Yes,yes,yes – cold weather. Winter riding success depends on careful preparation, lots of layers and a sense of adventure. While it isn’t that great of a challenge to ride in the winter in New York City I remember the days when I would ride to work in snowy St. Paul, MN fishtailing through the snow – a fantastic work-out that relied heavily on balance, coordination and keeping the core engaged and let me arrive to work with a fresh-faced healthy glow.
Being a firm believer in making bike riding a regular and normal part of one’s life I wear my normal clothes but add some extra layers to the ensemble. Today’s forecast is clear and cold! The ensemble today will be quite ordinary. The addition of a base layer is the critical difference.
Base layer:
Top: long sleeve silk long underwear top As a side note: I can’t recommend highly enough the merino wool tops by Icebreaker and Smartwool. Thank you to both companies for recognizing that women need some fine wooly warmth and have adjusted the cut and fit for women. I had an Icebreaker that I wore almost constantly in the cooler months when I lived in colder places (namely Wisconsin) but it was lost when I lived in Beijing and I haven’t been cold enough yet to replace it.
Bottom: thick tights on the bottom with knee high wool blend socks over that.
Top layer:
Top: long sleeve knit t-shirt and long sleeve wool zip up cardigan
Bottom: jeans and Dansko clogs; they have roomy toes for good circulation.
Outer layer:
3/4 length wool coat, wide wool scarf, knit hat (under the helmet) and polar fleece gloves. I prefer gloves to mittens for maximum dexterity .
Skincare: Since my face is exposed to the wind I am busting out the serious moisturizer: Weleda’s Everon Face Balm; it is THICK and so lovely with sweet almond oil and beeswax and perfectly protects my face in extreme weather conditions.
Now I am ready to dash off about my day.
