Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2036:
We were supposed to get snow flurries late yesterday. The forecasts this season have been even more unreliable than usual. As I was getting ready for bed at 10:30 PM I looked outside and saw that we had about 3" on the ground. I decided I would rather deal with clearing the driveway right away versus setting the alarm to get up an hour early to do it. Thankfully the snow was fluffy so it only took about 1/2 hour to move.
It was about 11:15 PM when I crawled in bed. Then I laid there sleepless until around 2 AM. I think moving the snow jacked me up a bit, not to mention my brain filled with lament after watching the Vikings completely melt down on national TV. In any event, I didn't get enough sleep.
When I got up this morning and checked the thermometer, it said -8°F. That was four degrees colder than predicted. I briefly contemplated doing a split commute with the bus, but realized that due to the bus schedule I probably should have gotten up a few minutes earlier to make that a viable option. So I decided to just suck it up and ride. I did decide to ride directly to the client location rather than our office, which cut my ride distance from 8 miles to 4.5.
There was an 8 mph headwind which made the wind chill -24°F. I was riding slow, which is normal in the winter, although I felt like I was working hard. The closer I got to downtown, the less snow was on the ground. The center part of the city got less than an inch of snow. That should have made the riding get easier the closer I got, but it felt like I was slogging through mud. It was all I could do to maintain 6 mph when I looked back at my tire tracks and thought, "Those seem a little wider than they should be."
I stopped and checked my tires, and sure enough the front one had gone flat. It probably happened gradually enough that in the snow I hadn't noticed right away. I was still a mile from the office. I decided that changing a tire in these temps is probably dangerous, so I made the decision to push the bike the rest of the way and deal with the flat later. I think in 16 years of winter riding this is the first time I've gotten a flat in sub-zero temps, although I've often contemplated what I would do if that ever happened.
Once I arrived at the client location, I parked my bike in their heated underground parking garage. I'll let things thaw out and go deal with fixing the tire over lunch.
I was a sweaty mess when I got to the locker room, and they still didn't have any hot water. So this is day two without a shower. Hopefully I'm not fermenting. When I'm on stage playing music I like to be funky. Not so much when I'm sitting in a cube writing code.
I took a photo to commemorate the event:
