Midwest

Surviving Wisconsin Winters Part 5: the Magical Warmth of Snowboard Socks

Health

snowboarder and dog

stance-snowboard-socks

I don’t intend this as a review of any specific sock, though I’ve already come to rely on Stance Socks. I only want to highlight a key feature of knee height wool socks.

While it’s only an extra few inches of wool, knee-height adds significant warmth. It’s a magic-bullet layer of insulation that boosts overall warmth, while adding zero bulk to your torso.

Though each sock covers only an additional five inches of skin, it’s special skin. It’s your extremities. So, in covering 20% more of each leg, you’re shutting down 20% of lower-extremity body-heat radiation. Stated in the inverse, you are increasing heat retention. Think of the difference a turtleneck makes. Same difference, even more so.

Really, it’s like adding a Capilene 2 long-sleeved thermal top — but adding neither bulk nor fabric-on-fabric friction to your torso. Magic!

[Animation credit:  Jeremy Thompson; Snowboarder.com]
[Photo credit:  Stance Socks]

Surviving Wisconsin Winters, Part 4: Wool — It Does a Body Good

Health

wool for overcoats

This year I have a new go-to layer for winter cycling:  an old, cashmere polo shirt. The warmth is incredible, but it’s also got the buttoned polo collar and short sleeves, so it vents really well.

In my seventh Wisconsin winter, I’ve become a wool convert. Sadly, over the years I’ve stockpiled a whole closet full of Patagonia Capilene. Don’t get me wrong, Capilene is an excellent product. It breathes exceedingly well, and it offers quality insulation without bulk. But I wish I’d spent half that money on wool, instead. It’s so much warmer than any synthetic of comparable weight. (Wool does have its drawbacks.)

And the real killer app of wool is its antimicrobial properties. Don’t we wear wool sweaters months at a time without them getting stinky? We can because of wool’s microbe-fighting powers. By contrast, we wash synthetic base layers after each wearing. I wear wool much longer. Wool thermal bottoms? I wear them three to four days between washings. Longer, even. So even though I only have a few wool baselayers in my closet, I never run out of clean pieces.

Synthetics get stinky fast. The micro-textures of synthetic fibers create the perfect spawning bed for bacteria. Bacteria causes B.O. Even Patagonia garments treated with antimicrobial chemicals have to be washed after each use. Untreated garments get stinky after a few hours just sitting around the house!

Also new for me this winter:  snowboard socks. Check out my post on wool snowboard socks.

(Image credit:  Fashion Color Textile Factory)

Beer Review #31: Central Waters Illumination Double IPA

Food and Drink

CW Illumination- beerpulse.com

Just FYI, I’ve dispensed with the beer-roundups format. From now on my beer posts will each review a single beer. I’m calling this one Beer Review #31 since my ten existing beer roundups contain three beers each.

Illumination, Central Waters Brewing Co.
Rating:  4.05/5
12 oz. bottle, 9% ABV, 108 IBU (estim.)

Man, that’s good. I gave this beer a 3.95 when it first came out two years ago. I wonder if the formula’s changed. Probably not, or Central Waters would’ve made a big deal of it, the way Sixpoint Brewing did with 2017 Hi-Res. Or Classic Coke. But “new formula!” is usually crisis PR disguised as marketing. That’s certainly not needed with this excellent brew from CW.

Too bad the aroma underwhelms. What am I smelling? Can’t say. The shy aromas hold themselves back. A bland appearance, too, a cloudy, dull amber, like a cellar-aged beer.

My wife says it tastes cellar-aged, too. It does! There’s an oxidized, buttery umami that . . . I don’t know how to finish that sentence. Something about pork. I love pork.

In the mouth it’s brilliantly complex, yet balanced. The clean, citrus hop bite presents first, with maybe a tinge of pine astringency. Then a ripe-fruit sweetness — sweet tangerine and papaya — swirls with the umami to create a proper meal of flavors:  a summer fruit salad and a pork tenderloin in butterscotch reduction. Hyperbole? Sure. But the complexity does impress. Balance comes from the sweet fruit, as opposed to sweet malt. It reminds one of Dirtwolf (Victory Brewing). But better, with more body, more drying ethanol heat, and that character of butter-like, meat-like oxidation.

Uh, oh, hold on: the aftertaste is a bit yucky. The hops in the back end are all white-grapefruit pith, blotting out the fruity sweetness. I’m sure many a hophead would appreciate it. It’s very West Coast, I guess. But hear that? That’s the sound of me sticking my tongue out.

So I was mostly right two years ago with my 3.95 rating. Good on me.

