Marcello has organized two first-of-the-season rides in Oregon. The weather looked good for the first of these - clear and cold with no precipitation in sight. I 'needed' a ride for January to make progress on my R-12 attempt. The route was nice. An out-and-back from Hillsboro to Dallas, OR. So, I made the attempt. Finished the ride fine. But, the temperatures were colder than I normally ride.
So, here's what I wore. It worked. Starting at the top:
- Helmet cover - water proof - but I wore if for the wind protection and an extra layer up top. Had to take it off once it got dark - so I could use the headlamp that attaches to the helmet.
- Head-sweat - I wear this year-round for bicycling
- Head band to cover the ears
- REI brand base-layer t-shirt. Long sleeve. It comes up and covers most of my neck - and seems to do a good job of wicking and keeping me warm.
- Oregon Randonneurs wool long sleeve jersey. It's the red one.
- For 2/3 of the ride I wore a standard issue yellow cycling wind breaker. Took it off at the half-way point as I was breaking a sweat, it was the warmest part of the day, and I wanted to dry out before we lost the daylight.
- Standard issue cycle shorts
- Knee warmers
- A very old, garish, pair of tights from Primal Wear. They do a good job of blocking wind, and the keep the knee warmers in place - but have limited insulation. The combination of these w/ the knee warmers is good starting at around 50F.
- Liner socks (from hiking)
- Wool socks - for cross country skiing. They came up to the bottom of the knee - adding some insulation below the knee warmers and perhaps adding some compression on the muscles below the knee.
- Standard issue cycling shoes (mountain bike)
- Gore shoe covers. These were pricey; but, they have been worth it - a significant upgrade in warmth and dryness over the previous.
Finally:
I used two sets of gloves during the ride. On the 'out' part of the ride, I used an old set of dense-fleece ski gloves (a nice gift about a decade ago from one of my brothers). They were a little soggy from sweat at the half-way mark, so I switched them out for a wool combination: smart-wool liner gloves inside REI's nubby-palmed wool gloves. These worked fine, and might have worked the entire ride.
The above kept me warm enough. If it had been raining, that wouldn't have worked. I would have switched to a water-proof outer layer and lightened up on the other clothing.
Now - for the ride part. It was good-to-great. Here are the heart-rate traces that go with the exertions:
Out: Hillsboro-Dayton-Dallas, with a stop in Dayton at a very nicely ran convenience store. Worked hard the whole way. We tended to have a tail-wind - my ride time for this leg was about 4:30.
Back: I stopped to have hot chocolate and chat with Marcello. Then another stop in Dayton. The tail-wind was now a head-wind. The exertion falls off at the end as I'm winding through the neighborhoods and focused on navigation, as opposed to just pedaling hard.
The complete set of pictures, such as they are, are available here.
Finally finally: for food I had some simple sandwiches made from Safeway's finest cheap French rolls. Some had cheese and some had salami. I also had a cashew/raisin mix from home, and 2 Lara bars. Two bottles of Heed - went with Coffee (from the excellent convenience store in Dayton), hot chocolate, and NUUN-in-water. Also - Marcello had supplies on the road. I had 6 cookies. No food issues. The cashews worked, again. Had them towards the end of the ride.
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