Winter came early this year. It snowed last Thursday and Friday, but not enough to stick. Then I woke up yesterday morning to find 4" of wet heavy snow on the ground. It's been so wet leading up to this that most of the leaves haven't even changed color yet, and the heavy snow was pulling them off the trees. So on top of the snow is a big layer of green leaves.

It didn't get much above freezing yesterday, so this morning there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground. I have parts on order for my winter bike, so it's not yet ready to roll quite yet (who would have guessed I would have needed it in the first half of October?) So I just took my hybrid and kept my eye to the ground for potential icy spots. There were a couple of bridges that were pretty treacherous with icy ruts, but most other ice patches were small enough that I could just ride around them.

26F this morning with a 10 mph headwind. My winter speed returned where it felt like I was working hard to hit 12mph. Most of the commute I was closer to 10-11 mph.