Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1544:

Well, I made it through the week without resorting to buy a car. Today marks day 7 of us not seeing a temp above freezing. That's pretty typical winter weather for us, but it came a few weeks earlier this year. Next week we're supposed to have a couple days that will peak out in the mid-30s so at least I have that to look forward to.

This morning it was 10°F air temperature. One click away from single digits. As I was getting ready, I could hear the wind still howling like it's been doing all week. Hearing the wind before I leave the house really sucks the motivation out of me. The wind made this morning's wind chill a balmy -8°F. As usual, I had to ride straight into it, but as I've mentioned before if I have to fight the wind I'd rather do it on the way to work and then have an easy pedal home. I guess the up-side to the wind is that it evaporates the snow and ice quicker even in the low temps.

With the aforementioned snow and ice mostly cleared, I was back on the road bike after riding my winter bike for the last three days. That was nice to have an easier bike to pedal. It was easy enough to ride around the snowy and icy spots that are still lingering.

The brifters on this bike tend to freeze up in the cold which makes them reluctant to shift down to smaller cogs. I replaced the cables and lubed the derailleurs this last summer hoping that would solve the problem. It did make it better, but it's not completely fixed. Towards the end of today's ride I shifted into a low gear to climb a steep hill and then the bike refused to shift back up. I wound up riding the remaining 1/2 mile in a lower gear than I would have liked, but I got there.

Speaking of shifting issues, about halfway home last night something within my front derailleur broke on my winter bike, trapping the chain in the biggest ring of the triple. I tried to force it back to a smaller ring but couldn't get it to budge. Not sure what was going on, and I wasn't motivated to stop for long in the cold to try and fix it, so I just rode home in the big ring. That caused some cross-chaining when I would climb hills, but it was better than walking. Hopefully next week's slightly higher temps will heat up my garage enough to let me get out there and diagnose/repair the problem. In the meantime, if I need a winter bike I'll have to take the fat bike.