Winterizing ME

[bobhamlin]

Went on a PGR mission early yesterday morning near York, PA. Layered up with T-shirt, denim shirt, vest, jacket liner, leather jacket, mittens, mitten liners, & chaps.

At the end of an hour's riding, I could feel the chill starting to penetrate.

When I returned home, my order of Gerbing cold weather gear had arrived: jacket liner, glove liners and cables, controls and more cables.

This morning, it was only about 50 degrees, so I decided to KISS and just try the jacket liner. I leave for work in the dark and, from that special insight that age increasingly brings into decision-making, figured that using motorcycle gloves to fumble with new controls that have the potential to broil me while commuting down I-270 could conjure a distraction or two. With only the liner, there was only one control.

It worked nicely. Toasty. Now that I have the control's LED feedback figured out, I'll try the glove liners next. I WILL have to develop an SOP for the most effective strategy of plugging, donning. zipping, buckling, starting the bike and closing the garage door.

Last winter, I rode down to 11 degrees. That came to be my limit when I had to wear my helmet into the building because my fingers were too cold to unbuckle the straps.

Luckily, I was the first one in. A leathered-up, face-shield-obscured humannoid walking stiffly down the corridor would cause ME alarm - even before coffee.