On my way home from work last night, two things happened. First, one of the ties holding my front fender stays in place broke. My front fork on the winter bike doesn't have eyelets for fenders, so I just zip-tie the stays. It works pretty well most of the time, but every few years one of the zip ties succumbs to the elements and snaps. Yesterday was the day for my right side. So most of the way home the fender would rub every time I hit a bump. I fixed it in less than five minutes once I was back in the garage.

The other event on the way home was I had my first crash of the year. The MUP hadn't yet been plowed and the 3+ inches of snow was still sitting on a sheet of ice. I came around a slight curve at the base of a hill and suddenly went down. Thankfully the unplowed snow cushioned my fall so I wasn't hurt. As I lay on the ground I brushed the snow off the path and could see that this section had a full inch of glass smooth ice over the pavement. The thick snow kept my studded tires from digging into the ice so I had no traction. After a minute of evaluating my body condition and straightening my now crooked seat back into place I resumed my ride home.

This morning the MUP was still unplowed. I was extra careful in the area where I went down. You could still see the imprint of my body in the snow.

Temp was -2F with a -12F headwind. Lots of bikes and pedestrians had used the MUP and had trampled down the snow, which then froze in the cold temps and made for lots of ruts. Where I could I tried to ride through virgin snow as it was a lot smoother, but there wasn't a lot of it left. Slow riding again today, but I made it.