Too low for Zero

Taste of Winter

After another thorough muddying on the way in to work I put in a long day and left work again at 8pm. Obviously it was dark and as I made my way from the office to the bike I felt the characteristic nip of 4-degrees in the air; I pride myself on sniffing out the potential for snow. As Shadowfax was ignited, his temperature gauge showed 3-degrees. It was going to be cold as the Meon Valley has proven a rule of being at least 2-degrees colder than at either end of the commute.

My glasses misted up first and I had to put my gloves on by touch. As we commenced the ride the glasses cleared by the length of the car park so I lowered the visor part way. It misted up. Hmm. One of "those" nights again.

I took it really steady - the weather had had a jump of 3-hours on me without any warmth of the Sun so the chance of ice was quite high and the tarmac was greasy slick with damp in any case. By the Bently by-pass the temperature read 2-degrees. A fine misty rain became a fine mist and by Alton, fog banks.

Nikki's finger visor wipe had been primed but had fallen off by the time I really needed it - gutted - I really did need it (although it had smeared the mud earlier as it'd met its match to clear the visor efficiently).

I fear fog most - not only for mistaking a hedge for the road but for the lack of a rear fog light. I hatched a plan while riding to mount a cheap (£7.50) Halfords fog lamp under the rear rack with Meccano brackets and a switch under the seat for simplicity, or something. Soon though, the fog was not only on the outside in the atmosphere but again causing me concern at the lower edge of the visor's inner - right where I need vision to see the mirrors clearly. They were fogged up, too, so this soon became academic! (Bugger that £5 paid at Trevor Popes for a "Anti Fog" spray that smells suspiciously like Windowlene and is about as Anti-fog as Tony Blair was anti-war in Iraq.)

-1 degree!

On entering the A32 the temperature reduced again to 1-degree and I had to succumb to riding with the visor part-open, which made an unpleasant buffeting and reduced progress speed further. At East Tisted's 50mph limit I was visor fully up and stopped to sort it out before the really dark woody bit (where stopping at night can give you the willies). It was -1-degree!

While elated that I wasn't falling off with hypothermia (although cold) or dropping frigid frost-bitten fingers off all over the road for the Badgers to chew on before sacrificing themselves to the next car to come around the corner I thought to take a photo. Impressed: it worked (above). So I took a couple of the HID plasma cannon's effects on low and high beam, too. Here they are for comparison:

Low beam ("Protect Mode")
High beam (or Attack Mode")

It warmed the cockles of my heart, if not my nose and forehead. I need to think on what to do with the visor (although I do have a cleaner bottle thing Nikki bought for me but always seems locked to far away from reach), and I'm seriously considering laser eye surgery to bin the gecks!!!

Anyway, we survived but now to get comfortable. There's worse to come.