Winter Riding Gear 2012

Pinkbike Winter gear made cheap-ish and easy

Ah, the heart of winter. Up until the current "Snowpocalypse", the Pacific Northwest and the Vancouver area have seen a mild winter so far; December 2011 was the driest December on record for the Washington Cascades. However, recent ‘arctic’ temps in our area and boatloads of snow in some parts of the NW have forced me to scratch the gray matter in my skull and come up with the must haves if you intend to put tire to dirt (or snow) during the dark months. These are, for the most part, small ticket items that can make the difference between having a great ride vs. sheer misery in conditions that’ll find most folks contemplating finally doing that fork overhaul they’ve been putting off for two years.


GLOVES

First things first: warm hands. A decent set of cold weather riding gloves are a must have for winter riding. If you can’t feel your brake levers, you’re going to ride like a clown. Cold feet will just make you miserable, but with cold hands you can’t modulate your brakes worth a damn, turning moderately technical sections of trail you can normally clean with your eyes closed into complete gong shows.


Winter gloves aren’t cheap, but they’re not that much more expensive than a set of regular summer gloves. And we’re not talking thick ski type gloves, either; but gloves that offer minimal bulk and maximum insulation. I live in Seattle, and we rarely see more than 3-4 days with snow, but we see a fair number of days where the temps aren’t all that far off from snow or sleet. Consequently, I’m usually rocking a set of Bellsport’s Windstorm gloves ($45); they are windproof, lightly insulated, and have great gripper rubber on the palm for a secure grip no matter what the conditions are. But once the snow flies, I’m a big fan of the slightly warmer Dakine White Knuckle gloves ($35); they have thinsulate insulation, a wind proof skin and a thin palm for positive bar feel and are a fair bit warmer than the Bellweathers. The Giro Pivots ($70) are well worth a mention, too, but they don’t fit my hand as nicely as the Bellsport or the Dakine gloves.

Dakine, Giro, Bellweather (as well as a few others like Pearl Izumi, Endura, etc.) make several models of gloves designed for winter riding in even colder or wetter conditions than I face in Seattle; so if your hands don’t fit the gloves I am recommending as good go-to gloves, go to your local bike shop and try on a few different brands of gloves to find the ones that will fit you and the riding conditions you face the best.

BASE LAYER

The next most important thing is a good base layer. I prefer a really thin Merino wool T-shirt made by Patagonia (Merino wool 2 T-shirt for $65). It’s a hair thinner than a typical T-shirt and while it doesn’t wick as well as a polypropylene or capilene piece, it’s an insulating layer that keeps working even if it’s soaked with sweat. Additionally, it doesn’t get stinky five minutes after you’ve been wearing it, unlike artificial fiber tech tees. Next to skin, Merino wool is so fine that unless you have a wool allergy, it shouldn’t bother you. If you go for the Patagonia piece here, make certain you size down one size to keep it body hugging. A baggy base layer doesn’t work very well. Smartwool, Ibex, and a number of other companies offer Merino wool base layers, too, but I don't know how they size theirs. Last, don’t toss it in the dryer after washing or you’ll end up with a shirt fit for a two year old.


KNEE PADS or WARMERS

After the base layer, get some knee warmers or kneepads. In technical terrain, if you’re not riding with kneepads, you’re a fool. They’re cheap health insurance. Even better, they act as great knee warmers in cooler temps. If your daily dose of winter riding isn’t as technically challenging as the Shore, then a set of knee warmers is a better way to go. As with the skullcap (below), pretty much every bicycle-clothing manufacturer makes a set. My money’s on cheap ones for mountain biking ($25-$30): crash once or twice in them riding and you’ll likely shred ‘em. And a handy tip? Pull them as far up your leg as you can while still covering your knees, and keep the upper under your cycling shorts—otherwise they’ll crawl down your leg 3-4 times during your ride. Which kinda sucks. You don’t wear cycling shorts? Then go for the kneepads.

An item that a lot of riders overlook is a skullcap ($30-$40). This is not a knit hat, but a micro fleece layer that’s designed to conform to your head without bunching and is thin enough to fit under your helmet; a knit hat won’t allow your helmet to fit properly rendering it useless. I’ve been using one made by OR (Outdoor Research), but since that one’s gone missing of late I’ve been using a spare I had on hand made by Voler. Pretty much any road bike clothing manufacturer—Giordana, Sugoi, Castelli—makes one. Once you try one you’ll never do a winter ride again without one—even if it’s just stuffed into your pack as a just in case item.


Last, a more expensive, but for me a, “must have” for winter mountain biking is a set of dedicated winter shoes (not booties or toe cozies—you’ll likely just destroy those mountain biking and they can make clipping in and out difficult—although Pearl Izumi does make a mountain bike specific booty). Winter shoes are worth their weight in gold for the simple reason that the process of thawing out the frozen chunks of tundra attached to you ankles following a frigid ride is an exquisitely painful experience; it's one sure way to make a winter ride miserable.


For my feet, salvation comes in the form of the Shimano SH-MW81s ($230). Yeah, that ain’t cheap, but these are a blower pair of shoes! Thinsulate to keep you toasty warm and Gore-tex to keep you dry with a mid-high, neoprene cuff that helps keep deeper puddles from getting into your shoes. These shoes will keep you out in temps down to a bit below freezing; much colder than that, though, and you’ll need an over boot of some kind. Seattle’s not the arctic by any stretch of the imagination (present conditions excepted), but the temps flirt with freezing from November through mid March enough so that I simply won’t ride without them during the winter; I’d rather have warm feet than cold feet.

If Shimano shoes do not fit your feet, there are a few other shoes like them on the market—Specialized makes the Defroster for $180 for example, and Sidi has made their venerable $329 Diablo winter shoes for just about forever, and there are other offerings from Pearl Izumi, Lake, Northwave, etc.—but try before you buy, as the fit on some company’s winter shoes is a lot different than their regular shoes.

Unfortunately, if you ride flats, you’re pretty much screwed: no one I know of makes a winter shoe specifically for flats. Your only option is wear some thicker wool socks and X fingers.

So what’s the total cost here? Gloves: $40-ish. Base layer $65. Skull cap: $30-ish. Knee warmers: $30. Winter shoes: $200-ish. Minus the shoes, you can comfortably take on winter riding for as low as $165, and you can go to war—so to speak—for a mere $200 or so more by opting for a set of the Shimano MW-81s or another set of dedicated winter shoes.