Winter Journey
Who has any tips on how to keep your hands warm?
I'm off biking tomorrow, and it's meant to be very cold. The wind is meant to be very keen. Usually, this is not a problem for me, but recently, i've gone off in strong cold winds and my hands have just frozen solid making them painful and impossible to move. So that makes my journey a very uncomfortable one. I wear winter gloves, but they still don't work. Even though they are, award winning.
So does anyone have any tips on how to keep your hands warm whilst biking?
Thanks
This is tricky. If you have viable gloves then it is down to keeping your hands out of the wind. I do not know what sort of bike you have, but try this if you have flat or riser bars:
Take 1 washing up liquid bottle and cut it in half, vertically. Cut the bottom out of the bottle halves and angle the cut on the top, also cutting the pop top out so that you have a circular hole. Use gaff tape or cable ties to attach this to your bars so that, with some cutting and adjusting, this sits in front of your hands, but just away from the levers. This is an old trick for motorbikes and should work OK for cycling. This will keep your hands out of direct wind and therefore negate direct wind chill on your hands.
When I was on motorcycles, as well as heated grips, which are not viable on a cycle, you might look at handlebar bags. You should be able to make these yourself, although you might have a look at a motorcycle shop and see if you can get a set to fit your bike. This allows you to put your hands into a warm space. Again, this takes direct wind chill off of your hands.
Suggestion 3 is to peddle harder. Get the blood circulation going and this should help. You might want to get your general circulation checked out. Perhaps eat more garlic, since this thins the blood, improving circulation.
Luck