It’s a dead heat between the nose and the eyes

We don’t yet know which runs the fastest. And yes, I realize it’s a disgusting topic, but it’s a biking issue and it has to be dealt with. This alone would stop some people from biking altogether. A woman I knew who was healthy and in reasonably good shape said she couldn’t ride a bike because she was “allergic to the cold.” She concluded this because whenever she was out in it, her nose ran.

Can you believe that? Allergic to the cold. Ha! Raise your hand if your nose does not run when it’s cold out.

It’s cold now, and not just my nose runs the whole time I’m riding, but my eyes stream out tears at a funereal rate. Though my nose has run in the cold since it was a child's nose, my eyes only started doing this a couple of years ago. (Hm. That’s about when I started riding, and they only do it when I ride. Duh – could that be it?) Anyway, it’s a real mess -- a rolling mess of liquidity.

What to do? First of all, forget about Kleenex or other tissues, which self-distruct after one wipe – no, sooner -- after one pull from a pocket. You’ve got your big full-fingered biking gloves on and you can’t even feel those flimsy things in your hand. What I use is paper dinner napkins, the kind they dole out at eating establishments as if they didn't grow on trees. They’re soft and they survive several pulls from your pocket -- provided that you have a pocket, which a lot of biking apparel does not. Irks me no end. But more about that later.

You like horror stories? Well it's that time of year, isn't it? I want to tell you about the bike apparel industry’s answer to the runny nose problem. You will not believe it. My mother would roll over in her grave, if she were in a grave, which I’m very thankful that she’s not. But this is definitely one of those things I’m not going to tell her, because I don’t think she could sustain the shock of it.

I will get back to you on this tomorrow, or as soon as I can take some explanatory photos.