Matt's Bike Thoughts

I love my summerweight HandUp gloves. They're somehow cooler than not wearing any gloves, and despite that, they're fairly comfortable down to 50F degrees. The fit is fantastic, yadda yadda, you've heard all this before. However, it's winter, and the temperatures in Denver get much lower than 50 degrees. I have some burly mountaineering gloves that work great from 0-20 degrees, but I need something for that in between zone. I've tried a ton of different gloves for that 20-50 range, and I really wanted HandUp to restock their  Winter Glove  and see how it worked out. I ordered a pair as soon as they did. Shortly after they restocked, they also released an  colder winter glove  with fleece lining. I was stoked and ordered them too. I've ridden both pairs of gloves in the 10-50 range for the last 6-8 weeks, and I've amassed about 300 miles between them. I mostly reach for the colder gloves for 10-30 degree rides, and the cold gloves for 20-40 degree rides.

Strava Link Temperature averaged 32 degrees, getting down to 30 for the second half of the ride. Not much wind. Average speed of 17.2mph. Gear notes: Icebreaker thin merino balaclava Worked great. Kept it mostly on my ears and it kept my ears from freezing. 45NRTH Naughtvind jacket Worked great. Kept the wind off me. 45NRTH Naughtvind bibs My legs were a little  cold, but not terribly so. Would have been a problem if I were still, but fine for an hour of hard riding Lake mtb shoes with neoprene booties Feet felt great the whole ride. Long sleeve 250 weight merino shirt + cat jersey May have been a bit too heavy, I was quite sweaty but warm for most of the ride Fuji Jari with Riddler/Resolute tires I love this setup. I pumped it up to ~35psi front and rear, as the ride was mostly on pavement. It handled the dirt and gravel sections with confidence and speed. I managed to get a brake check in, too, and the Resolute skids out before the Riddler, which kept me

I just got back from Hildebrand Ranch trail, where I did the Two Brands loop once. This time, I took my Fuji Jari with a few new components: - Easton EC70 stem - WTB Riddler 45mm tire up front - WTB Resolute 42mm tire in the rear I got five miles of pretty fast and flowy dirt trails, a bit of rocky singletrack, and some rutted out truck maintenance dirt road. The stem is 70mm, which is 20mm shorter than the stock stem. This helps me sit back a bit further on the bike for trickier descents, and helped me feel a good bit more confident. It's also likely that my bike is just slightly too large for me, and having the stem shorter fixes the issue there. I'll report back on the road buzz factor when I've tried it with more familiar tires/wheels/terrain, but I suspect the difference is minimal. What I'm really excited about are these tires. My last set of gravel tires were the venerable WTB Nanos. I put about 1,000 miles on them before tearing the sidewall on my rear