1st February 2025 What price warm hands?

 ~o~

  Saturday 1st 36F/2C[8.00] Rather cloudy but mostly dry with some sunshine. It could reach 6C/43F.

 Up at 6am after another quiet night. What plans for today? 64F/18C feels a bit chilly.

 8.15 Light enough for a walk. My phone battery was flat again. Time for a quick charge.

 8.40. Off we go.       

 9.00 Back again. The sun came out as I pottered around the loop of the neighbour' drives. 

 10.00 The brightness was short lived. A grey overcast. I am going to ride into town. About a 20km round trip plus detours.

12.30 Back from town. Where I bought the warmest gloves from a car spares discount store at £25 equivalent. Then rode on into town to buy the warmest skiing gloves from a sports clothing shops. Which cost me £45 after a double discount from £80. Having had cold hands on the way there I wore these home. The GripGrab lobster claw mitts. With thin, synthetic liner gloves. Which I had worn into town weren't warm enough. My fingertips were aching before I got there. That was after a 15km ride with a light crosswind and ~40F/4C.

 Thankfully I arrived home with my hands comfortably warm. I lost a little dexterity but nothing to complain about. I bought the largest pair they had at 3XL. About a size 13? I am usually an 11 but though I might need liner gloves. I didn't today.

 The size of the Bosch Nyon button pad must have been a fierce battle between sizing for little girls and little boys. The little girls obviously won.  The Bosch Head of Design had clearly never ridden a bike in his entire life. Let alone an e-bike. He got his petite secretary to handle the control pad mock up for a few seconds and that was good enough. It never occurred to him that men might actually ride their e-bikes in winter. While wearing warm, winter gloves.

 How could he possibly know? He is constantly chauffeured around in a warm limousine. The idea that men might ride their EMTBs under tough conditions, while wearing protective gloves, would never occur to him. When a junior piped up about the foolish size of the control pad they were sent to clean the toilets. As punishment for rising above their station. Gotta maintain the strict hierarchy. 

 Now I need to find a way to make the gloves touch screen sensitive. One website suggested anti-static fluid. Or sewing conductive threads into the fingertips. The Goretex membrane isn't going to like the latter! I am not about to send SMSs at lightning speed while on the fly. I just want to be able to swipe the Bosch Nyon screen.

Nobody bats an eyelid at the extortionate prices of bicycle parts. Why worry about the price of the clothing? Which makes riding a bike in winter possible. I could have spent the £200 on some fancy "name" gloves recommended as Best Buy by a cycling test website. When these same bejeweled and mink lined gloves only rated a 7 out of 10 for warmth? If it smells like corruption, sounds like corruption and looks like corruption then it must be online cycle wear reviews.

 Dinner was a salmon pasty. With pasta and peas. I finally discovered the correct symbol for full oven with fan. Surprise! It worked! The downside was the absence of tinned tomatoes to throw onto the pasta. I had somehow overlooked a large gap in my supposed Danish, .Gov recommended, prepper's larder. I sprinkled some salt and pepper on top and that made it quite edible. Even tasty.

  ~o~