36 degrees, feels like 27. Light Wintry mix = perfect riding weather?

With all the snow we've been getting, I've gotten a bit tired of driving to work.  I had to do it for nearly two weeks straight.  Hard life I know!  So this week I said to heck with it and got my trusty Leader back off the porch and into the road.  Monday and Tuesday were a little squirrely with all the black ice, but luckily I didn't come to any grief, even on my hour long ride on Tuesday with the messenger bag full of things I shouldn't have bothered bringing home anyway.

This morning I was a bit nervous since I looked out the door and it was raining.  I was even more nervous since our puppy decided the weather wasn't enough fun to stay out and play in for a bit and just did her business and came back inside straightaway.  Wait a minute, straightaway?  Oh I know! Did I mention I like feeling somewhat British after watching too much MI-5?  Moving on...

But I figured it couldn't be much worse than yesterday's slippery patches, at least the rain actually lessened the amount of black ice outside.  So I got all gussied up in my Cannondale wind-proof (really, they are almost totally wind proof) pants a couple long sleeve shirts, one of them the weird Nike spehere thermal thing with a hood that I got years ago at the Nike Employee Store in Beaverton

put the big Adidas neoprene overshoes over my shoes and then one of my latest and best finds, the Adistar Clima Proof jacket that Nashbar dropped for 35 bucks instead of about 180 last year:

 I also wore my cute Milram cap.

And for an hour I motored (well more likely it was only motoring in my mind and more like creeping to everyone else) around town, Haveford Road down to Lancaster, then back into Gladwyn and up and down a few hills, then up and down some more hills (always a pleasure at 6:15 in the morning on a single speed with 42x16 gearing) and then down a hill I didn't mean to go down and eventually right into work.  Ended up riding for just about 55 minutes and was completely comfortable.  My toes were a bit chilly but they always get a bit chilly.  I actually had to open up the jacket as I was getting pretty toasty and my hands were sweating quite a bit in the outer layer of those Specialized gloves I got at the swap meet in Trexlertown this fall.

It was nice to get to work with the legs feeling pretty crapped out, my face not too freezing despite the loss of the face-sweater this weekend, and feeling like I had very little to fear from the weather anymore.  Blizzard conditions still frighten me and obviously roads with snow and ice are a no go (although I'd love to try those crazy tires with the metal spikes in them someday, apparently they don't just make them for motorcycles chasing James Bond anymore), but if I can be pretty comfortable on a ride like this morning, it bodes well for future training in the dark of early morning!