Rowman, let's talk about what to wear on a winter trainings bin
Rowman, let's talk about what to wear on a winter trainings bin. Cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness, and our longevity? That is the question on this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Rowman Podcast. Welcome back to another short form, Rowman, cycling podcast, it's nice to get back into my regular cadence with the podcast. Don't get me wrong, Summit Week was fun, interviews all week and being able to drop you guys. Five full form interviews was pretty cool, but I love our old little format of Rowman Bites on Monday, Tuesday, Long Form Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Rowman Bites. something about that just bite-sized chunk that you can take an actionable tip, go and use it rather than the full form, you know, 60 minutes of will loosely say education. Today I want to talk to you about what you should wear on a winter training spin because I'm looking out the window, the temperatures are pretty low, it's still dark and I'm pondering this very question myself. What should I wear to keep warm and dry on a day like this? Before I jump into today's podcast folks, let me just remind you about Patreon. Patreon is how we support this podcast years back many moons ago, many many years and moons ago. Oh, that's all we start stories like that. Yeah, don't really know where it's going with it. But I used to have a Facebook live show, it was called the A1 show and it seemed to the outside audience. And I suppose to us to me and my co-host Aaron Bughal, like it was gonna stay around forever. We had hundreds of thousands of people watching every week and it was brilliant crack and we were getting free product non-stop But we never monetised it. We never figured out how to take cash out of it to pay our bills to keep the cover production costs And as a result, it eventually Fell apart and it's gone gone gone maybe possibly most likely never to return So that's what I want to make sure it doesn't happen with the Row Man podcast and the way I've decided to do it early stages here It's patreon and patreon is how I'm hoping to secure the future it is It's the price of a point to bear once a month from you beautiful guys and girls And that will secure the future of this podcast for me So if you're getting some value from it, please consider heading on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore waltch the link is in the bio and And in return, you're going to guess the knowledge from today. So what do you wear on a winter train in Spain? Because I see so many people and this isn't confined to newbies, although it would be very easy to just level this criticism at new folks. I think new folks have this dangerous combination. And I don't say it word dangerous lately because winter is miserable and cycling is an extreme sport at the at the fringes of it because you can be out in some pretty grim weather up the mountains things like that and you can get yourself some dangerous conditions like how you prepare me is so it is important to learn how to dress. The newbies have lack of knowledge and lack of kit and those two is together as why I said it's dangerous but let's focus on giving you the knowledge today to go out and actually void a kit that you need. So I always start the night before and that's kind of when my it's just an old habit at this stage that's when my preparation for spin gets started. So I checked the weather forecast last night and I loosely agree on what I'm going to wear myself using the criteria I'm going to give you today. What I try and do is I get dressed from the ground up so that means in my head I don't have to keep remembering oh what's next what's next what's next. I just have kind of a top or bottom up.
Is what I do. What goes on my feet, what goes on my legs, what goes…
This is what I do. What goes on my feet, what goes on my legs, what goes on under layer. So that's what I'm going to do. So we're going to talk about feet first. So if shoe covers, if you don't have a shoe cover, I would highly recommend getting a shoe cover. And then depending on the type of climate you're in, you're going to want a different type of shoe cover. For me, the best type of shoe cover, it's typically a knee-print shoe cover. Now neoprene is the material wetsuits are made from and you can get a lot of you know cortex and other type of materials in the shoe cover but for me living in Ireland or if you're living in the UK I think this is equally applicable. Even when we're not getting rain we're getting rain we're getting showers typically you know most spins and the neoprene worth those it allows the water to be absorbed into the shoe cover and to use that water as extra insulation to keep the shoe warm. I love nail-print shoe covers. At the moment I'm using a spat shoe cover which is a little bit longer. It goes quite a bit higher but honestly not married to the brand on it. I think the going higher is a little bit of a gimmick. Maybe there's a lot of other brands out there. Out there doing it but a golden nail-print shoe cover is the spat to actually fall in the part. I mean quite bad rubs in early, you know, I think I've just got the first generation set. So I would be keen to try out a second generation spots and see if they fix some of them construction issues because it is a cool idea. But there's plenty of golden ear-prey and shoe covers on the market so I would invest in ear-prey and shoe covers. Next, you're talking about your socks. I go with a wool cycling sock for the winter. You know, you can get your normal cotton cycling socks for the summer. I go to wool one for the winter don't forget it's not the end of the world even if your socks aren't matching if you're in a pinch and you're in a rush in the morning shoe covers are going to cover your socks and they're not going to see them. Now legs a lot of people wear shorts during the winter shorts are almost never suitable. I'm actually going to move toward almost since I never suitable for the winter. I go with leggings and leggings then you have various forms you have leggings with a chamois in them or a leggings without a chamois that you can pull over shorts. Honestly just ditch the leggings without a chamois. It's leggings with a chamois and that's gonna be your de facto legging. So the only question you have then is what sort of degree of protection are you looking for from those leggings under temperature grade as most of the time. So again you can match that temperature grade to your winter day but honestly I only have like two tree pairs of leggings so that temperature grading doesn't happen a whole pile for me. I just have my winter leggings and then once I get into the summer I'll use shorts with leg warmers, shorts with knee warmers or just shorts depending on the temperature. But winter time it's long leggings all the way. Right now we're up to base layer. Now this is one of the ones that I do alternate based on the kind of prevalent temperatures outside. So if it's above zero, I will always go with a short sleeve base layer with no arms cut off base layer. If it's below zero or if it's you know if it's single digits above zero but it looks like it might rain and stuff and I know it's gonna be extra cold. I'm gonna go with a long sleeve base layer. Now regardless if we go short sleeve or long sleeve, the main thing to consider with base layer is something that's tight and something that's made of merino wool. Merino wool, it wicks sweat away from your skin but it also has this sort of antibacterial effect as well so it's not going to stink with the sweat.
