I’m making this entry one month after I did this last commute back into work.  Even though it has been a month, I remember it well. When I left the house it was COLD. It was 29 degrees F COLD. Fortunately, I have some pretty good cold-weather riding gear which made it more bearable. I layered both top and bottom (wore my double-shorts as has become my personal trademark), wore double gloves, a neck gaiter, a “turtle fur” cap under my helmet and booties over my shoes. The only part of me that got REALLY cold was my feet.

When it gets that cold, even riding along at 10-12 mph can be uncomfortable. I’m not sure how to calculate wind chill (I think I’ll go find a table and link it in to this blog!)  but I do know that the faster I went, the colder I got!  Add a desire to stay warm with the fact that cold muscles just don’t work as well as warm ones and you get a commute speed at least a couple miles per hour slower than was my norm this sumer. It took me a full 2.5 hours to get to work and another 10 minutes under a steaming hot show to thaw out!

I think I got to my desk at about 10:30am — which seemed like a nice time to show up although I felt like I was playing catch-up all day. If I’m going to get any more commutes in this year, I may have to use some vacation time because the days are still getting shorter and the mornings are getting COLDER!