Saturday, January 12, 2013

A Foggy Ride to the Drug Store

Martha, my loving wife, is currently afflicted with what appears to be a bad cold.  I left the house shortly before 8:00AM to go to the drug store to pick up some of the "real" Sudafed cold medicine.  Trouble was that the pharmacy didn't open till 9:00AM.  What to do, what to do.

So, I headed back towards the snow-covered fields/ranches south of my home neighborhoods.  My previous post showed conditions with the sun setting, today I give you what it looks like in the early morning light.  Add in a thick covering of fog in the distance, and it made for some brisk riding conditions as temperatures got to almost -3°F.

I'd neglected, you see, to don my snow helmet's breath mask and so the double-walled visor on the helmet frosted up pretty quickly to the point where I couldn't see.  So I had to ride with the visor open in these temperatures.

 I liked the way the fog occluded one's view of the morning sun.


I donned my breath mask after the above pictures, it helped me bear
the subfreezing temperatures as I rode about with the visor up.


It was about 8:45AM by this point so I exited the development and got back onto Piney Lake Road and motored back towards Smoky Hill Road.  Soon, while peeking through the small clear spaces in my visor, I made it to the drugstore's parking lot and walked in.  

Nice and warm inside, I was able to wipe the ice/frost from both the inside and outside of the helmet's visor. After a brief wait, I got Martha her drugs and some other sundries she'd requested and headed back outside.  

I wore the face mask with the helmet this time and my closed visor stayed nice and clear all the way home.  It was almost 5°F by the time I got home, the sun was out and it promised to be a nice day here in the great state of Colorado.  Group ride with fellow Uralisti tomorrow, looking forward to some adventure perhaps.

Previously: A Snowy Evening Ride

5 comments:

RichardM said...

Nice photos with the sunrising through the fog.

Does your visor have a pinlock system or something else to minimize fogging? When it's cold, I usually end up with the visor partially open all the time which means a cold face.

redlegsrides said...

My visor is double-panned

Unknown said...

Dom, that helmet is designed to be a 'Fog Free' helmet ONLY if the face mask is used. The vents tubes in the sides of the mask redirect warm mouth air to the side of the visor thereby heating up the vacuum in the double pane. It will NEVER fog up once the visor gets up to operating temp which usually takes about 3-4 minutes in 0° and up to 6-8 minutes in -10° and below. The longer you ride with the mask on the warmer the double pane visor gets. I've been riding in -8 and snowing and it melted as soon as it hit the visor.

Murph.

Keith - Circle Blue said...

I've learned it is about the seal and airflow more than the dual lens visor. My visor will fog if I don't have the breathguard properly placed and as Murph pointed out until the whole ecosystem gets acclimated. When that happens I'm good to go without fogging.
~Keith

redlegsrides said...

Murph and Circle Blue, you are both correct.