Total Pageviews

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

WINTER RIDE PART TWO

Your Hands
Your hands are often the first parts of your body to feel cold and the first to go numb, impacting the control of your bike. Most people don’t understand why they get cold.
If you’re wearing windproof, waterproof, insulated gloves and your hands still get cold, it’s not because you need to wear more layers or bulkier gloves but rather it’s because your body is keeping all its warm blood in your trunk to keep your organs up to temp. In short, your hands are cold because your torso is cold.
To prevent this, it’s often a case of better insulating or heating your torso. Put on an extra insulation under your jacket (fleece, sweatshirt, or liner) seal off drafts better, cover your neck and tuck in your sweatshirt. If that’s not enough, look into a heated jacket or vest, (we even have ones that run on its own battery so no over taxing a old charging system.) Most of the time, a heated jacket alone will be enough to keep all of your body warm. By keeping your core temperature up it will keep your warm blood actively pumping around your entire body, including your hands.
Another helpful fix is to remove your hands from the air stream this doesn’t change the theory of core body temperature. ATV hand mitts are great. With hand mitts, you can ride in lighter gloves in any weather, you’ll just look a little odd but your warm hands will more than make up for that, and they can come off fast when temps warm up or you park the bike and don’t like the look. I like Ducks Unlimited Handwarmers the best then Quadboss ATV hand Mitts

Your legs are less important for overall warmth, but there’s no reason they should be cold and uncomfortable. Start with sweatpants, fleece, thermals, or jeans if you’re planning on wearing winter over pants. If you’ve riding in regular jeans, now is the time to add knee armor or chaps. In addition to protecting you from impacts and abrasion, knee armor does a fantastic job of blocking airflow over a very exposed and thinly insulated part of your body.

Last are your feet. When you’re picking out socks, height and fit are most important. A tight fit keeps blood from lingering in your feet and calves where it loses heat and if one pair doesn’t do the trick, then add thick boot socks. Boots are even easier. Just about anything that isn’t a racing or summer boot will be reasonably water and wind proof and if yours are leather, it’s easy to add Mink oil and beeswax. For even better weather protection upgrade to a Gore-Tex lined boot.

Outer Shell
One of the best ways to go is a motorcycle specific jacket and pants combo or one-piece suit. In addition to regular motorcycle things like impact protection and abrasion resistance, you should wear something that’s wind and water proof as your outer ware to keep the heat in.

Despite what hard-core rider will tell you, operating clutch and brake levers with frostbit is incredibly painful it dose not make you hard just unprepared. Arriving with pale blue hands and a bad mood is no way to take a ride that you should and can enjoy

Next time some tips and cheats
Allen

No comments:

Post a Comment