Cold weather riding gear roundup

 If the roads are reasonably dry, I tend to push the edges of the seasons and get out there when it's pretty cold. So far this has been a pretty dry winter and I'm still getting out on rides into December despite the new zwift setup.

The thing is it's hard to be comfortable when it's in the 30s and that kind of means a lot of specialized winter bike clothing. What I find most important is keeping my hands and feet warm. Then wear a warm enough jacket and you'll probably be ok for a little while at least. A buff/neck warmer is also a big must have. From there it all kind of gets optional.

Until this year my go to setup was a pair of hand me down 45nrth fasterkatts a size too big, running tights over regular bib shorts, and a softshell jacket that seems to be meant for running and xc skiing. it's fairly slim fitting, or was when I got it, but now it's a bit flappy. My gloves were pearl izumi softshells that are pretty warm, but have some holes in them now and the padding in the palms is annoying and adds unnecessary bulk. So it was all kind of patched together, but worked well enough.

Thanks to working at MBW this year I had a little extra cash plus some pretty good discounts and decided I needed to get some better stuff for winter.

Firstly, bib tights. I've wanted some of these for awhile and now that I have some I'm wondering what I was thinking just doing tights over bibs or leg warmers for all these years. They're super warm and cozy and so much better. The ones I have are pearl izumi amfibs, but there are plenty of similar ones out there. I want another pair so I can ride more between loads of laundry.

Probably more important are the shoes. I went with shimano's MW7 goretex shoe and they are really warm. I've seen sub 20f, and been out for 4 hours in below freezing weather and my toes were happy the whole time. I'm surprised at how much warmer these are than the fasterkatts, and they have a nice flap over the top to keep water and grime out of the tongue and boa laces. My only problem right now is there's a small gap between the bottom of the tight and the top of the shoe, so your sock gets wet and then eventually there's water in the waterproof shoe. I'm thinking I need some little flaps or sleeves or something that I can have under the tight and over the top of the shoe.

So what else? Oh yeah gloves. You need to have good gloves. I'm still trying to figure out how to handle the really cold days but for low 30s my new POC thermal gloves are pretty nice

The other ones are the PI amfib lite, which are a great cool weather glove, say high 40s. No padding or insulation on the palm so you get good feel from the bars and controls but some light insulation and wind resistant on the back. This is my 3rd version of these gloves.

Probably my only gripe with the POC is the wrist opening, which is just big and open. Some sort of a cuff or closure would help keep warm air in your gloves. Also they're expensive, and I doubt I would have bought them without the "pro deal." Pros are they really warm for their weight and allow good control and dexterity.

When it's like, 20f out there they don't cut it, and I think bar mitts are probably the only solution for that. I'm thinking about trying to see how well I can ride with light over mitts, and eyeing lobster gloves, but those won't work for one finger braking on a mountain bike. My other thought is battery powered heated gloves.

My other big cold weather riding purchase was a new jacket. Pearl Izumi's "PRO insulated jacket." PRO means it's their nicest stuff, and generally slimmer fitting. MSRP for this thing is $225. So I'm not sure what's going on with this basic, shapeless jacket missing some important features.

The one thing it has going for it is the fancy polartec alpha insulation, which is really light and warm.

But as a cycling jacket, it's fairly mediocre. I'm going to cut this short though and make a whole post about it later.

Well that about covers it. Wear an appropriate number of layers under your jacket and then don't forget the buff/neck warmer. The other thing I've done is stuff my thin, light, down jacket in a pack or frame bag and that can get put on over top of everything if I need it. When I was up on university mountain a few weeks ago I was glad to have it for the descent down the open ridgeline in the wind.

Trails where you can ride an e-bike

This is a much shorter list than the places where you can't. MTB missoula has a pretty good guide to the regulations, but no real specifics. You might read this:

https://www.mtbmissoula.org/post/e-bikes-what-you-need-to-know

And then wind up a little more confused than you were before. What is clear, is that as far as the USFS is concerned, they are a motorized vehicle. So on forest service land, you can only ride them on open roads and OHV (dirt bikes, atvs, etc) trails. A gate on a forest service road means it's closed to motorized vehicles, and yes, even e-bikes. Soo, if you're looking for somewhere to ride an ebike on FS land, the best way to see where you can go is to look at the motorized use maps. To find these, you can search for something like "lolo nf mvum" and a link like this will come up:

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/lolo/maps-pubs/?cid=stelprdb5097692&width=full

Those are all for the lolo national forest, which is where we are in missoula. Other nearby forests are the bitterroot and superior ranger districts, which have their own maps. Roads and trails on these maps open to motor vehicles and ebikes are highlighted.

Also you can look at a full mvum in arcgis here:

https://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?useExisting=1&layers=18de7e3f022a432f850c864ad4ba952d

In case it wasn't clear, all the trails in the rattlesnake are closed to ebikes. As are the marshall mountain trails, mount sentinel, and pattee canyon areas. You can't even ride one on the deer creek sneak. But you can ride up deer creek road, and up above pattee, to the miller divide trail. Also in that area are a number of roads like allen creek from turah and holloman saddle, and it's mostly all open to e-bikes.

The other part of missoula that allows e-bikes is Blue Mountain. But not very much of it- just the parts open to motorized vehicles such as deadman's ridge, orchard, and hayes creek. One thing to note about this is that motorized use on those trails is seasonal. In the spring when the gate on the road is closed and you can't drive to the moto trailhead, all those trails are also closed to motorized use, and yes, e-bikes. But if I had an e-mtb, blue mountain, and all the area beyond, is where I'd spend most of my time. From the top, there are a lot of places you can go, like all the way out to the southside road, petty creek, or highway 12.

Speaking of highway 12, I noticed one trail on the mvum that I didn't expect to see - mill creek on lolo peak. However, to ride it you have to do an out and back from the bottom- the section from the mormon peak road trailhead does not allow e-bikes (and neither does the trail from carlton ridge).

Going farther up highway 12, there are also some lines on the map in the graves cr/petty cr and lolo pass areas. Whether the trails exist and are clear is another question, but they're there.

Eventually I'll probably make a public map on caltopo with some of these routes and trails and roads highlighted but for now I'm about done typing. Here's a list of some of the trails that are open to ebikes

Miller divide 512

Mill Creek 1310

Ninemile divide

blue mountain

telephone butte area
1220
720

lolo pass/lolo hot spring/petty creek/wagon mountain area
26
322
289
295
skookum butte

Bitterroot-rock cr divide 313

sweathouse creek
121
122

Warm springs, lost trail pass area is almost all open to motorized use

recent ride pictures

Been getting out a lot for the Move MT challenge. Tom Robertson and I are going back and forth for 2nd place in the 10 highest peaks challenge and chasing Alan Adams, who is on a quest to ride a million vertical feet this year.

New road wheels

I've been getting by on some pretty busted wheels and this year finally got some replacements for both the road and cx bikes. The road bike was the first to get something as I was riding it a lot this spring and the mavic ksyriums were starting to show their age. The rear freehub still had play after first going to oversized bushings and then a bearing, and the hub bearings themselves were starting to knock. On the plus side, they were still perfectly true after probably over 10k miles of hard use ranging from dirt roads on road tires to racing cx to riding singletrack. Aside from the rear freehub issues common with mavics I don't have any major complaints.

For the road bike I wanted something more aerodynamic, and for the cx bike I wanted something wider and tubeless. While working on missoula xc stuff at the mtb missoula and cycling house office I asked Shaun if he had anything around. And yes, he did have some Heds jet 6s in the basement that he let me have for practically nothing.

They're a little older, and I had to get an axle and freehub and have them dished for 11 speed, but they're straight and wooshy. I took the giant stickers off immediately to keep the all black subtle look going but did get those snazzy tan wall vittoria corsa controls. I liked the open paves a lot and these are the new version of those. They're smooth and fast but jury is still out on durability and flat protection. I basically never got a flat with the open paves and have a couple on these already. But when you run over a staple it's going through just about anything. These are the "C2" rim and so are 23mm external, 18mm internal width. It makes the 25mm vittoria measure a touch over 27 and that's the most tire that will fit between the chainstays on this bike.

They're 60mm deep, and do seem to go faster out on the flat. Going 22-24mph just seems easier than before, although I was on the mavics with maxxis refuses last fall and for the early season this year so just going to a much faster tire is part of it. Plus getting that fitness back. I do plan to tape over all the holes for the fairings as I hear that helps. You do notice that depth in windier conditions but it's got to be pretty gusty and a crosswind for it to be much of an issue. Also, it's a different feeling from being pushed around with narrower wheels. I'd call it less abrupt, and more of like, gentle nudging.