Here’s the problem. You stay pretty motionless while riding a motorcycle. This makes it hard for the body to generate heat to keep warm. This is a major problem while riding at high speeds in cold temperatures. I got frostbite my first year of riding on my toes because I wasn’t adequately protected from the elements.

It’s been a major struggle of mine to keep my hands warm in anything below 40°F at highway speeds. Heated grips and handguards help, but you really need special purpose gloves to keep your hands warm. The problem with buying winter gloves is that they tend to be very bulky. The insulation material makes the gloves look more like a ski mitt than a motorcycle glove, and the fine manipulation required to work the throttle can become lost. I own a pair of Tour Master winter gloves, and it feels like I am not touching the controls at all.

Rev’It makes several winter gloves. Thanks to Dennis over at Beach Moto, I selected the Fahrenheit H2O waterproof winter motorcycle glove. He helped me with the sizing, suggesting an XL that fit perfectly.

Would Rev’It’s high technology help me overcome my cold hand blues?
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And apparently, only the Shadow knows what the fuck is wrong with my foot. I went to the doctor’s today, and had absolutely no idea what was wrong with my toes. He ruled out frostbite/exposure, fungal infection, and acute injury unless something happened that I didn’t know about :\ In short, we are going to keep an eye on things. The pain has gone away 99%, and now it looks worse than it feels. I expressed my concern over necrotic tissue or blood poisoning due to dead toe tip but he said not to worry. He also cleared me to go swimming, which quickly sunk my excuse to sit on my ass and play Warcraft once Lady Jaye came home.

So, stay tuned, I guess. The doctor said that it should heal like a normal blister, but if something does take a turn for the worse he’ll be around during Christmas.

Starting on Wednesday, from my middle right toe right, my toes started to itch and burn. They were also extremely sensitive to pressure, and walking was difficult. My middle toe looked the worst, with a darkish red area near the nail. It could have been blisters/pressure from my boots, but that seemed silly as I’d never experienced pressure there before. I looked up frostbite at first, but ruled it out as my symptoms didn’t match the description on the Web sites I visited. Plus, I never thought my feet were cold — if anything was going to get frostbite, it would be my fingers.

My toes itched and burned come Thursday night to the point of distraction. I walked with a noticeable limp. My main concern at this point was athlete’s foot, which is a possibility given our gym and workouts in the pool. However, my toes didn’t look anything like what the pictures online looked like, and my irritation didn’t match the typical areas of infection (between the toes and the sides of the sole). My middle toe I put some hydrocortizone cream on my toes for the itching, took two ibuprofen, and called it a day.

On Friday my toes felt better, but as a precaution against the burning-sandpaper-on-toes feeling I had Thursday I took 2 ibuprofen in the morning and again at night.

Today during lunch, Lady Jaye asked me how my toes were. “Great!” I replied, and stuck my foot out from underneath our table. Her eyes narrowed a bit and she said, “You do have frostbite!”

Sure enough, the dark red area on my middle toe had turned black, the primary symptom of the second stage of frostbite. I poked at the skin with my finger, and it was still very sensitive. There was a low, fluidless (looking) blister atop the toe to the right of my middle toe. My pinky toe feels fine now.

What the fuck is that all about? Thanks for the warning, feet — you could have screamed like bitches like my hands, and everything would have been fine. I could have worn an extra pair of socks or bought some cold weather rated booties for you. But noooooo, you had to get all frozen and possibly fall off.

We took some pictures, but they didn’t come out very well. If I lose a digit I’ll repost with some pictures of toestumps.