In Which Big Clompy Boots Won’t Save Biking

Photo from a cold day last week, Friday, I think. These boots are made for biking, and that's just what they'll do--but last week, not this week.

So far, this week of December is a complete biking bust. Arctic air has arrived in Iowa, with subzero lows expected.

That’s a level of cold that’s iffy for me as a biker, but not beyond question. If the wind forecast is calm enough, I might bundle up and hit the road at a few degrees below zero (and European friends, we are talking Fahrenheit, not Centigrade. Zero Centigrade is almost sweatshirt weather). After all, I have the winter biker’s secret weapon: Big, clompy winter boots.

Thursday of last week, arriving home as afternoon fades early to night. We are in the dark weeks of winter in Iowa. Me on C Avenue bridge--I don't look it, but I'm fairly warm in a air temperature of about 10 degrees (not wimpy Centigrade degrees either.)

 

 

I wore them last week while biking, which was also a cold week, although not quite this cold. We had a bit of snow the weekend before last, but after streets were plowed Sunday and sunshine ruled Monday. By Tuesday I was able to ride to work wearing my big, clompy boots.

Winter riding requires long, insulated underwear, multiple socks and shirts, a headband under a hood under my helmet and warm mittens. A coat, and often, a scarf, are also part of the kit. The clompy boots, made for stomping around in the snow, feel very awkward to wear while riding a bicycle—but they have the huge advantage of being insulated, which is important for winter rides.

So, for most of last week, including Saturday morning when I had a Santa gig on campus, I rode. The return ride home on Saturday was with snow falling, but luckily it was early in the storm and the pavement was not yet slick.

Not sure of date of photo--very early in December before first snow. Early morning light a biker sees at MMU.

Lindale Trail, again, before the first snow. Stark beauty of bare trees in brown time of year.

Winter sunrise after first snow at C Avenue pond. This has to be Tuesday or so of last week--later in the week, the pond had frozen over.

Last week--ice forming on Dry Creek.

But this week, although there has been some sun, the air is so cold that the quiet streets of Cedar Rapids, never well plowed (or plowed at all) are a slick mess. It’s not the cold that usually keeps me from riding in winter—it’s the slick. I need a few warm, sunny days to clear the pavement off those unplowed side streets.

It does not look like I will get them before the semester ends. Oh well. Here’ hoping that future snows will be followed by enough sun to melt or sublimate the icy stuff on the quiet streets. I’m itching to ride again, even in my big winter boots.

Photo from Monday of this week--air temperature in upper teens Fahrenheit. Note edge of snow--even weak winter sun will melt snow on pavement, if the pavement is mostly clear. That's why is such a problem that side streets don't get scraped--even if not all of the snow were plowed off, a partly plowed street will become clear even in sub freezing temperatures, but even half an inch of snow won't melt. Blow--lawn at MMU, where no snow melted this week.

In Which I Try Some New Biking Fashion

What all the cool kids wear to bike in winter. Actually, it's the warm kids. They look silly and feel ridiculous, but on a truly cold day, this is what you want on your feet.

Pretty cool, huh?

My winter boots are falling apart—where the rubber lower meets the leather upper, the right boot is split all the way along the left side and the insulation is sticking out like milkweed fluff about to fly away. So my wife suggested I borrow my son’s boots, since he’s a student at ISU, has cleared walkways to transit on and does not use his boots. Plus, we both have the same size ginormous feet.

At the same time, my regular biking shoes are suffering from snapped hickeys—the nice rubber closers that Eldon Rocca so kindly got me on RAGBRAI are wearing out. I need to find some new ones.

So this morning, when I was headed out on my icy slide to work, I donned Ben’s snow boots. I felt ridiculous mounting the bike with those huge clumpy Frankenstein monster things on my feet.

And I also felt divine. I wear more than one pear of socks, including an insulated one, when I bike in cold, but usually my feet are the least comfortable part of my body.

Not today. Despite bitter morning winds that chilled my face and made me wish I had chosen warmer mittens than my thin biking gloves, my feet were fine, happy, toasty and warm.

Indeed, both the ride in the morning and in the afternoon were, from a did Joe freeze or not point of view, pretty successful. I stuck my paws in my pockets when stopped, and my fingers got a bit chilly, but not painfully so. And even if the chill breeze froze my cheeks a bit—well, the rest of me was so covered that it did not seem to matter much.

The boots were good for riding downhill. In the summer, when you go down a little incline, you shift into 7 and pump and see if you can get up to 20 mph. In winter, you stop pedaling, deploy your landing gear, and hope that you don’t slip on the way down. Today was a landing gear day.

I’m happy to report I’m home safe and sound. And despite my morning qualms, I biked home while it was still light out, and the streets were probably slightly better than they had been. Still slick, still icy, but what melting there had been turned some formerly dangerous stretched a bit mushy.

So, I’m proud to say I made it. And that I biked this very cold winter week. I probably won’t get a lot of miles in next week either, but I’ve got 54 for the year so far. Given the weather we’ve been having, that’s not too shabby.

And now I have warm feet on cold biking days.