Still on Warm Feet ...

I recently read an article in some old codgers' bike forum which mentioned in passing a plausible contributor to cold feet; cleats, and in particular the mountain bike SPD type cleat which is all metal and thus a good conductor of heat, unfortunately, away from your already thermally challenged tootsies.

Road cleats tend to be made of better insulated plastic material, but more especially don't have a built-in heat-sink, technically known as the nut, placed just under the ball of your foot just soaking away that precious warmth, through the cleat bolts to the outside. You can see the nut in the component diagram to the right. It's that plate of metal, placed inside the shoe, that the cleats bolt into.

So, as well as sealing up all those purposeful air ducts in your shoe for the winter, you might want to consider a thin layer of insulating material over the cleat nut in your shoe. Just don't pack your shoe out too much ...