Have you ever seen snow before? In case you haven’t, here are some pictures.
How do you keep your feet warm during winter cycling? In this video, I will compare regular socks with the Pactimo wool winter socks and Rapha winter socks, as well as discussing what else I do to keep my feet warm when the temperature gets down towards zero.
In this video, I will review the Spatz Roadman overshoes.
I dislike cycling in winter because my feet get wet. And when my feet get wet, I become miserable. There is a solution: overshoes. Waterproof covers that go over your cycling shoes to keep your feet warm and dry.
Unfortunately, most overshoes fail to do this. They have two problems. The first is that they are not made tough enough to survive going outside in them and thus get holes in the bottom. The second is that your socks and leggings get wet and the water soaks down to your feet.
Spatz tries to solve this by making them knee-high. This completely covers your socks. The Roadman has the additional benefit of 4.5mm neoprene to keep your feet warm and reflective strips so that cars can see you when commuting in the dark.
I do not commute every day but I do get some long rides in over the winter weekends. Results are mostly good. They keep my feet warmer than regular overshoes. Below 5 degrees Celcius my feet still get cold after two hours but it beats what I was getting before. They also keep me dry. After half a dozen rides, they have developed holes in the bottom of the toe box, though.
To put them on, you need to put them on before your shoes, then put your shoes on and pull the overshoes down. I demonstrate that in the video. Spatz says you can wear them over or under your leggings. I recommend putting them under your leggings as that stops the water soaking down.
It may only be February (March by the time you read this), but my mint plant has already re-grown it’s leaves. I’m impressed. My chilli plants still look half dead and probably will do for months. Everything else looks totally dead. However, the mint plant is battling back, even against the still-present overnight frosts.
I am also surprised that my parsley plant, which lives in a plastic greenhouse on my balcony, has survived the winter and continued to provide parsley leaves throughout it.
Do you have any old gloves lying around in the back of your cupboard? If so, we would really appreciate it if you would be willing to donate them to the Humanist Action Group. Here’s why…
Earlier this evening, we were out on a HAG homeless run. Discussing it beforehand, myself and Katie agreed that given how bitterly cold it was outside, we hoped we wouldn’t find anyone at all out on the streets tonight.
Unfortunately, we were wrong. Dead wrong. We found loads of people. We found so many people that we first ran out of food and had to go fetch some more, then we ran out of coffee and had to go back and brew another batch up!
By this point we had been out for hours and we were metaphorically frozen to the bone. So I can only imagine how those who had been out there all night felt.
In fact, you didn’t even need to imagine – you could see their hand physically shaking as you handed them something.
No wonder, given many of them didn’t even have gloves. This isn’t the first time we have come across this problem – I’ve seen it a few times before. Yet, it seems a problem we can easily solve.
I mean, so many of us have two many pairs of gloves. Given that one is all you really need. Maybe two at a stretch – I have my touch screen compatible gloves and my “it’s really, really cold” gloves. But why do I have a third pair? There is no reason; I just never threw them out.
There must be more than me in this situation. A pair of old but otherwise perfectly in tact pair of gloves sitting at the back of the cupboard that you don’t wear any more. If so, we would love it if you would be willing to donate them, so that we can hand them out during HAG homeless work!
So, if you get chance, please check the backs of your cupboards. It won’t cost you anything and makes a world of difference to people who are out in the bitter winter’s night. Any donations will be gladly collected by Katie, myself or any of the CWF trustees. You can even post them to us – and if you want, we’ll even refund the postage to you. Get in touch for more details.
Thanks for your support!
Chris
Is it really too much to ask to not have to wake up in a mini-ice age every morning?
It’s ridiculous, it’s really not that far fetched to expect our heating to work as it’s scheduled to. Or maybe it just turns on but doesn’t bother to heat anything? Either way I’m pretty sure the situation could be made better by repeatedly smashing the little control box.
It’s not like it’s ever warm in our house at the moment, I’d forgotten how cold it really gets, I mean, surely it was this cold last year? Maybe I just don’t remember it but I can’t remember it being this cold for such a consistent period and it’s only December at the moment, we have another two months of winter to look forward to.