Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2284:
The snow/ice is mostly gone from the pavement, and what's left is easy enough to ride around. There's still plenty of snow on the grass, but I don't ride there. I wanted to take the road bike this morning, but I already had everything packed in my pannier bag and was too lazy to unpack and transfer stuff to my backpack. Instead, I decided to ride my hybrid bike with the rack, which according to my spreadsheet hadn't been ridden since last September 17th. While not as fast as the road bike, the non-studded tires was at least some improvement in speed vs my winter bikes (although not as much as I expected.)
Temp this morning was 28°F which is the warmest morning temp we've had in almost a month. The humidity was really high so the air had a damp feel to it, but even with that it wasn't a bad commute. There was a 10 mph headwind. It took me about 52 minutes to ride the 8 miles to the office.
The tires on this bike were quite flat from neglect, so I had to put a lot of air into them before I left the house. For the first 1.5 miles I was hearing a weird buzzing/grinding noise. It kept getting louder. I know the front hub bearings on this bike have been getting a little iffy, so I assumed that was the cause. It finally got loud enough that I had to pull over and investigate. When I spun the front wheel, it was near silent with just the usual slight ticking from the aforementioned bearings. When I spun the rear wheel, it was loud. But now that I was off the bike I could easily see it was the fender rubbing on the corner of the tire. It must have gotten bumped out of whack at some point while the bike was just sitting. So a quick adjustment got me back on the road quickly, now in relative silence.
Only three more commuting days until my 10 year anniversary since the last time I drove a car to work. I was hoping to do some sort of celebration, but with the rest of life clamoring for my attention I didn't get around to planning anything. So it looks like that morning will be a typical one without fanfare. That's OK.