Sure it’s cold, but the roads are clean and the sun is shining

Ryan J. Allen — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 05:10:09 +0000

Last weekend Adam and I drove down to Kingston to pickup my motorcycle, which spent a year and a half hibernating in Nana’s workshop. The folks at MotoSport Plus in Kingston did a great job of preparing it for slumber, and then did a great job of brining it back to life this spring. But as much as I trust them, I am much happier to have the bike in my own possession.

In the middle of March we had a couple of months were the weather was ridiculously awesome. I didn’t have my bike at this time but it made me excited to pick it up. But by the time I did pick it up the weather had changed–normalized–and my riding has been limited for this very reason. I did go out for a little ride today in +3 temperature weather and have a couple of things that make this a little better.

First and foremost, I picked up a balaclava from MEC: the CTR Mistral Multi-Tasker Pro. I wear this under my full-face helmet (a Scorpion EXO-700). This helps a lot. Of course, it’s useless if you don’t have a nice warm sweater under a jacket that is done up all the way.

With this my upper body is warm with one exception: my hands. It can get very cold. I went looking for some gloves that might be okay in the cold and ended up with a pair of Alpinestar SR-2 Drystar gloves. They’re a definite improvement over any other pair of gloves I had before. For my other gloves I have been wearing a pair of those stretchy black gloves underneath as a liner, but with these gloves I can get by without them. I can still feel some chill on the hands but it’s bearable (at least, for the short distances I’ve travelled). I should be able to layer these gloves with the little black gloves for added warmth.

Tonight I did a ride wearing these two pieces with the sun down and the temperature sitting at 0. They performed better than any other gloves I had paired with the black gloves. With my upper body taken care of it was my legs that were cold. Also, a motorcycle seat can get pretty cold very quickly at night.

London: Two Sweaters

Ryan J. Allen — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:21:09 +0000

A few people have asked me about my trip to London. Here are some details.

I stayed at one of the LSE residences. It brought back memories of various residences I’ve visited and stayed in. It also made me think that students living in residence are either really motivated to get through school (and willing to make great sacrifices) or are just happy to be living away from home for the first time.

I bought two sweaters. One heavier one, suitable for fall, from Esprit and another that was much lighter: a wine coloured v-neck sweater made with merino wool. I didn’t mention it earlier but I also bought a sweater the previous weekend in Heidelberg.

I visited the Regent Street Apple Store twice. Once I bought Snow Leopard.

I visited Waterstone’s and picked up a couple of books to carry me through to the end of my year abroad. I am currently reading Dispatches by Michael Herr.

I went to Starbucks each day after eating my full English breakfast.

I ate Indian food twice.

I went to see As You Like It performed at Shakespeare’s Globe. It was quite good.

Lots of walking about, relaxing in the parks, riding the Tube. I took one or two photos only, and one of them was a picture of American Psycho in the storefront window at one Waterstone’s location. It was a recommended read.

I watched the film Inglourious Basterds in a theatre that might be smaller than the one in downtown Kingston. I also ate popcorn for dinner that night.

On Monday I woke up at 4:30 a.m. (BST), took a taxi to Liverpool Street, took the train to London-Stansted, flew to Baden Airpark, and drove to Karlsbad for work by 10:30 a.m. (CET).

But the real story is: two new sweaters.

Ryan J. Allen » sweater

Sure it’s cold, but the roads are clean and the sun is shining

London: Two Sweaters