THE LAYERING APPROACH

When temperature drops, bike tourers may tend to overprotect themselves by wearing clothing that is too thick and heavy. This can cause overheating and sweating, even while cycling in the coldest of temperatures. And when the garments become sweat-soaked, they are far less serviceable.

Enter the layering approach to keeping warm (and cool). Here, we select garments that are thin and lightweight, and in harsher weather we wear these garments one on top of another.

As an example, say we start out on a beautiful, sunny morning, cycling in a lightweight polyester jersey and a pair of shorts. A frontal system moves into the area and the jersey and shorts are suitable for a while, but we begin to feel the temperature dropping as the morning progresses. So over the jersey and shorts we don the shell jacket and pants, and for the next few hours this becomes the most comfortable arrangement. Any more clothing would make us sweat. But as the ambient temperature continues its decline, soon we need a bit more warmth. So we remove the shell jacket, don a thermal shirt over the polyester jersey, and put the shell jacket back on. Now wearing three layers on the torso we continue ahead, once again in comfort. Then in a few hours, as the temperature drops further, we remove the shell pants, put on the thermal pants over the shorts, and put the shell pants back on. And we pull on our warm hat and gloves.

This layering approach is important in several way. It affords a greater comfort range by enabling small adjustments, as we don and doff relatively thin layers. It keeps us comfortably warm without sweat-soaking everything. And it makes for faster drying of all our garments, ince each is less thick than the heavy-duty types. The faster our clothes can dry, the less the storms will affect us.

The key here is comfort. Never hould we allow ourselves to become chilled (or overheated). If we feel the need for more layers, we put them on. And don't forget about the insulated jacket, and the quilt, which at the rest stops and evening camps can serve as a wonderfully warming robe.