adventurous. the morning ride was pretty standard pleasant-winter-ride type of weather, but the evening was all party. powerful head/crosswinds with gusts, great blobby wet chunks of blowing snow, the whole bit. typical of this whole lackadaisical winter, i was woefully unprepared for all of it: booties at home, only one glove cover, just a t-shirt and silk shirt under the light jacket. i actually intended all day to take the bus home because the coming wind was well-documented and it blew up to 98 kph during the day. but when i got outside and saw all that magical-wonderland snow and thought of the bragging rights, i got ambivalent. wanted to ride, wanted to not-ride, couldn't make up my mind . . . somehow it's so disappointing to see all that snow and turn your back on the ride without getting to experience even a little of it.

i set off with my bare open-knit gloves and ratty runners and rode the first part, telling myself that i'd go as far as the bridge and then quit. i really meant to, once i got a taste of the headwind and all the eyesfull of snow. then i got to the last bus-stop before the bridge and couldn't face it: getting off the bike and waiting with other shivering souls for 20 minutes before a bus came . . . i kept going. and actually, crossing the bridge was almost easy. that river's like a demarcation line; whatever weather you're getting on one side of it seems to just stop when it reaches the bridge. i had wind, but no snow. then i took a bus on the other side to bring me up the hill, and rode home from there into the wind again. i don't know if i'm imagining things or my spirit's just broken or what, but wind is rarely as difficult as i expect it to be.

next up for the rest of the week: freezing temperatures.