Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1557:
Once again the weather forecasts were a big swing and a miss. The predictions were we would get 2"-4" of snow. When I woke up this morning our "official" total was 6". When I went outside, there clearly was 8"+ on the ground, with snow still falling. Schools were doing a 2 hour late start, but everything else was open as normal.
Knowing I would have to shovel and would have a slow ride to work, I got up early this morning at 5 AM. Usually it takes me about 1/2 hour to clear snow from my driveway. Today it took me over an hour. Likewise, usually it takes me 1/2 hour to ride downtown, and today it took me over an hour.
The temp wasn't bad at all, being 30°F with hardly any wind. The big challenge was just the depth of the unplowed snow. I was on the fat bike, and it did pretty well as long as I rode in the tracks already cut by cars.
I made a tactical error, however, when I got off the main roads and tried to take the MUP. At first I was able to follow a track cut by another bike. Once that track disappeared, then I was trying to propel 5" wide tires through deep virgin snow which quickly slowed me to a stop. I couldn't generate enough forward momentum to get the bike started again. So I wound up pushing/dragging/carrying my fat bike through snow deeper than the top of my boot. The bike was so full of snow that the wheels weren't wanting to roll. That wasn't much fun at all.
After about 1/2 mile of walking the bike and really questioning my life's decisions up to that point, I got to a part of the MUP that was about 50 yards from a main road. I cut through some ditches that were knee-deep, over railroad tracks, through some bushes and then got out onto the road. At this point I didn't care if it was a busy 4-lane; anything was better than carrying the fat bike any further.
I rode the main roads the final two miles of the commute. The plows had been diligent about keeping these main roads clear of snow, so other than a bit of traffic it wasn't too bad. When I arrived at the client's office I was about a half hour late, but found I still beat pretty much everyone else there. I grabbed a hose by the maintenance area and sprayed down my bike to try and remove the snow and salt that was packed into every nook and cranny. This client has a heated indoor bike parking area, so I didn't have to worry about my bike freezing up from the moisture.
After riding all of last winter without a crash, I did have my first wreck of 2022 this morning. I was coming down an unplowed hill, riding in the wheel track left by a car. Everything was going fine until there was a guy walking a dog, coming up the hill and using the same wheel track I was. I changed lanes to pass him, then when I was trying to change back into my original lane my front wheel hit a drift, stopped and I went over the handlebars. My face broke my fall in a big snow drift. My jaw is a little sore, but other than that I came through unscathed. My bike needed some attention: I had to re-affix my mud guard, re-align the handlebars with the front wheel, and the wire to my computer got snapped so I'll have to solder that back together this weekend. But at least I caught the incident on video: