SmartWool Socks
Cold feet are the bane of winter cycling. Even an hour on the bike can make your toes cold and numb. If the circulation diminishes enough, your feet will start to cramp and interrupt your ride. It’s a drag.
On the rest of your body, you can pile on layers. But, unless you’ve bought oversized winter shoes, it’s hard to fit very many socks inside the shoes you used in summer.
In frustration, some cyclists go to the kitchen, grab a couple baggies and slide them in-between two layers of socks or start wrapping up their feet in cellophane. Others pile on ski socks over the outside of their shoes! It’s got a certain DIY appeal.
If you’re cold, get warm. Whatever it takes. But there are way better solutions than these. Neoprene booties, lined with fleece, are useful. Toe covers on your pedals can help. So can all manner of hearty winter socks.
Among the warmest in a single layer are SmartWool socks. Sheered in New Zealand from Merino sheep, this wool is made of only the extra-fine strands — 1/3 to 1/10th the size of a human hair. So it’s soft, not itchy like regular wool.
Surprisingly, it wicks, absorbs and evaporates better than the synthetics specifically designed for winter. Once sweat condenses, synthetic materials work to wick it away from your skin. Wool doesn’t wait for condensation. It soaks up the water vapor and moves it away from you, keeping your feet dry.
Looks like Nature figured out to keep the sheep in New Zealand warm and dry in winter long before we’d even thought of socks, much less bikes.