Fleeced

Staying warm on the scooter is something I ought to be an expert at by now, having been riding for a dozen years now since the spring of 2007, but every year I'm dumb enough to leave the house at least a few times with less than adequate padding to freeze my ass off in no time flat.  Today marked my first such stupid move for the year!

My home is well Googlized and Alexafied with multiple units placed throughout the house to pick up and execute whatever I command them to do, but if I lower a volume and forget to raise it back up later I’m often too lazy to ask it to repeat something if I’m not certain I heard a response clearly.  So it was that I asked the kitchen Google Mini for the outside temperature and misheard what was apparently 59 degrees spoken very quietly as 69.  Did I bother then to look at the thermometer on the deck before suiting up for my ride to the bank?  Nah!  After all it was only about a mile to town and another back.  How cold could I get?
 

 

“Okay, Google, what’s the temperature?”

“The temperature in Wilkes-Barre is too cold for you to go out on your scooter,” is what I wish it might say.

Not confirming the actual temperature outdoors was only my first boneheaded move.  The second was to put on a fleece jacket that I thought would be just right for nearly 70 degrees of warmth that I’d expected it to be outside.  After too many years of proving it to myself multiple times, fleece is fantastic for keeping warm when one is on the couch with a fleece blankie draped over himself; the fleece holds the heat of one’s body beautifully and makes a toasty warm environment that’s perfect for watching TV.

 Fleece made into a throw is perfect for when Jeopardy is coming on.

On the scooter, however, fleece is absolutely worthless!  The wind (or ambient breeze created by the scooter moving through the air) blasts right through the fabric of a fleece jacket.  I might as well have been riding downtown bare chested through the chilly air and couldn’t get down there and back fast enough.  Of course part of that problem is that going faster just makes it feel all that much colder than a slower speed would.  To be certain when I got outside the door with the fleece jacket on and walked right into a bright enough sunbeam it felt much warmer it was.  But again, I should know much better after riding through a dozen Aprils and probably freezing my butt in every one of them.

Fleece is NOT what an experienced rider should reach for when contemplating a ride.

I don’t really know what it is.  Is it just wishful thinking for warmer temperatures on my part that makes me ignore the signs of what’s going to end up being a cold ride?  Or am I really getting that much dumber as I get older?