Side note:  this beer is a perfect candidate for the cellar. A year in cool darkness should knock the aftertaste down a notch or two.

[Image credit:  beerpulse.com]

Surviving Wisconsin Winters, Part 3: Windproof Boxer Briefs

Health

frozen crotch

I’ve previously blogged about frozen groin syndrome when winter cycling. In that post I recommended stuffing a pair of glove liners down there to keep frostbite from one’s nether parts. My new solution is infinitely more elegant. Smartwool makes a pair of merino boxer briefs with a well-placed windproof panel. I present to you the Smartwool PhD NTS Wind Boxer Briefs:

boxer briefs windproof Smartwool

I wish I’d had them on when riding home from a Super Bowl party the other night. Temps were in the low single digits. The ride took an hour. I thought I had layered up perfectly. What a joy it was to ride hard and generate lots of heat, my torso warm and my Levi’s 501 Cords venting the perspiration.

I didn’t have an extra pair of glove liners with me, so my groin got cold. Painfully cold. Then, after a half-hour, the area went mercifully numb.

The trouble was getting home and having the blood return to my frozen crotch. If you’ve ever spent a lot of time in serious temps, skiing, ice fishing, hiking, you know all too well what happens when you get home. The blood returning to your numb finger tips and toes means hours of stinging, searing, aching pain.

Yeah. That.

I’ve had these windproof boxer briefs for a month, now. This product absolutely works. I’ve ridden my bike three different days in subzero weather. What a difference. They’re expensive, at $50. But that’s the cost of living the outdoor life in Wisconsin. Either that, or stuffing your drawers.

Surviving Wisconsin Winters, Part 2: Dry, Cracked Skin on Hands

Health

 

Ever get that dry cracked skin on your knuckles or at the side-edges of a fingertip? I can’t tell you how many different hand creams I’ve tried to prevent it in these Wisconsin winters. It’s a real problem. It’s not only the physical discomfort. It’s the anxiety of being out and about in the world with what are essentially open wounds. (Entrepreneurs shake a lot of hands!)

I’ve had to pull out the big guns. I’ve tried a couple of expensive, specialty products and some not so specialty home remedies. Turns out the best of the lot is also the cheapest. Namely, lip balm.

Lip_Balm_Beeswax_nocap (1).jpg

Chapstick, Burt’s Bees, Kiehl’s Facial Fuel, etc. — give any of them 36 hours with your cracked-skin convalescence, and they’ll put you on the road to epidermal ease. (Make sure you wash your hands before applying, or risk an infection.)

Also important, put away the liquid hand soaps ’til Springtime, especially the antibacterial ones. Get yourself a gentle bar soap with a lower pH.

Ethical Wool?

Health

wool-305684_640

I’ve recently blogged about my newfound love of woolen activewear (the flipside of which is my move away from synthetic fabrics). Here’s an update to that post.

As a winter cyclist I’m amazed at the high-performance qualities of wool. But my attention has been drawn to the question of wool as an ethical product. Can one choose wool ethically?

Yes. Or at least wool can be relatively ethical, compared with the wool fiber industry of only a few years ago. Back then it was impossible for apparel manufacturers to fully trace the supply chain of raw wool. In other words, even if manufacturers wanted to offer garments made of ethical wool, the info did not exist for them to avoid “mulesed” wool. Mulesing is the horribly inhumane animal farming practice defined here.

Nowadays an industry initiative called Zque guarantees the supply of certified, non-mulesed wool. Patagonia, Ibex, and Smartwool now use Zque suppliers, exclusively. The manufacturer Icebreaker Merino has mounted a similar effort called BaaCode.

None of this completely resolves the question of wool as an ethical choice. There’s still the issue of animal cruelty in shearing operations, not to mention the bigger question mark of humane animal treatment in mass production, in general. But it is progress.

[Image credit: Pixabay]

Gore-Tex vs. eVent: Two Waterproof/Breathable Cycling Jackets Go Head-to-Head

Health, Writing

showers pass Elite 2-0

What I’m interested for this post is the waterproof/breathable (WP/BR) fabrics of two different jackets I own: Gore-Tex vs. eVent.

I’m actually not going to review the jackets, per se.  What I will do is save you all from the fatal mistake I’ve made, an honest mistake that has ruined one of these two jackets.

Pictured above is my Showers Pass Elite 2.0 jacket, $250 retail.  At the bottom you’ll find my Patagonia Super Alpine mountaineering jacket, $600 retail.  Very different market segments, I know.  The WP/BR laminate in the Patagonia is the high-end Gore-Tex Pro Shell, while that of the red, Showers Pass jacket is an unspecified, entry-level product from eVent.  So, not apples and apples.  I can’t offer up the definitive Gore-Tex vs. eVent head-to-head competition.

