Cycling tip du jour, Monday. How to stay warm on your bike

Any soldier will tell you that the sure way to demoralise an army is for the men and women of the forces to have cold, wet feet.

Cyclists and soldiers need
dry warm feet. Source

Personally, I'm a complete wimp about my hands - the moment they start getting cold, I'm misery.

And the final part of the anatomy - ears. I once arrived in Canada in the midwinter with boots and a coat, but nothing around my ears. I practically passed out with ear-pain before I'd gone a block.

So, cyclists, now that it's getting "proper cold", the key bits of gear, in my view, are:

- some combination on your feet to keep warm - thermal socks, tough shoes/boots and ideally waterproofing
- good gloves (I've got my eye now on some Sealskinz, said to be fully waterproof too)
- ear cover. I've got a tube of material which normally goes round my neck, but can be lifted up to the head to go around the old lug-holes.

There you go. The rest of the body generally can get pretty warm just by the effort of cycling, assuming you've got something half decent to stop the wind.

May I recommend that for a nice reminder of how cycling in the winter can actually be possibly more saitsfying than in the summer, have a look at ibikelondon's excellent article "Are you ready to cycle through winter?"