Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1597:
Today Sir Brad gave me a tour of the pit of misery.
Yesterday most of the day the temp was in the mid-30s and it rained for about 12 hours. Had it been 10 degrees colder we would have gotten 8-10 inches of snow. Seeing as the storm sewers are blocked with ice and snow, the rain had nowhere to go but pool in the low spots on the street. Later in the evening the temp did drop into the teens, so then the rain turned to snow and the water turned to ice.
When I woke up this morning I could hear the wind howling. That's never a good motivator to make me want to get out of bed. I looked out the window to see 1/2" of fresh snow on top of tons of ice. I came exceedingly close to throwing my consecutive commuting streak away and driving a car. My son probably wasn't going anywhere today so I could have used his. The only thing that stopped me as that I don't have a permit for the client's parking garage, so I wouldn't have had anywhere to park. Years ago when I started with this client they offered me a parking pass, and I turned it down. That's what saved me.
My boots were still slightly damp from yesterday's rainy ride home. The wet components on my bike had frozen in the unheated garage, making the bike very reluctant to shift and making the chain skip if I tried to use my small front ring. The temp was 17°F. The wind was a steady 30 mph, with gusts much higher. Of course, I had to ride straight into it. There were about three gusts that brought me to a dead stop, one of which happened as I was going down a big hill. Yuck.
Given the moisture on the ground combined with the temps, the 1/2" of snow had a weird crunchy texture that added a surprising amount of resistance to the ride relative to its insignificant depth. The bigger challenge with the snow was it camouflaged the large areas of ice. Thankfully(?) the wind was keeping my speeds down around 5 mph so between that and my studded tires I didn't slip around too much. The bigger surprises were the deeper puddles that had a thin frozen layer of ice on top where the snow could sit, but didn't have enough thickness to the ice to support the weight of me and the bike. I'd find myself in the middle of those and then the bike would break through, leaving me stranded in the middle and having to push the bike out. Yuck.
Normally I don't add a layer of long underwear until the temps drop below 10°F. The intense wind had the windchill at -3°F. I should have worn the long underwear, as by the time I got to the office my thighs were pretty cold.
The temps are predicted to continue to drop. After today it sounds like we're going back into the negative air temps. The good news is I only have one more commute left, and then I'm taking a week off for a Las Vegas getaway with my wife. The temps there are supposed to be in the 60s, which is probably cold to the LV natives, but sounds wonderful to this South Dakota boy. I may even try and intentionally get a sunburn just because I can.