Parts is parts

[ornoth_cycling]

Been a strange couple weeks. About the same time I was hit by that SUV, I was also incubating what I think was my first saddle sore.

Now, over the past year, I’ve had a couple bouts of minor seat irritation. Over the holidays I made an effort to do a couple lengthy rides, and my chafing resumed. On the second ride, I covered the affected area with a bandage.

The bandage didn’t seem to help, because a few days later I had a nice, hard, painful saddle sore. I was off the bike (and sitting sideways at work) for a good week before it mostly receded, and I’m hoping that now it’s history. Was a intriguing problem, and something I think I’ll take pains to avoid in the future.

And that week I missed? We had temperatures in the fifties all week. The first day I felt confident I could bike again was the day it dropped from 57 degrees to 11, with a gusting wind. Figures, huh?

On the other hand (quite literally), those temperatures gave me the first opportunity to try the new lobster gloves I’d bought over the holidays.

For the uninformed, lobster gloves have three chambers: thumb, and then two spaces for two fingers each (see illustration). I’d always been pretty skeptical of them, but I heard some glowing reports and decided to pick some up.

What I discovered was that they really work. I’ve always worn five-fingered gloves before, and in really frigid weather my fingers would freeze up pretty quickly. The lobster mitts really do seem to do a better job keeping your fingers warm, and I think they’re a definite improvement in my winter riding garb. It takes some time to get used to braking and shifting with two fingers at a time as opposed to one or three, but that’ll come with time, and the improved heat retention is well worth a bit of awkwardness and the occasional strange look.

Soon it’ll be time to start training in earnest if I hope to make the Boston Brevet Series 200k and maybe the 300k in May!