Wednesday, December 1, 2010

I draw the line at socks - December 1, 2010

I am ready for nearly any weather, which is a good thing around here as it can go from clear and cold at 28 degrees in the morning to raining and 48 degrees by the afternoon.  Depending on the forecast (and my guess at its reliability that day) I will layer my shirts to accommodate the dry cold to the warm rain, add packable pants over my shorts, bring my light and heavy gloves, pack some combination of the three available hats and even add arm warmers to my pack.  This way I can adjust my clothing based on the funky weather.

One of the items I wear often does double duty.  My shoe covers.  They are water proof and warm, so I can add them if it’s cold or wet (or cold and wet) and pack them up if it dries out or warms up.  Because of this versatility I generally only have to decide if I’m wearing light or heavy socks.

The other morning, with the arrival of a cold front, the morning temperature was expected to be in the mid to upper twenties.  That is the shoe cover and the heavy wool socks, especially considering it was supposed to stay dry and warm up.  I figured I could dump the extra warmth of the shoe covers at the anticipated high of 38 degrees and be layered just right.

It would have worked, except the temperature climbed to nearly 46 degrees that day.  I still hadn’t worried about it too much, planned on just socks going home.  Wool is warm. 

Less than a mile into my ride, my feet were uncomfortably hot.  It was at this point that I had considered packing an additional pair of socks for the weather, and about a second later that I dismissed the idea.  There isn’t any logic to it; I just don’t want.  I draw the line at adding an additional pair of socks to my additional gloves, hats, shirts and pants.

Lesson learned for the future: light socks unless it will be sub 30 BOTH directions.

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