toesies

[johnridley]

While waiting for my toes to warm up after my ride this morning, I came to what probably should have been an obvious conclusion. For the last several weeks, my toes have really been creaky; the big toes especially. They crack and creak quite a bit. I broke one of them playing racquetball 20 years ago, so I've gotten used to ignoring them.

However, it occurs to me now that the increased creakiness is well correlated with them getting quite cold on my daily rides. No frostbite, but definitely uncomfortably cold, to the point where they take a half hour of sitting barefoot, alternately warming the toes with the other foot.

I think maybe I'll keep my eyes open for post-season sales on some nice winter cycling boots. Lake and some others make them and they're apparently wonderful, but they're also about $200.

I've thought about getting some electric socks and hook them to my bike's electrical system, but I don't like the idea of being wired to the bike. And using toe warmers, and generating a couple of pieces of extra garbage per day kind of defeats the environmental aspect of riding. There are reusuable warmers, but I haven't found any that are small, and from past experience, toe warmers are way too much heat, I wind up sweating like crazy if not getting uncomfortably hot.

Comments

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but they kind of stink. Any time you're charging a pack instead of a cell, you're into a grey area. The charger can't monitor individual cells, so they have to trickle charge, which takes more time, and they can't condition the cells so they don't last long.

Most of the ones I've seen run on a pair of D cells, which is a lot more energy than a 9V. If I put two such in series, it's 6 volts. I run a 14.4v system, so I'd have to regulate that down. It's probably not a lot of current so I'd probably just use a cheapo linear regulator. On my HID headlight I built a pretty nice switching regulator, because that draws over an amp and I didn't want to throw away that much power. I guess what I do with the socks depends on how much current they draw. Worst case though is that I just have to charge my battery every 3 days instead of every 4. Not even that, this time of year; lately it's been daylight by the time I get out in the morning so I haven't been using the main battery at all, or just a little for the rear strobe if it's snowing.

Hm, two 9v in series, and my battery nominally puts out about 14 to 15 volts. That might be about right. Some heat but not a ton. Yeah, if you've got some unused ones sitting around let me know.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Hmm, the reviews aren't that good. Maybe I should be looking for some good boots instead...