Lance's Fisting Technique

Even with ice in his beard, his fingers are warm.

It's getting into the cold season, but that doesn't mean you should stop riding.   With the right equipment, you can continue riding all the way through the winter, and don't have to subject yourself to the horrors of indoor stationary riding.

That said, even with the proper equipment, many folks have trouble with cold hands and feet, myself included, even with thick, heavy gloves.  Thick gloves can make controlling the bike more difficult, and if even thick gloves aren't keeping your fingers warm, then the call of the indoor trainer may be getting stronger.  However, one of my riding buddies (Lance) has shared a trick with me that allows me to ride through the winter with nothing more than ordinary full-finger gloves!

 

Here's how it works:

1. Start your cold ride.  You may be warm from the house (or car) but you were resting, so you're not "warmed up".  Ride for a little while until you start to warm up, you should be breathing hard.  This usually coincides with your fingers starting to get cold.  
2. At this point, stop riding, and pull your fingers back into your glove, making a fist inside the glove.  The heat from your palm will warm your fingers.  (On the road or a non-challenging MTB trail, you may also be able to do this while still riding, but if you try it and hurt yourself, I will point and laugh.)  
3. This shouldn't take long, just long enough to get your fingers to stop being really cold.  Don't stop long enough that you cool down, either.  It's just a quick stop, if you're stopped for more than a minute you're probably doing it wrong. 
4. Once your fingers are warm-ish, you can put them back in the glove like normal, and resume riding.  
5.  Your fingers should stay warm for the rest of the ride!

Since your core temp is up and you're properly warmed up, the blood is flowing, and it's carrying heat from the exercise.  Since your fingers aren't brutal cold anymore, the blood is able to get to them, and keep them warm.  I've been doing this for a couple years now, and have been able to ride through sub-freezing temps using the same full-finger gloves that I rode in the summer.  Last year I was halfway through the winter when I realized that the 661 gloves I was using had an open mesh on the side of the fingers.  Even with the open mesh (I could see the skin of my fingers!) my fingers never got cold past that initial warm-up period.

Give it a try!

Now for toes, this trick doesn't work as well -- you can't make a fist with your feet!  I'm still working on this one, but for me, the trick seems to be having shoes that are big enough to have thicker socks and still leave room for your feet.  That seems to be the key - if your feet are too snug in the shoes, you won't get circulation, and you'll have the same problem as your fingers above. If your shoes are not quite big enough, you can cheat it out a little bit by loosening the straps, especially the ones towards the front of the foot.  I've found that helps a bit.  Wind can still be an issue, and I've heard that clipless pedals can actually act as a heat sink - a larger aluminum clipless pedal can draw heat out of your foot.  I dunno how legit that claim is since there is a plastic sole, and usually, a plastic cleat between your foot and the pedal, but I do run thicker insoles in the winter.  The big thing is don't restrict your feet, and I often try to wiggle my toes to make sure they're still getting circulation.