Icebiking

People have come up with all kinds of ways to use bikes, from the urban street couriers to wilderness area mountain riders, and until recently I was unaware of yet another way to get around on two wheels: icebiking. "Icebike" is such an impressive word, so very extreme and Gen-X sounding that you would expect it to entail dropping off of a glacier face with nothing but body armor and a BMX bike. With fireworks. But instead, it's really more about when a person bikes than where.

Icebikers are people who lack the common sense to stop riding when the weather turns cold. This can include people in Texas (apparently it does freeze there on rare occasion) and people in Alaska. It includes hipsters in rolled up jeans on their fixed gears and office workers slogging through slush on their Civias (or will be soon). It's the one kind of biking that breaks down all typical barriers because it is not defined by how or what a person rides. It is, however, a truly shared experience. There tends to be a rift between bikers of various types (people who hate spandex, people who hate geared bikes, people who hate people without helmets, etc.) just like in any subculture. When it's -10F outside, that rift simply disappears - you're all icebikers.

Because I've only ridden a few hundred miles this winter, I'm hardly an authority on the subject. I have, however, ridden in the full range of what Minnesota winters have to offer. My coldest ride this year was -17F with a windchill well into the thirties below; this was a clarifying experience. Being outside in the severe cold is not a matter of superhuman endurance or stupidity like most assume, but rather a matter of planning well. Any sort of aerobic activity will allow you to create all of the heat you need, but what's important is being able to trap that heat without sweating. Sweat makes you wet, and when you're wet the effectiveness of your insulation becomes compromised. When it's twenty below and you're an hour into your ride, getting tired and your tongue is beginning to get cold you really don't want your equipment to start failing. Layering different fabrics at different temperature break points becomes a precise science, so I'm going to detail the temperature ranges at which I use various equipment.

40° to 30° F

• Arc'teryx wind jacket (not sure what model - Arc never labels their garments for some reason)
• Light weight crew neck Smartwool shirt
• Riding shorts (MTB - they look like regular shorts)
• GORE Leg warmers
• Biking socks (short socks, basically), wool
• MTB shoes

30° to 20° F

• Cloudveil silkweight balaclava
  
• Arc'teryx wind jacket
• Light weight crew neck Smartwool shirt
• Light weight zip neck Smartwool shirt
  
• Performance cycling shorts w/ chamois
  
• Izumi AmFib bib tights
  
• Mid weight wool socks
• Lake MZ-302 boots
  

20° to 10° F

• Cloudveil silkweight balaclava
• Arc'teryx wind jacket
• Light weight crew neck Smartwool shirt
• Medium weight Icebreaker, Sport 320
• Performance cycling shorts w/ chamois
  
• Izumi AmFib bib tights
• Light weight wool slip sock, Smartwool
  
• Mid weight wool socks
• Lake MZ-302 boots
  

10° to -5° F

• Cloudveil silkweight balaclava
• Masque facemask
  
• Arc'teryx wind jacket
• Light weight crew neck Smartwool shirt
• Medium weight Icebreaker, Sport 320
• Performance cycling shorts w/ chamois
  
• Izumi AmFib bib tights
• Swiz or Ibex skiing tights (over the Izumis)
  
• Light weight wool slip sock, Smartwool
  
• Heavy weight wool socks
• Lake MZ-302 boots

-5° to -20° F

• Cloudveil silkweight balaclava
• REI Polartech cap
• Masque facemask
• Goggles
  
• Arc'teryx wind jacket
• Light weight crew neck Smartwool shirt
• Light weight zip neck Smartwool shirt
• Medium weight Icebreaker, Sport 320
• Performance cycling shorts w/ chamois
  
• Izumi AmFib bib tights
• North Face snowboarding pants
  
• Light weight wool slip sock, Smartwool
  
• Heavy weight wool socks, Smartwool
  
• Lake MZ-302 boots

There's a strange thing I've noticed after the past few months - as the temperatures get colder, my gear changes less. I think there's a point where the loss of heat is mitigated for a wider temperature window as the layers get thicker. That's certainly true for my torso, as I only trade out three relatively thin layers over a 60 degree range, mostly at the warmer end of the spectrum. Another odd thing is how thin my head layers are. The Cloudveil is truly very thin, but protects my ears and neck all of the way into the subzero temperature range. I suppose it has to do with core body heat and how it's distributed.

Civia Cycles has a good visual chart like this here. It doesn't exactly work for me, as I'm a warmer rider than normal and their recommendations rely too heavily on chemical heating pads for my taste, but it's generally very accurate.

Also, if it seems as though I really like Civia, it's more about my admiration for what they're doing. Reintroducing the bicycle as a high end utility vehicle is a great way to appeal to people who think that bikes are just for kids. Naturally, 98% of the population won't give a damn - no force on the planet will get them to ride to work no matter how nice the bike - but even getting that last two percent can make a huge difference.

Extreme Commuting

Yesterday I read this article in BusinessWeek (via No Impact Man) and it really brought into contrast some of the madness we've all seen in the past few decades - ever expanding cities, suburbs turning into exurbs as rural townships are blanketed with prefab bedroom community developments and big box 'villages'. As people crave larger houses, more land, and safer communities, they are forced farther from the cities where they must work. They spend more time in cars, their children spend more time in schools and daycares, and no one spends time in their neighborhoods. The BusinessWeek article details the trade-offs very well, but the take home message for me is that we're willing to trade our real lives for the appearance of better ones.

The question is, what is a real life? Maybe sitting in traffic for several hours a day is as real as it gets. I hope not, and I hope the past few decades of commuter culture are an aberration, and some day we will have found more sustainable and meaningful ways to spend our lives.

Missing Time

Our friend, the freakishly talented Brett Laidlaw, has started his own blog, nominally centered around locavorism (heinous neologism that it is) and the great resources available to the observant inhabitants of the Twin Cities. It's a natural fit for him, as he's a writer - a real one, who's actually written books and stuff - and has the most wonderful ability to make the most mundane events seem almost miraculous. I mean mundane in its non pejorative sense, of course, where simple and base things like walking through the woods or eating a sandwich somehow become transcendent. To an observant person simplicity does offer a world of nuance, but achieving that sense of awareness - let alone being able to transcribe those thoughts and feelings into the written word - is a skill unto itself. All of this to say that Brett's writing is always worth a look, so go look. Be prepared to spend some time.

I mention Brett not only because he's awesome, but because of a comment he made to me in the inaugural post of his blog. He mentioned that I was "no slouch at the keyboard" myself, which is very nice but patently untrue. In fact, "slouch" is exactly the word I would use to describe the current state of the blog, though I'm sure a thesaurus check would reveal all sorts of accurate adjectives. Perhaps I'll use them later, after another extended bout of slacking. Because I have this space, and because more of our friends are using spaces like this to journal their thoughts and lives, I figure its time to spend a little more energy keeping up with the Joneses.

Upcoming posts: chicken processing, commuting, icebiking, heating systems, chickens (the backyard variety) and more. Not necessarily in that order, but there will be one post per day for the next seven days. We'll see how that strikes me and we'll go from there.