I went to Bethesda and picked up a pair of Bar Mitts. I took Metro up there so I haven’t had a chance to try them out yet.
The Bar Mitts are made out of neoprene, the same material used for triathlon wetsuits. Should be interesting. I’m actually looking forward to testing them out. But it’ll be a while before the temperatures get really cold. My regular winter gloves were OK last year until it got down to the 20s and below.
By the way, I had another crazy driver encounter while I was walking around Bethesda. I was crossing an intersection, in the crosswalk and while I had the Walk signal. As I was more than halfway across, an oncoming car makes a hard left (his left), cutting across the other car traffic lanes to make a tight turn. Not sure why he was doing that but he headed straight for me. He came within a foot of hitting me.
What’s more, he didn’t even really stop. He veered about two inches and then kept going. Clearly he saw me and he knew that he had almost hit me, but then he immediately kept going! He was in no danger of getting struck by other car traffic. If he had stopped for a couple seconds, it would have been no problem for him. I’m not familiar with that intersection so perhaps he was making an illegal left turn and wanted to clear out before a police officer saw him. Either that or he was on drugs. The sun had set but I was wearing light-colored clothing. And since he veered slightly, I know he saw me. What an ass. And a menace.
Anyway, I think this winter will be more pleasant with the Bar Mitts. I’ll try chemical warmers for my mtn bike shoes along with my neoprene shoe covers. I think that should be OK. If not, then I’ll try the suggestion to use platform pedals over the winter and shoes/boots that don’t have holes in the bottom of them, i.e., bike shoes.
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