On Sun, 04 Jan 2015 13:27:09 +0000, Phil W Lee
wrote:

Joy Beeson considered Sun, 04 Jan 2015
00:42:53 -0400 the perfect time to write:


When dressing for cold weather, pay particular attention to insulating
your ankles. Ankles think that they are supposed to be cold, and will
happily report "Everything down here is hunky dory, boss" while they
are sending chilled blood to your beleaguered toes.

All joints are areas worthy of additional care in insulation during
cold weather, for the same reason that they are the positions it's
most effective to place ice to reduce a fever, and their being the
easiest places to check a person's pulse rate - the blood vessels have
to run near to the surface to avoid being trapped in the joint.
This is most significant in the extremities of hands and feet and the
joints by which they are attached, with elbows and knees not all that
far behind.
And not everyone's circulatory system is the same (just ask any
phlebotomist), so some are more susceptible to cold than others.
Of course, the same difference allows some people to shed more heat
during extreme exercise.

All interesting points. I complained about having cold toes and
fingers on bike forums and get told that I need to keep the core warm.
The core is warm and even sweating but the hands and toes freeze. So I
just figure that I have crappy circulation there, but maybe keeping
the ankles warmer would help.

What I did was to buy Hotronic toe warmers, and haven't had a problem
in the seven years that I've been using them. The first pair lasted
six years and then one battery started going bad so I bought another
pair last year and they would probably last another six years except
I'm going to be moving to Florida soon so that won't be an issue
anymore.

I also have pougies for my hands, and those help, but sticking battery
powered (11.1 v) motorcycle-style grip warmers into the pougies helps
a lot.