brave soul you are. So hard not to sweat. I also tend to wear ski goggles and battery heated gloves. I love coffee rides, but when its this cold, I find anything thats sweaty/wet gets pretty cold putting back on for the ride home. Brrrr.
So true. Aside from the backpack making a sweat spot, I was able to stay dry on this ride. Avoiding breaks helped a lot. Just lunch under a heat lamp haha.
I enjoyed that thanks. Id be interested in a video talking about planning for ice and or wet slippery conditions. What weather forecast will put you on notice to expect problems, what you do differently to prep, what you do differently on the ride. If you ride. Thanks
Thanks for the ideas! I'm pretty cautious about avoiding slippery roads in winter. One nasty fall and it could be the end of the season. When I lived in Canada I would often commute on a fat bike and still slipped around on icy patches often. Of the places I've lived, the road maintenance practices seem to have as big an impact as climate for decision making in winter riding.
Mesh base layers for winter has made a big difference for me. Much easier to stay dry on harder efforts, and thus not be chilled nearly as much when stopping or going downhill. Brynje is the only brand I've tried so far, but want to check out some others.
It only held for a short while haha. Hard to adjust once it gets out of place too. Packing the red hat for later and wearing my balaclava would have been a better choice.
Hey Russ, it's pretty manageable. Gridlock in cities and nobody on rural roads. There is a heavy bias towards living in cities, and largely in apartment style homes. Going through a small city sometimes feels like the movie Premium Rush. The North American style suburbs largely don't exist, so there can be small farm plots next door to a 30 story high rise. Recent road developments largely focus on connecting these urban areas with highways, so the old routes on smaller roads see little traffic and make for great cycling. Routes sometimes require riding on 'stroads' which are the worst.
I might have missed it, but did you have a water bladder in the backpack, or was it strictly a storage solution? Anything on the back just doesn't work for me, but I've thought about trying a hip pack water bladder, if that's even a thing. Also, I was caught off guard and chortled at 7:45 and 11:09. Great vid!
Haha thanks. Backpack was for storing clothes when it warmed up plus it carried spare socks and lighter weight gloves for afternoon. I disliked the backpack immensely. I'll stick with frame mounted storage and whatever fits in my pockets.
Awesome video! Every time I see the pictures of the Korean countryside it's soooo similar to what we have here in Japan. It looks amazing. And Omuraisu too! :-) Quick question. Where did you stash the syrup bottle. That's always my dilemma when I want 2 water bottles *and* a syrup bottle. Jersey pocket?
Thanks! Omurice is perhaps my favorite lunch on long rides. I use the Back Bottle for syrup and put it in my jersey pocket. I've tried a small normal bottle and a collapsible sports flask and prefer the Back Bottle form factor. I have a few more 3rd bottle options to try on an upcoming bike build too.
Hope your bottles don’t freeze? Mine froze solid, twice over, during the Moonrakers & Sunseekers 300km in the UK in 2023. There are insulated stainless steel bidons you can get that should be immune to this, now purchased. Also good for tea/coffee/hot chocolate. Freezing bottles is a huge problem of all your nutrition is in them too - having extra bars is vital.
Warm water in the insulated Podiums. Minor slush, but not fully frozen. The restaurant had hot water to refill with too. My syrup bottle was in my jersey pocket, so it stayed unfrozen.
Solid tips, excellent insight! 💪 Staying dry is so important in subzero temperatures, condensating sweat is no joke when it's freezing out there! BTW what is the 5,5% referring to printed on the Korean jelly bar wrap?
Do you look at (or have a good way of estimating) the 'feels like' temperature? Mist, wind and sunlight (or lack thereof) can make a huge difference to what a given temp feels like.
For sure. Usually WBGT is used to measure total heat stress, and wind chill temperature is used to measure cold stress. Wind chill misses on the impact of damp air's effect on cold stress though. When cycling its always important to add 20-30kph net wind speed to the windchill temperature. In my mind, when I think of cycling in -4* temps, it naturally translates to the feeling of -4* in cycling speed wind. Trial and error in difficult temps can guide clothing choices.
@overbikedrandonneuring Yes, I've been caught out by hitting fog/mist on cold days. And always try to make first part of route climbing if possible. Nothing worse than starting out in the cold and dark to a long descent!
