One can never have enough socks

In the name of Science, I went for a mountain bike ride today in odd socks to see if they made any difference. To cut a long story short: no, not really. I went for a reasonably lightweight merino sock on one foot, and a standard cotton sports sock on the other.

The things I do for my readers.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) it wasn't really cold enough for a proper test, and both feet survived the ride without major discomfort.It was also one of my slower, shorter rides, so not too much opportunity to get them soaked in sweat either. In hindsight it would have been interesting to paddle in a stream mid-ride to see what happened, but somehow that idea didn't occur to me until too late. Oh well. Maybe next time.

I went this time with my partner, so we were at least in a very unscientific way able to compare how our clothes worked for us. In both cases, the coldest bits were our hands - nothing groundbreaking there. Other than that we were both perfectly comfortable for the majority of the ride - me in one mid-weight wool layer and a light jacket and her in three layers, two made of cotton, under an insulated jacket. The main difference was what happened after we stopped for a snack on the way back. I carried on feeling fine but she reported feeling pretty cold on the downhill parts of the way home. Perhaps there is some truth to what you can learn about "technical" clothes on the internet.

The cows don't seem bothered by the cold - maybe hooves are the answer.

It was overall a very pleasant ride, and proof that you don't need to break any records, or arrive home totally exhausted to have a good time. I also saw a couple of promising looking drops and gaps that I will hopefully make it back to at some point.

Another tempting and not too impossible-looking tree balance.

I've ridden past a lot of fallen trees crossing streams in the past few months - they seem to be quite common around here. At some point I'd like to have a go at riding over one of them but that's probably something that's better for a warmer day when tyres are a bit grippier and the thought of a long limp  home with wet feet and a twisted ankle isn't quite so horrifying.

I feel it in my fingers

 

Today was another chilly one, and I had a second go at testing my minimal cold weather outfit - just a synthetic baselayer under a thin windproof jacket. This time the plan worked perfectly. As soon as I got outside I was slightly uncomfortable, and could feel cold leaking in (or heat out, whatever..) in my hands and also through the front of my jacket. But then the magic happened - a few minutes of pedalling later and I was toasty warm apart from my fingers. Even they warmed up once I got to the woods and started going uphill.

Proof!

The only bit of me that was cold for the second half of the ride was my feet. They actually got worse every time I got off the bike, so it must be that they lose heat quickly through the ground when it is so frosty underfoot. Next time out I'll experiment with some different socks and see how that goes.

The first section of one of my favourite trails.

The ride itself was good! I recently went on a ride with a friend and went through part of the wood that I didn't know already, so today I wanted to go back and explore that area a bit. I got a bit lost getting there but found some nice trails on the way and made it in the end. After that I headed over to my favourite area and did a few laps of the "normal" trails. The conditions were pretty good for going fast! The ground was frozen enough to firm up some of the softer corners, but not icy enough to be slippery or scary, and according to Strava I had a couple of personal bests on some downhill sections. I also made it down one of the scariest bits of trail I've found so far without stopping or dabbing for the first time, so a double success. I like to try to find one new interesting thing, or do one thing I haven't done before on every ride, and today I managed both.

One day I'm going to ride over one of these. Maybe in the summer.