A photo of favorite things.

Coffee before a long gentle descent along the White Salmon River to the town of White Salmon. And notice the shoe covers, though they're not in motion.

Then there's the international orange shoe covers

After an exhaustive search of stores and the internet, the closest shoe cover with any bright color were red. We had seen some orange one from the Basque cycling team kit, Euscatel, but we weren't able to find a source for them. Besides the commercial ones we got were not meant to be used off the bike. It was our first trek along about 3 miles of packed snow that demonstrated that they couldn't take the punishment of walking.

To the rescue comes my seamstress wife. With our design parameters of durability and bright color, she came out with a decent bright shoe cover.

They are nice because as your pedals are moved around in circles, the bright spots are moving up and down from a distance fore an aft. The latest version uses polyester stretch fabric, so the color lasts a lot longer. They're also available at

www.etsy.com/shop/HHKnit
When I find a photo, I'll add that to this, too.

International Orange helmet covers

As a middle aged cyclist, I've thought long and hard about the "dark" side of cycling. Sure, there are many good aspects, like fitness and energy savings and decreased dependence on unstable unfriendly foreign governments and....

Along with saving lots of sick leave (a form of disability insurance) I subscribe to the theory that MOST drivers of motor vehicles do not want to run me over, although they don't always appreciate the vulnerability of being on two wheels at the edge of the road.

Another defense to help overcome the mass disadvantage that my 180lb body with another 30lbs of bike and accessories has against at least 1.5tons is that the driver of the more massive vehicle needs to be able to see what they are coming up to along the road. So I subscribe to the road riders that want to be SEEN by all motor vehicle drivers.

To that end, bright colors in the daytime, and lots of reflective surfaces in the dark are what I think are my best defense. At least my surviving spouses lawyers can argue that the defendant should have been able to see me.

Bright helmet covers, international orange are available at her Facebook Page
www.facebook.com/HHknits as well as at her etsy.com website
www.etsy.com/shop/hhknits
Not only are they visable, they keep the ventilation holes covered, when the cooler temps are around.