Layers. It's All About Layers.

283 days until cross, or so sayeth Bonedeth. Maybe what, 63 days until road? That seems awfully soon to me. But it's a mere 12 days until mtb season. Snotcycle: also known as an annual reminder of what kind of desperate shit bike racers will do to scratch the itch. Of course it's going to be minus a million and snowy and awful. And fun. Junkies. Line 'em up and shoot 'em.

Spent most of the weekend chained to a wheel stand, reaffirming my preference for silver spokes over black (the threads on black spokes often bind during tensioning), affirming my lust for all things King, and generally working through a huge pile. Apparently I'm unique or at least unusual in liking to build with CX Rays. Yeah they're a bit finicky but with the gripper ring thing you can MOTOR through a build. Price went up like almost 10% on those suckers. I guess they figure DT Aerolites are still at least 1.5x the cost of CX Rays so the market has some slack for them. I don't know, they're too rich for my blood but people go nutty for them.

Pretty well pegged the clothing setups both days. Saturday, left the house in 33* headed to 36 or so during the ride window. Bibs, leg warmers, wool socks, neoprene shoe covers, silk weight base layer, long sleeve jersey, November vest, Descente polar jersey/jacket, thin hat, and Garneau Typhoon lobster gloves. The junk was a bit cold in the beginning but overall it was perfect. Vented my neck zipper a tiny bit a few times. Sunday was 28 headed to low 30's during the ride. I find the difference between say 30 and 35 to be enormous. 30 is COLD and not to be f'd with, while 35 is just garden variety pain in the butt cold. Sunday was will socks, thin overshoes, Descente neoprene shoe covers, bibs, tights, silk weight base layer, Under Armor cold gear mock t, Marmot jacket (warm!), neck gaitor, thick fleece hat, and lobster gloves with hand warmers. The hand warmers did nothing, but the rest was near perfect. Two hours of endurance slog with an LT interval to finish it off. Then back to the wheel stand.

The big issue at Snotcycle is feet. There are creek crossings. I think the answer is neoprene socks. Not much else is going to cope with that. Plus I like to have the soles exposed. Walking in overshoes gives no grip and just chews them up.