Essential winter commuting clothing/gear

[run it, ride it]

Am I the only one who commuted last winter and totally winged it? That was rhetorical. I'm young and crazy like that.

As a student in a small univeristy city, I got fed up with unreliable public transit and most often opted to take my 70s road bicycle to campus. Man, was I glad when I got fenders on that thing.

I usually ended up in running shoes, tights, jeans, glittens (gloves with the flip-up mitten part) a few zip-up sweatshirts and an autumn jacket (couldn't afford a winter jacket for myself--horse got a brand new winter blanket instead).

The weather of course ranged from -5 to -35 celcius (23F to -21F), and that was before the chill of the unrelenting, numbing wind that tore through every fibre of one's being. The snow was thick and wet and deep, but through the magic of snow removal equipment and salt, bare pavement existed below a few inches of slush in the bicycle lane (this was entirely new to me--at home they just plow and sand; you just learn to drive on a layer of snow. And yes, I learned to bike on it, too. Just never, EVER hit the brakes.).

You'd see the odd bicycle around campus from the other odd commuter. Or maybe from someone who just abandoned their bike there; with the general quality of university student mounts, you never can tell. But they were all thick-tired, heavy, capable mountain bikes.

Not me! I came chugging up on that road bicycle entirely out of its element, skidding every which-way, gears slipping from rust and salt encrustation.

Mind you, the commute was only 5km and most of that was uphill. And young skin bounces back quick from frost bite.