Feeling a chill

The mercury rolled a little colder today, hitting the 20's for the first time this "winter".  My biking boots didn't arrive Wednesday, as I'd mentioned they were supposed to, but were still here yesterday for use this morning.

And boy was I glad of that.  They're made by Northwave, and I was in love when I first put them on, yesterday.  I was lucky in that they fit perfectly, but I also love the closure.  I have high insteps, so it's not unusual to end up with my circulation being cut off at the top of them when tightening laces really tight.  No issue with these SLW2 closures.  Awesome.

When I got outside, my opinion didn't go down, as I didn't feel the cold there at all.  In fact, I didn't feel it even at the end of the (hour:forty-five) ride.  A very nice feeling.  I don't know how cold it'll be before they aren't enough, but I still have the options of booties and more socks.  I'm thinking that it's unlikely it'll get cold enough around here for that to be insufficient.

One bit of weirdness is that I needed to adjust my pedal width, as the boots are a bit wider than my shoes.  I did that (glad that I have pedals that allow that), and we'll have to see how that works.

My remaining question relates to how waterproof they are.  They're GoreTex-lined, so they should be pretty good.  There are air vents on the bottom, though, and I don't know if that'll ruin things.  If not, then I'll be over the moon, I think.

My other experiment was on the top half.  When I went for a long ride last Saturday at around the same temperature (ok, technically a couple degrees warmer), I wore a Pearl Izumi Transfer baselayer and Pro Softshell jacket, which did well.  Today, I went with my colder weather baselayer, and my normal windbreaker.

And those worked just fine.  I felt the chill a little bit, when the wind was blowing and I was doing 20-ish mph, but it was sporadic, and never enough to bother me.  And there was a bit of sweat on the shirt when I'd finished; definitely not overly cold.

The one downside to the ride was that I think I rode too far.  My wife's alarm woke me a bit early, so I decided I'd ride a bit further than I'd originally planned.  But my legs were a little tired when I started, and a lot tired when I finished (and my power was down a lot, too, which is probably a sign of overdoing things lately).  And Friday is not a good day for that to happen; I want to do more riding tomorrow and Sunday, not less.  We'll see how I feel, I guess, but I definitely should have taken it easy today.