Sorry for the long delay in blog posts. I have been out there riding but just haven’t had a lot of blogging time.

Anyway, I just had an excellent ride today (29 miles) and since it’s getting colder here in the Chicagoland area, I had to refer to my bike clothing hints on the Bike Weather Clothing page on this site.

I put together that page a few years ago and found it handy to remember what bike clothing to wear in what kind of weather. Now, this is just a guide or a summary and it will vary of course for each person but it works perfect for me though (since I wrote it!) 🙂

As for myself, I seem to be able to handle cooler weather better than a lot of people. For example, it was in the 50s today and I was mostly comfortable with shorts and a t-shirt (while riding) although I did bring a jacket and wore it occasionally too. I still see a lot of other people bundled up like I might be in the middle of winter though.

One of the things that I did not mention in my original article though was that the speed that you ride will also make a significant difference in how warm you want to dress for your rides.

Riding is a little cooler than other outdoor activities because of the wind (which is a great benefit in the summer) but your body temperature will be higher if you are really pushing yourself for speed and a good workout (which I have been doing more of lately).

For example, I used to ride at a leisurely average of around 12mph, which is a nice comfortable, relaxing touring ride speed (for me anyway) and I would probably keep a light jacket on for the whole ride in this weather. Recently, however, since I have been trying to get a better workout, my average speeds are around 14mph to 15mph and I worked up a sweat with the jacket and had to loose it a couple of times.

Since this is very “in between” weather, there are times that the jacket was comfortable and other times that it was too warm. This is where my fairly new rack/trunk style bike bag came in really handy. My jacket fits in the bag pretty easily and it’s easy to get it in and out so I was able to alternate between my t-shirt only and jacket easily with just a brief stop.

Well, I guess that’s about it for my blurb about cool weather riding and how to dress. Most of you probably already know what works best for you but, if you are like me, you may not get it just right or may need some hints and reminders, or even some clothing or equipment upgrades, when the weather first starts changing.

Later, Rob.