When you get into the coffee shop halfway through there's not going…
When you get into the coffee shop halfway through there's not going to be a bang off you are known the coffee shop is going to want to sit with you. So you want to find yourself a long sleeve merino wool base layer. If you're looking for one base layer to do you for the whole winter long sleeve merino wall and toy fitting. You want it to be toy fitting really close to the skin for that kind of real winter warmth. Next, this is sort of where I really kind of start making the sessions is the mid layers and the number of mid layers. If you want to go with long slave jerseys in the mid layers, just look out at the temperature. So this morning I'm looking at four degrees. So I'm going with two kind of long slave jersey. Now this is That's where real preference comes in because some of us run cold, some of us run warm. In the mornings I'm always cold starting. Today is going to be an 8 a.m. start for today's session. I'm going to run cold. I feel cold myself already. So I'm going to go with the base layer, two mid layers. The mid layers are just various forms of soil and jerseys. So you don't need to get too technical on those of what are they? I use long sleeve ones in the mid layers. I'm going to go with two of them. Then you want to go with a soft shell outer coat with some wind stopper on it. Loads of different brands. I'm using the brand Velocchio for tights, jerseys, coats. I absolutely love Velocchio. I've been using them for the last 12 months or so. Soft shell reflective properties are good if you're getting started early in the morning and the new reflective properties are pretty cool because they're actually built into the coat. It doesn't need to be yellow or orange to be reflective. black materials are even reflective which is super cool once the loits hit them. So you're going soft chill, you want to have a water resistant water repellent but you're not going to get it waterproof or else it's going to be a boiling bag. So what you're looking here is splash proof and wind resistant and that's going to be your main get shit done outer layer that you're going to wear 90% of the time. Then you're going to move across to in my opinion the most important piece of your entire winter kit. I call it a boiling the bag winter rain cape and it's typically your cheapest layer. I can't remember what I spent on mine but it's definitely not an expensive piece of kit. It's the really packable cheap light raincoat and honestly this coat will get you out of more pinches when the temperature drops it's the best layer you can put on to keep warm. When it rains it's going to keep the water from coming through your soft shell. When you get to the coffee if you're sitting outside in these sort of COVID times, you're going to pull it on. If you're not sitting outside, but you're getting moving again post coffee shop, you're going to pull it on. It's going to keep you warm. If you get a puncture, you're going to pull it on. Honestly, it's such a versatile layer. It's unbelievable. So have that sort of small, packable, boiling-the-bag base layer wrapped up, ordering your handlebar bag or in the bag pocket of your soft shell jacket. Then on to our last couple of items, gloves are really a personal preference. I tend not to wear gloves unless temperatures are really tipping down into the single digits to 3 degrees. I don't really feel like my hands get cold that often and I like having that added dexterity of being able to use my hands to get stuff out of my pockets, grab my phone to take a picture or whatever. So I typically stay away from gloves until it gets cold. This morning it is looking quite cold. I'm going to use my Velocio. Here's our called Sub-Zero gloves. The ones I would recommend going from any brand is the Neoprene ones. Again for the same reason as the shoe covers.
Neoprene version is once it gets wet into it, it's going to allow…
The Neoprene version is once it gets wet into it, it's going to allow that moisture to be used as extra insulation and keep your hands warm. I've mucked around with every variety from ski gloves to gortex gloves to everything you can imagine in between. I think with one winter I went through about eight sets of gloves and I always arrived back at a heavy set of sub-zero neighboring gloves as my workhorse everyday glove and a good trick on a really wet day is to have a second set of gloves for halfway through the rod to change them over and back that works super well for my morale anyway. The last two pieces I'll use are a little neck tingy. It's like a little neck scarf. I like that to stop the breeze coming in down the zip where the zip meets your sort of chain at the top. The neck tingy fits in there. It's also quite a versatile layer because you can pull it up over your face as a mask in COVID times. You can pull it up over your head again if you're stopped at a coffee shop and you're super cold. It's a nice layer to have. And the very last one is a skull cap. You lose most of your heat through your head. So a little skull cap or a normal cap underneath your helmet will preserve a lot of that body heat from escaping through the top of your head. So there you go folks. I know that sounded like a little bit of a phone book of and then next do this and then next do this. But so many people every single day of the week, right past me, and they're not dressed properly and they're not dressed properly not because they're not spending money. They're spending a shit ton of money but on the wrong bits at the wrong time of year. So you just need to lift your head up a bit, advance scout what the weather is and have that wardrobe where you have a little bit of versatility. You need to have a winter wardrobe and a summer wardrobe. You don't need to have 10,000 articles of cycling clothing. My routine when I come in after every single day of training is I take off all my kit straight into the washing machine, so it's ready for the next day. So there can be days where 5, 6, 7 days in a row I wear the exact same kit. I'm talking layer for layer, same sock, same bass layer, everything day after day. And it's just because the weather doesn't change that much during the winter. So guys, if you've listened to the podcast, take a couple of notes on it and invest in those pieces of kit you're missing. If you're wondering what you should get, I've put together that roadmanresources.com. That's a lot of the stuff I recommend, or you can always hit me with a DM over on Instagram. It's roadman, cycling on Instagram, and I'll do my very best to get back to you. Roadman, thank you very much for joining in to another Roadman, cycling podcast. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the Roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14 day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you the leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guess walk out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's the master's beginner advanced, there's meal plans shopping list, and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio, and go to roadmancycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmancycling.com slash 14 day.