foot systems

[Area54]

Eric, they are freakish. Robotboots.

I lost faith in my Lakes, so managed to get some hammers in time for AK, very happy with them and we had 25 below on ITI camp. Wore an injinji performance coolmax liner, with a generic wooltek sock for insul with no problems. As well as the standard aerogel inner sole, I added a shimano heat mouldable innersole to improve the contact area and reduce contact hotspots, improving circulation. I ride 44 shoes for road and mtn, wide foot. I bought a 46 hammer, fit very well with room for a generic neoprene VBL. I tried a VBL, but my foot sweated so badly in it (like saturated the liner and foot was dripping) that I skipped using it, the boot did a reasonable job venting moisture, except around the toe box. Drop in a hand warmer first thing, then transfer it to pogie. Toe box is voluminous. I can ride with the boots in just the liner sock as well, feels a bit weird when compared to thick socks, but not impossible.

One thing about cold feet - you only have to walk maybe 5-10 minutes to warm up your feet (YMMV) but not in all conditions...

[rocbeer]

  I'm down at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for a year, and thankfully I was able to ship down the 907.

  I went with Stephenson's Warmlite VBL socks, Smartwool Mountaineering socks, and Steiger Arctic Mukluks.  The Steiger's are sweet!  Not very racy, 'cus they're not stiff at all, but they are wicked light compared to other winter footwear.  They are made out of breathable moose hide and canvas with a pretty sticky sole (which works well on the flats).  They've got a felt bootie, another felt insole, and a form fitting insole on top of that.  Steiger recommends sizing up and going wide for temps around -40.

  I've ridden around at -70 for about an hour and the feet were definitely not the limiting factor (face and goggles were).  During the austral summer here at Pole, the ave temp was around -20F.  I'd be fine for hours at -40 with this setup.  Going into the dark winter, the temps are more around -60F and it's gotten down to -99.1F so far.  My BB starts to get real sticky around -70F, though, even with MolyKote 33 Med -100 science grease in there. 

  The rig also has plastic flat pedals, which I'm sure help to not conduct as much cold to the foot.

[Area54]

Nice work, envious. Hope the plastic in those pedals are up to it, I know some pedal plastics are brittle at half the temps you're in.