Friday 8 January 2016

Winter Riding part 2 - Feet

Cold Feet

Once when I was around 14, I got frost bite on my toes.. They were black but didn't loose them thankfully and generally they are normal except when it comes to being in -10 weather.. then the big toe goes numb and start to hurt.

I had to come up with a solution to continue riding. So I started to look around.


  • Heated hockey socks ($250 CDN) a pair and had to be washed.  Not ideal, expensive but would work.
  • Heated souls, ($200 CDN) came with long cables and external battery packs.  Cumbersome but would work fine.
  • Then I found a pair of carbon wire souls that were all in one with a remote fob in the hunting section.  ($100.00 CDN) but to recharge them I had to remove them from my shoe everytime.  So I did what anyone else will do, and made them work for me...

Step 1: Adjust the soles to the boot, this requires some trimming and I cut the rubber cover off the back, where the ON switch is and the recharging port is.



 Step 2: Measure up the back of the heel to where the ports are on the soul so I can get at them.


Step 3: DRILL baby DRILL! I drilled both shoes the same way and then put a boot cover over the boot to give it protection from the elements + protection from the wet snow from my feet, double win!  These black boots are pretty old, so I had no issue with trying this out on them and with out the boot cover, the desert dust that is embedded into the boot is there to stay, so with out the cover, they were damn ugly.

This is what the boot look liked with and with out the cover on it.  It stays pretty good, ideal for biking but not really for walking around on.