No issues so far. I had to use it to pump a tire when filming my cold weather tips video a few weeks ago. However putting it in my jersey pocket during cold weather would be a wise choice. I'll do that from now on, thanks!
Polygon Strattos S7D for the past few years. Good value. The newer versions have more sensible component spec than when I bought mine too. There are some videos my channel about it if you wanna check those out.
Thank you for your video, as always. I have been resisting getting an electronic pump, because I feel like even if failure rates of these are now a lot less, my regular mini pump has almost no failure rate and has been pretty reliable. Do you have pump anxiety? Maybe if I carried an extra power bank it would eliminate that issue?
That's fair for sure. I'm never really worried about the battery since it can charge easily with a battery pack I carry for rides of 300k or more. Even a few of my headlights act as a power bank. My only concern is total unit failure, like a wire coming unattached or motor failure. It's not happened yet, but who knows. It's a mindful tradeoff for quick and easy pumping. But I've also had a hand pump mounted on a bottle cage pump mount rattle loose and lose critical parts. Another poor pump had multiple accidents falling from it's mount at rather high speeds. It lost non-critical parts, haha. I may pick up an ultralight carbon pump like NANA or iPump as a backup if my trust erodes too much.
I have a hard time in the cold with the massive amounts of snot I produce. It really takes a lot of the joy out of cycling, no matter how light the effort. How do you avoid that, especially given that it doesn't look like you're cycling with a mask/balaclava?
I used to be bothered by that and used a 3M painting respirator for trapping moist air and filtering pollution that is common here in winter. I also commonly use a balaclava with face covering, but those just get wet after a short time. Since about 2005 I have been intrigued by heat exchanger masks but never got around to buying one. They might help with hydration. Here is a good article on those masks: www.coldbike.com/2019/02/13/heat-exchanger-masks-a-love-story/
Are you a Celsius or Fahrenheit enjoyer? If there is a - in front of the number, I try to stick to Celsius.
definitely Celsius fan 😁
celsius
I like celcius but not when the felt temperature is -24 like this morning. 😂
@@JohnnyRabbitQC 🥶🥶🥶
Fahrenheit is all I know here in America
''Dam!!!'' 😂
brave soul you are. So hard not to sweat. I also tend to wear ski goggles and battery heated gloves. I love coffee rides, but when its this cold, I find anything thats sweaty/wet gets pretty cold putting back on for the ride home. Brrrr.
So true. Aside from the backpack making a sweat spot, I was able to stay dry on this ride. Avoiding breaks helped a lot. Just lunch under a heat lamp haha.
Great work. Your a tough cookie. I'll wait till the weather improves. Had a couple of miserable rides this month, couldn't get my body temperature up
Nice ride! 🎉
I enjoyed that thanks. Id be interested in a video talking about planning for ice and or wet slippery conditions. What weather forecast will put you on notice to expect problems, what you do differently to prep, what you do differently on the ride. If you ride. Thanks
Thanks for the ideas! I'm pretty cautious about avoiding slippery roads in winter. One nasty fall and it could be the end of the season. When I lived in Canada I would often commute on a fat bike and still slipped around on icy patches often. Of the places I've lived, the road maintenance practices seem to have as big an impact as climate for decision making in winter riding.
Mesh base layers for winter has made a big difference for me. Much easier to stay dry on harder efforts, and thus not be chilled nearly as much when stopping or going downhill. Brynje is the only brand I've tried so far, but want to check out some others.
04:52 It's be interesting to see how you form that headgear? Looks like good covering that'll stay-put.
It only held for a short while haha. Hard to adjust once it gets out of place too. Packing the red hat for later and wearing my balaclava would have been a better choice.
👍👍👍👍👍
How's the traffic there?
Hey Russ, it's pretty manageable. Gridlock in cities and nobody on rural roads. There is a heavy bias towards living in cities, and largely in apartment style homes. Going through a small city sometimes feels like the movie Premium Rush. The North American style suburbs largely don't exist, so there can be small farm plots next door to a 30 story high rise. Recent road developments largely focus on connecting these urban areas with highways, so the old routes on smaller roads see little traffic and make for great cycling. Routes sometimes require riding on 'stroads' which are the worst.
I might have missed it, but did you have a water bladder in the backpack, or was it strictly a storage solution? Anything on the back just doesn't work for me, but I've thought about trying a hip pack water bladder, if that's even a thing.
Also, I was caught off guard and chortled at 7:45 and 11:09. Great vid!
