AG: Aunt Granny's Advice, or How to become an elderly cyclist:

A beginning cyclist often forgets that every driver on the road is
trying to avoid running over pedestrians and bike riders.

The vast majority of drivers are nice people who get in your way only
when they try to help, and the vast majority of the people who want
cyclists off the road want them off because they want to "protect"
them.

Yes, there are psychopaths out there -- with around two hundred
million drivers in the same nation I'm in, some of them *have* to be
psychopaths. But even people who hate bicycles and fantasize about
seeing the blood of the riders splashed over the pavement are keenly
aware that the driver who splashes the blood is going to have a lot of
paperwork to fill out. The psychopath will settle for hoping someone
else kills you.

So everyone except the guy who probably wrapped himself around a tree
ten miles back is trying to avoid killing you.

MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM! Ride where you can be seen, signal your
turns, follow the rules of the road, and generally be predictable and
visible.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

On Sat, 27 Dec 2014 23:03:03 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:


A beginning cyclist often forgets that every driver on the road is
trying to avoid running over pedestrians and bike riders.

The vast majority of drivers are nice people who get in your way only
when they try to help, and the vast majority of the people who want
cyclists off the road want them off because they want to "protect"
them.

Yes, there are psychopaths out there -- with around two hundred
million drivers in the same nation I'm in, some of them *have* to be
psychopaths. But even people who hate bicycles and fantasize about
seeing the blood of the riders splashed over the pavement are keenly
aware that the driver who splashes the blood is going to have a lot of
paperwork to fill out. The psychopath will settle for hoping someone
else kills you.

So everyone except the guy who probably wrapped himself around a tree
ten miles back is trying to avoid killing you.

MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM! Ride where you can be seen, signal your
turns, follow the rules of the road, and generally be predictable and
visible.

Generally true, except for the invention of texting. Get a mirror and
keep an eye out for the car drifting out of their lane behind you.

On Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:05:05 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Chaplin
wrote:

As someone who lives on the edge of the boreal forest, I find it does not
matter where I start my warm-up, inside or out, but then I am not yet 60.

I find it's less important to get my heart going while still in the
house than it was when I was under sixty -- I no longer go out in that
kind of weather!

The problem was that if I go out into the cold sluggish, my feet will
get cold before I've worked up a sweat, and when they are cold the
body cuts the circulation to them and won't switch it back on until
they are warm, and they won't get warm until the circulation is
switched back on.

More than once I've spent a good bit of time sitting in a print shop
with my shoes off, waiting for my toes to turn pink. It was much
nicer the time I took refuge at a lunch counter, and had a mug of
cocoa while I was waiting.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

On Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:01:54 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:

On Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:05:05 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Chaplin
wrote:

As someone who lives on the edge of the boreal forest, I find it does not
matter where I start my warm-up, inside or out, but then I am not yet 60.

I find it's less important to get my heart going while still in the
house than it was when I was under sixty -- I no longer go out in that
kind of weather!

The problem was that if I go out into the cold sluggish, my feet will
get cold before I've worked up a sweat, and when they are cold the
body cuts the circulation to them and won't switch it back on until
they are warm, and they won't get warm until the circulation is
switched back on.

More than once I've spent a good bit of time sitting in a print shop
with my shoes off, waiting for my toes to turn pink. It was much
nicer the time I took refuge at a lunch counter, and had a mug of
cocoa while I was waiting.

Your problem solved !( Ta-Ta)
http://tinyurl.com/kcamsxa
--
Cheers,

John B.

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.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

On Sun, 04 Jan 2015 00:42:53 -0400, Joy Beeson
wrote:


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.

Or move to a tropical country and worry about becoming dehydrated :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

Joy Beeson wrote in
news
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.

It is not a widespread problem other than for those with poor circulation.

I rarely cycle at temperatures below 0 Fahreheit (-18C), but, when I have, I
found that ski underwear and regular crew-height sweat socks were
sufficient. Boot covers are a darn good idea, too (I should invest in some).
I still haven't broken out the Lifa underwear, although I bet there will be
one or two days in early April that I will need it.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

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.

For your reference, records indicate that
dgk wrote:

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.

No, you have to address the fundamental circulation issue. I, too, find
it relatively easy (especially with modern clothing) to keep my core warm
enough to get sweaty, but the circulation to my extremities is still cut
off. The solution is to combat the vasoconstrictor effect directly.

My method: alcohol. I’m a non-drinker in general, but I *will* drink when
I go exercising in cold weather. Not enough to get drunk, of course, but
enough to get my circulation into the “warm� phase. I *want* to lose
extra heat at the extremities.

It’s -7F (-22C) in Minneapolis right now (worse with wind chill), and I’m
biking today. It’s not as fun as it is in warmer weather, but it was far
more miserable before I realized how alcohol could improve things.

--
"Also . . . I can kill you with my brain."
River Tam, Trash, Firefly

On Mon, 5 Jan 2015 17:38:06 +0000 (UTC), Doc O'Leary
wrote:

For your reference, records indicate that
dgk wrote:

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.

No, you have to address the fundamental circulation issue. I, too, find
it relatively easy (especially with modern clothing) to keep my core warm
enough to get sweaty, but the circulation to my extremities is still cut
off. The solution is to combat the vasoconstrictor effect directly.

My method: alcohol. I’m a non-drinker in general, but I *will* drink when
I go exercising in cold weather. Not enough to get drunk, of course, but
enough to get my circulation into the “warm” phase. I *want* to lose
extra heat at the extremities.

It’s -7F (-22C) in Minneapolis right now (worse with wind chill), and I’m
biking today. It’s not as fun as it is in warmer weather, but it was far
more miserable before I realized how alcohol could improve things.

Now that is an interesting approach. I'm not sure that I want to drink
any alcohol and drive down NYC streets, but a fine suggestion.