Fairing Fairly Well

Might be something to do with the weather, again, I've explained a few times in the last week how to use newspaper as a toe warmer. Today I finally upped my cellulose insulation game with a cardboard wind deflector for my hands. A number of years ago, I rode up to Greenfield in the winter, and north of the heat generating urban development of Amherst, I found I wasn't wearing nearly enough glove. My hands were cold! So part way between the falls of Miller, and those of Turner, I availed myself of some roadside detritus.

No, it wasn't anything as chic as a lost pair of work gloves, but it served much better: a cardboad box! I'm a fan of a poor-man's-anything, thus the newspaper in shoes, and not just because I'm cheap. If you want to stay warm, look to the masters: people living rough through winter without a house. Paper can be an amazing insulator. Heck, it fills my attic space to the level of R60, and as my friend Todd, damn powerful cyclist, and energy efficiency expert for the UMass campus once recount in a line from an efficiency talk he attended, "It's cheaper than dirt. Go to a building supply company and compare a bag of cellulose to a bag of topsoil. It's cheaper than dirt!"

And a bag of cellulose insulation, it has the processing costs of shreading and adding fire retardant. Old newspaper and cardboard boxes are free, so experimenting is super cheap, as in only a little time spent. That's good because my first try a couple weeks ago with two separate muffs fell off the bike 30ft into its first ride. This morning, with temperatures just barely above 0F, I finally installed my mkii hand shield, which had my bare hands really cold by the time I finished, so good thing it worked!

With my hands nestled into two layers of mittens than usually keep them comfortable down to the mid 20s, I left for Northampton, with a stop over the ridge at the same Todd's house to borrow a pair of running snowshoes he'd offered earlier this week. It was cold! After the three mile up and down, my face was wearing a solid coat of beard ice and working toward two substantial snotcicles. My hands weren't warm, but they weren't numb either, and after the fifteen minute recovery at Todd and Sue's, my body was adapted and marginally comfortable for the bulk of the ride to Northampton. 

My place

I just need to rig an alternative 

high light mount.

By the time I rode home, temps were up to the lower teens, and I was genuinely comfy. I think I can applaud my cardboard cutout handiwork, and happily, my hands still function well enough to clap!

In case you don't know the toe warmer trick:

Fold newspaper in a triangle as so.

Wrap left, right, and front corners over toes.

Insert in shoe, ideally a size big.