Now autumn’s here (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) it’s not long before the really cold weather will be here. Obviously, cycling in cold weather is significantly different. For starters, you need a strategy for dealing with the cold. You may need to alter your routes, to avoid the risk of black ice.
As for dealing with the cold, allow me to get a children’s song stuck in your head. Ready? Here we go: Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes…
Head,
This is actually easy: wear a cycling cap under your helmet (or if you don’t wear a helmet, at least wear a hat). In very cold weather, try a Thinsulate (or similar) hat. You get winter-specific under-helmet cycling caps, too. In addition, a buff can help covering your face, your neck and your ears. Just be aware that it could also lead to your cycling glasses fogging up.
The old saying of “you lose 90% of your body heat through your head” is actually a load of codswallop, but you can a significant amount of heat through your head. This is why, in cold weather, it’s best to wear a hat or head-covering of some sort.
Shoulders. (But actually, fingers!)
Look, if you have a problem with just your shoulders being cold, you certainly have an interesting problem. Annoyingly, I didn’t write the song lyrics, so I’ll have to amend them a bit – hope you’ll forgive me.
Cold fingers are no joke. Quite aside from the pain that coldness can cause, cyclists rely on their fingers to operate gears and brakes. Of course, freezing cold fingers don’t move very well. My go-to solution are these winter gloves.
My only criticism of the Elite Cycling Project gloves is that – as they’re both waterproof and windproof – your hands can, and will sweat inside the gloves. You don’t notice it at the time, but bacteria breaks sweat down, and if you don’t wash these gloves regularly, they’ll turn into a bio-weapon very quickly.
Knees
Many cyclists believe that, if the temperature is below 15C, that their knees must be covered. You will especially find this bandied about amongst road cycling clubs. In fact, the brand Galibier outright makes bold claims that cycling with exposed knees at temperatures lower than 15C contributes to the onset of tendonitis and arthritis!
However, the science doesn’t back that up. And yes, that’s the polite way of saying those claims are a steaming pile of bovine excrement!
BikeRadar spoke with Katie Slattery, a sports scientist at the New South Wales Institute of Sport, who explained that the cold has little affect on ligaments and tendons, and is not linked as a cause to tendonitis or arthritis.
While Slattery remains in favour of cyclists covering their knees, her reasons for that advice is to do with blood flow to the muscles. Cold weather causes vasoconstriction, which reduces blood flow. In elite athletes, that equates to a performance drop (however small).
But on your commute, you really shouldn’t be able to notice any difference at all, and the scientists clearly state that what matters is maintaining your core temperature, and maintaining your comfort. Beyond that, it’s entirely up to you whether or not you should cover your knees.
It’s absolutely fine to cover your knees in cold weather, if you so preferred. Just please don’t make any claims about how a very thin Lycra knee cover supposedly prevents the synovial fluid in your knee from being colder, as I will challenge you to back that up with real science.
and Toes
Cycling really isn’t fun when your toes are aching from the cold. If you ride with shoes that clip into the pedals, it’s worse, as the pedals act like a heat sink, draining warmth from your feet.
Fortunately, there’s several things you can do about this, and that starts with wearing overshoes. Now overshoes come in different flavours, and some roadies ride with overshoes that are designed to reduce air friction (all about marginal gains, and cutting those essential 0.35 seconds of a 50 mile ride).
Those aren’t the overshoes you want for winter. Instead, you’re after neoprene winter overshoes. I’m an enormous fan of my SealSkinz overshoes, but various other brands are of course available.
Overshoes are not to keep your feet dry. With the possible exception of the Shimano winter boots, if you’re going to be cycling outside during the British winter, you’re going to get wet. Instead, overshoes are meant to preserve body heat in your feet, and the SealSkinz shoes are good at that.
Some people feel the cold more than others, and even SealSkinz may not be enough. Help is at hand even for those people, in the form of USB-powered heated insoles. Just plug these into a USB power bank (which I really suggest you wrap inside a small plastic bag!) run the wires down your legs, and enjoy toasty-warm feet, even on a long ride, in the middle of winter.