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.

 

Baby it's cold outside

I've been for a couple of rides this week and, unsurprisingly, it's starting to get a bit colder. That has some positives and negatives! You obviously need to dress a bit warmer and be more careful about riding in remote places, but I also find  the trails are less crowded and often more beautiful, and I need to carry much less water!

Plenty of frost around as I arrived at the first off-road section at 11:30

My first ride of the week ended up being quite a long one for me. The forecast was for 1 - 3ºC, and as it was my first cold-ish ride of the year I played it safe with the clothing. That means wearing a pertex / pile smock / jacket thing and packing an extra base layer in my small rucksack, just in case. That was definitely not needed though - I was cosy from the start and ended up with all the vents on the jacket fully open and still being towards the warm end of comfortable for most of the ride.

Still plenty of ice around right into the mid-afternoon

I wanted to explore some trails I'd seen on trailforks which were a bit further away from home than usual. I planned a route with plenty of opportunities to shorten or lengthen it depending on how I was feeling, and in the end ended up taking all the extra bits. That was completely fine until it came to ride home. The easiest way from my start point to the trails is along the side of the river, which on the way was a lovely warm-up with the wind behind me. Not so on the way home, a strengthening headwind plus being tired from the ride and not packing nearly enough snacks made the last hour pretty uncomfortable. Lessons learnt: pack more snacks, check the wind direction and consider heading home before the tiredness kicks in.

Nice scenery and several stream crossings made for a fun trail

Wool makes for a good base layer on a cold day.

For the second ride I wanted to start out feeling a bit colder and see how little clothing I could get away with. I wore a thin long-sleeved base layer under a lightweight "windproof" jacket and expected the first few minutes to be a bit uncomfortable. The forecast for the the day was about the same temperature, but the lack of wind coupled with a shorter ride made everything much easier. Despite 15 minutes of drizzle at the start of the ride I was toasty warm throughout (even my hands warmed up after 15 minutes) and didn't have any need for my emergency midlayer. This was a much more normal ride for me, with a 5km road ride to the woods and then a few laps up and down the hill, with a bit of exploration mixed in as well.

Autumn leaves almost completely hid some of the trails

So, what have I learnt about cold weather riding?

• It's really not that bad, especially if it's not too windy or wet
• I don't need to wear as many clothes as I think
• I should always bring extra snacks
• MTB is definitely an all-year sport

So, any questions? Do you ride in cold weather and have any killer tips for me, especially if they involve motivation to actually get started? Let me know in the comments (optimistic, I know). Otherwise see you soon for some more waffle about something MTB related.