Has anyone used them? Suggestions? Alternatives? I'll be riding as low as zero degrees for about 90 minutes a ride. I like to know how easily you can shift frog legs inside them.
Cold Weather Bike Mitts
- Thread starter Serial Midget
- Start date
What's your budget?
Budget it's what ever keeps me warm, the ones I'm looking at are about $90 on ebay, they look bulky.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bar-Mitts-Extreme-Cold-Mountain-Commuter-Fat-Bike-Handlebar-Mittens-Black-/401002293017?hash=item5d5d996719
I use Endura Windchill gloves as liners. Get them big. I put OR outer gloves (covers) over them. Works almost to well.
Heated grips?
Wind.
I'm on the site, which gloves?
Answer has some good winter gloves (by accounts I've read) for something like $40. Buy I have no first hand experience with them. Curious to try a pair myself.
When I was living in the mountains, I used Pearl Izumi Storm gloves. They had a wind barrier built into the back and were pretty toasty. Not sure if they still make them though.
OK, thanks for the tips.
Not riding in the winters of MT leads to noodle legs for most of spring, I'm incapable of indoor excercise even though I have a nice trainer. The cold isn't bad as long as the winds are low.
Think my coldest ride was 11 degrees. Feet were borderline frostbitten even with proper winter shoes. The climb/descend sweat/windchill cycle just fucking sucked. With a more consistent effort and speed I find trail running to be more appropriate for really cold temperatures.
If you know how to do this, it's no big deal and you can ride for hours in the cold. The Pogies on the bars create their own micro-climate and all you need inside are light gloves/glove liners/ regular gloves. They are a revelation, because any time you try to ride with any other kind of glove, your hands end up sweating when you exert yourself, which ends up bad, especially if you have poor circulation like me. Recommend using them with carbon bars, that way less heat is transmitted. I don't care what I look like when I use the Pogies on my specialized AM bike when it's cold before we start getting precip (usually November and December are pretty dry), warm hands are worth it. Especially when you can wear normal riding gloves beneath.
In the picture it was high single digits or low teens, which isn't really very cold. A colder race I did dropped down to -19F or so in places. On that race I went with another upper layer and nearly froze my dick off, but with just some stretchy bike shorts under the XC ski pants, I would have been fine. Otherwise one lower layer works fine due to the heat you generate, the snow gaiters help lock a little more heat in too. Normal rides in the winter are usually in the 20s. Cold rides usually dip into the negatives a bit. Real cold (for me) gets to be around -20F, at that point I don't feel like I have the gear or fuel to sustain necessary body temp. I can usually sustain a lot colder temps with less gear during races, but there's always a "warm up period" where your body operating temperature has to increase and stabilize. Until that happens you can be a little chilly, but if you start a cold ride warm, you're going to overheat (and not be happy).
Lake 303s only work down to the high 20s or low 30s for me, however, the hotronics S4s I got will go for hours and significantly boost that ability, allowing me to go well into the negatives. Thing is though that SPDs are kind of a losing battle, you have to do to those extreme lengths to make them work IMO, even walking around REI a few days ago with my SPD boot while I was looking at some shoe-covers I noticed the cleat was cold to the touch in a normal heated store. That cleat connected to the pedal and crank is a heat sink and it just sucks the life out of you, especially because you don't flex your forefoot much during riding. Snow-boots or heavily insulated boots on flats are usually the ticket when it drops down that cold, especially if you don't want to go to the trouble of using the heated insoles, but that setup does work for me. Also things like putting antiperspirant on your feet before you put your socks on actually helps a bit.
Funny thing is, I remember a ride I did in Arizona, before I moved to Alaska, where it was about 5F in town, and surely below zero a bit in the mountains and canyons where I was riding. I turned back after 30 minutes. I tried having gloves on and wearing thick socks and all sorts of stuff, but I was miserable and felt like if I tried to stay out there I'd be in serious danger of real frostbite. Now, with the gear I have, balaclavas, pogies, xc ski pants, softshell jackets, snow gaiters, boots, it's no big deal and I look forward to the snow and cold rides, because you're totally comfortable riding in those temps and can do so for hours with the right gear. Should have invested in some of this a long time ago, wouldn't have had to "fight" the conditions on some rides.
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45NRTH Cobrafist pogies have served me well for hours at -12 F.
Maybe that has to do with the humidity or something, we have high humidity in addition to cold temps. Most around here can't stand the Lakes down into the teens and below, but my circulation is particularly bad, so I have to be even more careful. I find that riding for extended periods the toe-box gets extremely chilled by the wind constantly hitting it, coupled with little foot flex the boot can start to act as a sink in areas, rather than an insulator. They are decent boots, but if I were to design them I'd significantly increase the distance between the ball of the foot and the cleat (make the sole thicker), to reduce heat transmission from the mechanism. I believe that's the #1 way your heat is sucked out. Either that or some kind of resin cleat, but that doesn't seem to be possible.
Back on the subject of Pogies,
Dogwood Designs had the originals for fat-biking, they come in two flavors, regular and heavy. The heavy ones are for riding in Fairbanks and places like that, most of us in Anchorage don't use the heavy ones. They are all down filled and come in colors, plus reflective seams.
45 North has the Cobra Fists as mentioned above. Popular, but not as popular as the Dogwoods, since the Dogwoods are kind of the "home team" here. Might be the opposite in the upper midwest, where 45 North is headquartered. Heard of some issues with these and the ends of people's bars, but it's been a while and I'd imagine that's sorted.
Revelate also has some, being sold at REI. Have no idea how these work, but their frame-bags are high quality products, if not a little excessively expensive.
Generally, these all work by using cinchs built into to the pogies to seal off the shifter/brake levers and adjust the size of the opening where your arm goes through, to make a good seal, but not hang up. It's relatively easy to do. One thing to watch out for though is some brake/shifter combos can leave a pretty big gap that needs to be sealed off with something. Even if it's a square inch, it can introduce a lot of cold air when the temp is -10, so if the unlikely event your hands are still cold, look for gaps.
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You guys should all have a nice cup of man the fuck up and just go out and ride without looking like an eskimo in a snowstorm.
We will be cheering you on.
I'm going to risk the bar mitts, if they don't work out I'll throw them on the pile of stuff I should never have bought. I'll also try not to tip over.
this thread makes me glad i chose to live where i did
Zero degrees is tough. I have the specialized Sub Zeros. The older ones where the index finger is isolated and the other 3 are together. The new ones are 2 and 2, lobster style.
I've done some 4+hour road ride in them at 30 degrees, and my hands got cold to the point that it was hard to shift. Zero degrees is going to be tough... I'd be looking into some serious neoprene stuff for that level of cold.
I've done some 4+hour road ride in them at 30 degrees, and my hands got cold to the point that it was hard to shift. Zero degrees is going to be tough... I'd be looking into some serious neoprene stuff for that level of cold.
I have Pearl Iszumi Lobster Claws, which are similar. They work OK, but like other insulated gloves, collect sweat. Once you stop they freeze. Throw them away and get pogies.
Dog mushers, snow machine riders, they all use some form of the bar mitts, for good reason. Agree with throwing away heavy gloves, I've never been able to make em work by themselves in cold temps. You may fall and crash in the snow, but it won't be because of the bar mitts, they don't trap your hands or anything.
Chalk up another "here, here!" for Bar Mitts/Poagies/Whatever you want to call them. Big heavy gloves are a pain in the ass.
anyone have experience with answer sleestaks?