Haha thanks. Backpack was for storing clothes when it warmed up plus it carried spare socks and lighter weight gloves for afternoon. I disliked the backpack immensely. I'll stick with frame mounted storage and whatever fits in my pockets.
Awesome video! Every time I see the pictures of the Korean countryside it's soooo similar to what we have here in Japan. It looks amazing. And Omuraisu too! :-) Quick question. Where did you stash the syrup bottle. That's always my dilemma when I want 2 water bottles *and* a syrup bottle. Jersey pocket?
Thanks! Omurice is perhaps my favorite lunch on long rides. I use the Back Bottle for syrup and put it in my jersey pocket. I've tried a small normal bottle and a collapsible sports flask and prefer the Back Bottle form factor. I have a few more 3rd bottle options to try on an upcoming bike build too.
Hope your bottles don’t freeze? Mine froze solid, twice over, during the Moonrakers & Sunseekers 300km in the UK in 2023. There are insulated stainless steel bidons you can get that should be immune to this, now purchased. Also good for tea/coffee/hot chocolate.
Freezing bottles is a huge problem of all your nutrition is in them too - having extra bars is vital.
Warm water in the insulated Podiums. Minor slush, but not fully frozen. The restaurant had hot water to refill with too. My syrup bottle was in my jersey pocket, so it stayed unfrozen.
Solid tips, excellent insight! 💪 Staying dry is so important in subzero temperatures, condensating sweat is no joke when it's freezing out there!
BTW what is the 5,5% referring to printed on the Korean jelly bar wrap?
Thanks! The bar contains 5.5% Mugwort. Kind of a trendy health food ingredient these days. I do prefer chestnut or red bean haha.
Do you look at (or have a good way of estimating) the 'feels like' temperature? Mist, wind and sunlight (or lack thereof) can make a huge difference to what a given temp feels like.
For sure. Usually WBGT is used to measure total heat stress, and wind chill temperature is used to measure cold stress. Wind chill misses on the impact of damp air's effect on cold stress though. When cycling its always important to add 20-30kph net wind speed to the windchill temperature. In my mind, when I think of cycling in -4* temps, it naturally translates to the feeling of -4* in cycling speed wind. Trial and error in difficult temps can guide clothing choices.
@overbikedrandonneuring Yes, I've been caught out by hitting fog/mist on cold days. And always try to make first part of route climbing if possible. Nothing worse than starting out in the cold and dark to a long descent!
Does the cold not drain yr pump’s battery?
No issues so far. I had to use it to pump a tire when filming my cold weather tips video a few weeks ago. However putting it in my jersey pocket during cold weather would be a wise choice. I'll do that from now on, thanks!
11:06
What bike are you riding
Polygon Strattos S7D for the past few years. Good value. The newer versions have more sensible component spec than when I bought mine too. There are some videos my channel about it if you wanna check those out.
Thank you for your video, as always. I have been resisting getting an electronic pump, because I feel like even if failure rates of these are now a lot less, my regular mini pump has almost no failure rate and has been pretty reliable. Do you have pump anxiety? Maybe if I carried an extra power bank it would eliminate that issue?
That's fair for sure. I'm never really worried about the battery since it can charge easily with a battery pack I carry for rides of 300k or more. Even a few of my headlights act as a power bank. My only concern is total unit failure, like a wire coming unattached or motor failure. It's not happened yet, but who knows. It's a mindful tradeoff for quick and easy pumping. But I've also had a hand pump mounted on a bottle cage pump mount rattle loose and lose critical parts. Another poor pump had multiple accidents falling from it's mount at rather high speeds. It lost non-critical parts, haha. I may pick up an ultralight carbon pump like NANA or iPump as a backup if my trust erodes too much.
I have a hard time in the cold with the massive amounts of snot I produce. It really takes a lot of the joy out of cycling, no matter how light the effort. How do you avoid that, especially given that it doesn't look like you're cycling with a mask/balaclava?
I used to be bothered by that and used a 3M painting respirator for trapping moist air and filtering pollution that is common here in winter. I also commonly use a balaclava with face covering, but those just get wet after a short time. Since about 2005 I have been intrigued by heat exchanger masks but never got around to buying one. They might help with hydration. Here is a good article on those masks: www.coldbike.com/2019/02/13/heat-exchanger-masks-a-love-story/