Or can I?

Both Gore-Tex and eVent fabrics are laminates, both using an active layer made of PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene). The best known PTFE product is Teflon. The PTFE used in WP/BR fabrics is manufactured by stretching a PTFE solid to be a very thin, microporous membrane. The micropores are what make the membrane at once breathable yet waterproof. The micropores are too small to let in liquid water, such as rain or melted snow, yet large enough to allow moisture vapor to pass through, such as perspiration evaporating from your skin or baselayers.

The PTFE membrane must be protected from contamination. Contaminants such as skin oils and dirt will permanently clog unprotected micropores.  Just how to protect the PTFE layer is where Gore-Tex and eVent part ways.

  • Gore-Tex covers the PTFE membrane with a protective film of polyurethane (PU) on the interior side of the jacket.
  • Rather than covering the whole PTFE membrane, eVent uses a proprietary method to somehow coat the interior of each micropore with an oil/dirt resistant chemical.

Wet System vs.  Dry System

Gore-Tex is the so-called “wet system”: it vents perspiration only after vapor has collected as liquid on the inner surface of the jacket. As liquid, the moisture necessarily seeps through the PU film by basic diffusion, from the area of higher pressure (inside the jacket) to the area of lower pressure (the outside air). This diffusion forces the liquid water through the PTFE layer. So for Gore-Tex, venting is a two-step process: body moisture (vapor) must first condense on the inner surface. Only then can it diffuse through the membrane.

On the other hand, eVent is the “dry system”: sweat vapor vents “directly” through the membrane. It need not collect as liquid, first.  In that sense, eVent is the “more breathable” of the two products.  The two-step process of Gore-Tex venting definitely takes more time.

The problem with eVent—and this is essentially why I’m writing this post—is that its micropores are still vulnerable to contamination by skin oils and dirt. Yes, the micropores are treated with an oil- and dirt-resistant chemical. But get it dirty enough– i.e., clog the pores really badly—and the PTFE loses its breathability. Permanently.

Thus, eVent garments require laundering way more often than you’d think. We’re talking cycling garments, so, “regularly” means laundering after heavy use.  Read: every, or every other, hard ride. If you ride through the winter, this means washing the jacket two or three times a week.

Washing it often isn’t a terrible hassle. But as everyone knows, washing machines are hard on clothes. So we’re caught between a rock and a hard place. Care for this jacket properly, and shorten its lifespan. Or, launder it less, and risk clogging the micropores.

In my ignorance, I managed to do both types of damage. First, I simply didn’t know of the need for regular laundering. I treated my Showers Pass jacket like a jacket. I washed it about once every four weeks. Micropores? Pretty damn, well clogged. Breathability went to near zero. When I learned of my mistake, I began washing the jacket weekly. Just one Wisconsin cold season meant laundering the jacket probably twenty times. Some of the breathability returned (though, mostly not). All the washing totally destroyed the DWR coating on the jacket exterior. Now the jacket no longer sheds water. Rain and snow don’t get through to the inside, blocked by the PTFE layer. But they do saturate the outer fabric of the jacket, sapping warmth.

Conclusion

I love my Patagonia jacket, while my Showers Pass jacket makes me sad. The Showers Pass jacket no longer performs. I’m pretty angry that the care tag didn’t alert me to the need for special care. I only learned of it on the web, after the damage was done. I wonder what percentage of eVent users know they should wash an eVent jacket as if it’s a sweatshirt? I also wonder, if laundered as often as necessary, will an eVent jacket survive even a single season?

On the other hand, I’ll be wearing my Patagonia jacket for years to come. It seems completely unfazed by three winters of serious abuse. And Gore-Tex requires no special care. So I won’t be laundering it to death.

layers vert

Surviving Wisconsin Winters, Part 1: High Performance Business Casual?

Entrepreneurship, Health

Image

High performance work clothing? Does such a thing exist? And I don’t mean flame retardant electrician’s pants or stretchy business-bombshell blazers.

Answer:  Levi’s 511 Corduroys.

Although wool is my new favorite fabric for activewear, there are two applications for which synthetics still rule:  rain gear and winter work/weekend attire. I’ve already written a post on rain gear. As far as business casual goes, Levi’s 511 Cords are a surprising fabric that can double for winter cycling.

