Cold weather cycling and warm (er) feet

By the time I arrived at my customer and pulled the tarps off the load, there was about 1 hour of daylight left and the -16C felt like -25C with the wind chill factored in. Just enough time to go for a little spin and perfect conditions to test out my new MEC shoe covers and DeFeet Woolie Boolie socks. Until today, I had just been wearing thick, woolen, work socks and my cycling shoes when the temperature dropped.  This made the shoes fit very tight and my feet froze after about half an hour due to the ventilated shoe allowing the wind to penetrate. 

I'm happy to find that the new combination works very well. The socks provide equall warmth to the previous thicker socks I had used and the shoe covers, though their primary purpose is to keep feet dry, did a great job of blocking the wind completely. I returned to the truck after about an hour and, when I pulled the shoe covers off, was quite surprised to find that the condensation had frozen to the inside of the cover. My feet felt cool once I stopped pedaling but I still had feeling in my toes.  I probably should be wearing other shoes at this temperature, but now that I've made the switch to clipless pedals, I find it hard to go back to regular shoes.