesome, and I’d love to do more all-weather touring.

The weather on the first day was around 40, very hazy and damp, but the rain had stopped by the time we started (around noon – is it a wonder we ran out of sunlight?). I basically wore my normal commuter outfit in those conditions — breathable shell, sweater, one short sleeve wicking shirt, one long sleeved shirt, wool gloves, jeans, long johns, two pairs of wool socks, timberland shoes. I wore the same combination the second day, minus one shirt (it was around 50 that day). My feet still got cold after four hours in the cold, but everything else was very comfortable. I packed extra layers for when we were off the bike.

My fiance had a similar setup, although she tends to run colder, so she had one some extra layers on top. She had less on her feet — one pair of socks and canvas shoes — and even on the second, warmer day, she described her feet after a couple hours as “blocks of ice”.

Today was cool but not cold, about 40 degrees, lots of water on the pavement but no rain. My prediction that the wet, cold, windy storm from yesterday scared away all the bikers for the season has one data point of support.

Clothing: Same as yesterday, no fleece. Perfect temperature, not a cold or warm moment. Kind of like riding in a bubble.

Equipment: Same as yesterday, rode the studded commuter bike. The unused studs put me in the odd position of hoping to see ice so I can poke it in the eye.

Weird observation: the wider, treaded tire throws up less water (or am I going slower?) than the road tires I normally ride. Further investigation is warranted.