Especially good for winter bicycle commuting, their 66%/33% blend of cotton/elastane creates surprisingly efficient wicking of perspiration. Then, when the moisture is drawn up into the corduroy, the corded channels evaporate it to the outside air. Think radiator fins on an air-conditioning unit — the greater surface area vents moisture fast. That makes these pants high-performance street clothes. (Just FYI, the tag says “polyester.” But I verified it to be elastane.)

[UPDATE 10/23/2016:  See bottom for the bad news about more recent specimens of these cords.]

Jeans used to be my mainstay winter-biking pants. It’s only denim, so I didn’t stress out when the cuffs got crusted with salt or blackened with road slush. But getting sweaty in jeans meant the denim staying damp for hours, afterward, a.k.a., cold and clammy. By contrast, Levis cords dry out in minutes.

My ideal setup is to wear a wool base layer beneath the Levis cords. The wool breathes really well, too, moving perspiration to the corduroy, which then evaporates the moisture quickly. The wool also acts as a barrier to odor causing bacteria, allowing me to wear the same pair of cords for three-plus days between washings. How’s that for high performance?

[Image credit: Wikimedia]

[UPDATE 10/23/2016:  Sadly, I’ve just bought a new pair of these cords. Levi’s has changed the fabric, reducing the elastane content to a mere 2%. That’s 98% cotton and 2% elastane. I don’t know how long ago they changed up. Too bad. I predict this new pair won’t vent anywhere near as well as my three old, now threadbare pairs bought back in 2012. Curse you, Levi’s!]

The Heartbleed Bug: How to Keep Your Passwords Safe

Entrepreneurship

lastpass logo

As an entrepreneur, one of your most important tasks is securing your financial information.  In the wake of the Heartbleed Bug, I’ve been fine-tuning my digital security. I’ve especially been fortifying my passwords.  I already use a password manager called LastPass, which I highly recommend.

Though I’ve used LastPass for several years, until Heartbleed, I wasn’t utilizing LastPass to its full potential. The latent Luddite in me was on the fence about fully entrusting my most sensitive accounts to any password manager. But this past couple of weeks has shown me how important it is (and that it truly is safe) to use LastPass for even my bank accounts, PayPal, and other highly sensitive sites.

I’d been using LastPass for dozens of less sensitive sites, while continuing to use easy to remember, “secret” passwords for my bank accounts and Paypal. Not smart. By “easy to remember,” I mean actual words whose significance I believed to be too personal to be deduced by strangers.

How foolish.  Today’s password-cracking software can test out tens or even hundreds of millions of possible passwords per second. Against such brute-force juggernauts, my poor, easy to remember passwords would last mere minutes, if that.

Enter LastPass. LastPass is widely considered the best password manager out there.  You have one master password to log in to the LastPass browser plug-in. Whenever you visit a web service, the plug-in logs you in securely.  As long as your master password is chosen well (i.e., long and complex), LastPass offers excellent security. There’s even a multi-factor authentication feature to make remote hacking virtually impossible.  (Multi-factor authentication is like Google Two-step Authentication, which, if you aren’t using yet, I also highly recommend.)

LastPass generates a different, completely random, character-string password for each of your online logins. Randomness is the key. Randomness actually resists brute-force attacks, unlike actual words. This is how to leverage a single master password while never using the same password for more than one site.

LastPass stores only 256-bit encrypted versions of passwords on its servers. That way, if their servers are ever hacked, the thief would have a monumental task of decrypting just one password, not to mention any others after that one.

Also, LastPass doesn’t store your master password.  Only you know your master password.  That’s how they thwart the potential “inside job” by an unscrupulous Lastpass employee. (Inside jobs are actually the most common form of security breach involving passwords.)

Plus, the LastPass plug-in only decrypts your passwords on your local machine; it never sends an unencrypted password across the Internet. All individual passwords remain encrypted until the moment you use them.

And even then when LastPass decrypts a password to log you in to a site, the password fill-in remains masked (just asterisks), in case a hacker is mirroring your screen. (By the way, your master password is masked when you use it to log into the LastPass plug-in.)

 

My First-ever Beer-industry Publication

Entrepreneurship, Food and Drink, Media, Wisconsin, Writing

screenshot - chocolate chili stouts

Big announcement. Da, da, DAAAAHHH!

I’ve recently published my first-ever piece of actual beer-industry writing. Please go have look!

Totally excited about Mobcraft, a real up-and-coming, two-year Madison brewery, ready to break ground on their $2 million facility.

I’ll be freelance blogging for them. This first post of mine is an article on chocolate chili pepper stouts, in advance of their newly-bottled beer No Stout About It.

My next piece for them will come out in the coming days. Stay tuned . . .