Yesterday you may recall I posted that I was going to attempt to bike in this bitterly cold weather. You see, I have a bike friend who always encourages me to do some type of riding that is on the outer limits of sane. And we planned this ride, assuming that it would be just the two of us. We scheduled back up drivers for any mechanical issues we might have, as being out in this weather is dangerous and standing around in it deadly. We knew we needed good plans. We then decided to invite just a few experienced winter cyclists, in order to make sure that only those we trusted to know their limits were on this particular ride. In the end, there were 8 of us.

All day long I worried about the ride, mostly because I was having trouble staying warm even in my house. It was just plain cold around the edges. I planned my gear very carefully, layer upon carefully placed layer.

Partway through the ride, I snapped this screenshot.

Before the ride ended, we’d hit -11 and recorded the feels like temp at -41.

It is pretty difficult to know when to hydrate on such a ride, I know this well. In anticipation of that, I put hot water into my insulated water bottle. After just a bit of time outside, I could no longer get water out of it. We stopped for a warm up in a friends house, and this is what I found.

Apparently the way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to add a shot of whiskey. That sounds terrible to me.

All in all, great fun was had! No one hurt themselves too badly, though there seems to have been some reports of first degree frost bite around the eyes. I did not have that trouble personally. And I honestly was more warm than I had been all day in all my winter gear. We had 3 warm up stops planned, and we enjoyed the company and time at each one of them so much.

Today I am left feeling completely invigorated, happy, and energetic. I would not suggest this type of “therapy” to just anyone, but what a way to eliminate post holiday blues!