I have never ridden in such crappy winter conditions before. We had that heavy snowstorm at Christmas. 18 inches and then rain. That, with the bitter temperatures that followed, froze everything up.

We have had only a couple times since then that things got a bit warmer so that road chemicals could begin to work but it has not been enough.

All the side streets are still covered in broken sheets and stretches of thick hard pack that fossilized into ice and then got mirror polished by cars. Horrible ruts and bumpy, uneven washboard surface. It's like ugly humongous scabs on the road surface. Auto repair shops are turning people away and once again there are death threats being phoned in to our long-suffering transportation department, (MNDOT) by irate drivers - which also happened after our famous "Halloween Blizzard" back in the early '90s... The shoulders are not much better, and if you try to ride them you are in a constant state of fear that some chowder head over driving his conditions is going to spin out and cream you. I end up looking in my helmet mirror more than at what's in front of me!

The plows have not even tried to blade the shoulders. There are only so many heavy road graders - which is about the only machine that can handle getting the shoulders clean down close to the pavement, and even if they did the snow would just tumble back into the road. The banks are just too high. And because the driving lanes themselves are still so bad, they seem to have given up anyway and are waiting for warm weather so the chemicals can give them some help.

And as for the bike paths? The huge frozen "snow boulders" have made it almost impossible for the smaller equipment the cities and park boards use to clear them to do anything even close to the kind of job that would make them even somewhat ride-able... It's just dismal!

One bike path I need for my commute runs about 6 feet from - and parallel to - a busy street that has a 50MPH speed limit. So after a three inch storm like we had today they salt, which creates the horrid greasy-gray "soft pack" snow and then the fast plow throws it up onto the bike path where it freezes and resembles the surface of Mars. I had to walk the bike through that. I swear, that grungy soft pack is the worst! It keeps you riding on the brink of disaster all the time. Packed powder is a joy but that ugly poo poo is impossible. I only get relief when my mirror shows a break in traffic behind me. Then I can duck into the "single track" in the driving lane where cars have worn the snow down to the pavement. I love that crunchy sound the studs make when they are running on filmed pavement. It's most reassuring...

And my friggin' free hub keeps slipping! I'm almost considering bagging the ride until we get a thaw.

And Dog help us, the drivers! Crud like this always brings out the worst in them. They hate us at the best of times, but when they are already being held up by bad conditions and then a guy on a bike slows them down too? I have been yelled at more times in the past couple of weeks than in many other years combined... I fear that someday one of these creeps is going to think he's gonna teach me a lesson and cut by real close to scare me - but cut it too close and hit me. The former has happened before... It freaks you out so bad you can never get a license plate.

I could go on and on. Thanks for listening! It sure helps to have a place to go to rant, where people understand you!