A bad day of bicycle commuting is better than…driving

It was a dark and stormy night. Yesterday it rained hard as I rode home from work and my bike was thoroughly soaked by the time I rolled into my garage. This morning the rain turned to sleet and snow with strong, gusty winds. The roads were slick and covered with glaze ice so I rode very cautiously to work (Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night shall keep this intrepid cyclist from his appointed bicycle commute). With a couple of miles to go, I found a trashcan that had blown into the street. Being a Good Samaritan, I tapped my rear brake and stopped to move the trashcan back to the side of the road.

When I got back on the bike, the rear wheel wouldn't turn easily and I discovered that the rear brakes had frozen in the "engaged" condition. No amount of wiggling or wrangling or tugging or shaking my finger at it would free up the rear brake calipers. Water in the rear brake cable had apparently frozen the calipers in place. Stupid noodle. Fortunately, I was able to ride it and nursed it along slowly with the rear brake dragging. Well, at least it was better than dragging the bike for two miles with a stuck rear wheel.

At the last 4-way stop sign, I stopped, and as I was going through the intersection, a car coming from my right, decided to do a rolling stop and tried to beat me through the intersection. I had to hit both brakes hard to keep from getting hit. When I tried to continue through the intersection, the rear brake was so badly locked up that I could barely get the wheel to turn. I didn't want to drag the bike the rest of the way to work so I rode it slower than a walking pace, breaking the 2mph speed barrier. I was practically standing on the pedals to get the rear wheel to turn.

Fortunately, I was now on campus sidewalks, mixing in with rush hour pedestrian traffic between classes. I was riding so slowly that many pedestrians were passing me. Passersby were giving me strange looks like "what is it with this guy?" I dragged the bike into my office and let it warm up, then took the brake cables apart to dry them out.

As I left work to go home (not going back to my office), I went to the spot outside where I always park my bike, and it WAS GONE!!! Oh NO! Wait… Doofus, the bike is in your office. D'oh.

Last, but not least, I almost dumped my bike on the icy sidewalk in front of a group of students as I headed home. What a day. At least it was Friday.