{"id":5624,"date":"2014-12-04T11:29:45","date_gmt":"2014-12-04T18:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/?p=5624"},"modified":"2014-12-03T16:32:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-03T23:32:31","slug":"riding-on-a-cold-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/riding-on-a-cold-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Riding On A Cold Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kawi<\/a>

Out along south Santa Fe\/US 85 on Wednesday.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Wednesday was quite cool, only in the low 40s, but I had the day off from my day job and I had three motorcycles that had not yet had a December ride. Of course I went out.<\/p>\n

I knew it was time to break out the cold weather gear, but how much did I really need? One good thing about riding several bikes consecutively is that if you were cold on the first ride you can add more for the second. I definitely wore the electric vest; that was a no-brainer. I chose not to wear my heated gloves. The last couple times I’ve ridden it has been cool and my regular insulated gloves were plenty. I could have worn long underwear or my fleece-lined chaps, or both. I chose the chaps.<\/p>\n

The first ride had to be on the V-Strom. When I had intended to take it out over the weekend I still hadn’t found my keys<\/a>, so it didn’t go out then. This time it got first shot.<\/p>\n

I didn’t turn the electric vest on at first but hadn’t gone far when I hit the switch. Yeah, it was definitely chilly. I also notice that my arms were getting chilly. The vest keeps the torso warm but the arms are on their own. And my feet felt a little cool. My legs were great, though. Those chaps<\/a> have been a blessing every time I’ve ever worn them.<\/p>\n

So it was chilly but still a nice day to be out, especially when you consider that most other people were working, while I was out riding my motorcycle. Totally works for me.<\/p>\n

By the time I got back from that first ride, though, my fingers were little ice cubes, almost completely numb. Definitely adding the heated gloves for the next ride. I was also thinking about putting some of those chemical heat packs in my boots, though my feet were still only chilly, not cold like my hands.<\/p>\n

Second bike out was the Concours. I figured I’d head southwest, over toward Sedalia and back up via Happy Canyon Road.<\/p>\n

I forgot the chemical heat for my feet but they did OK. The heated gloves made all the difference in the world. I set them on the second-highest setting because I didn’t know how much charge they had and didn’t want to drain them before I rode the Honda. Plus, it’s OK to have slightly cool hands and that is probably better than having hot, sweaty hands. And either is better than ice cubes.<\/p>\n

Another really nice ride. I do enjoy riding motorcycles. How is it that some people don’t understand what a wonderful thing this is?<\/p>\n

I had let the day slip away, though, so by the time I was heading home the commuter traffic was already building and the temperature was already dropping. Plus, the gloves were running out of juice. I have charged them periodically over the warm months, just to be kind to the batteries, but had not done so in the last month or so. By the time I stopped to gas up one had died altogether and the other was flashing that it was on its way out.<\/p>\n

So the Honda will have to wait for the weekend before it gets to go out. Darn, I’m going to have to ride one of my motorcycles again in a few days!<\/p>\n

Biker Quote for Today<\/h3>\n

Two wheels take me faster than my stress can go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday was quite cool, only in the low 40s, but I had the day off from my day job and I had three motorcycles that had not yet had a December ride. Of course I went out. I knew it was time to break out the cold weather gear, but how much did I really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[647],"class_list":["post-5624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado-motorcycle-rides","tag-cold-weather-motorcycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5624"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5629,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5624\/revisions\/5629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}