Breezy Weird...
 

with the changing temperatures today, I experienced warm humid breezes when the wind came unopposed from the south, but cold damp breezes when blowing from out of the woods and valleys. The temp difference felt like 20 degrees or so. Today will be like an early April day, in early February.

50F for the ride in - I wore shorts. Quite odd for February. And the high will be about 70F.

Was rainy and 40F this morning. My shoes got water logged and ended up pouring the water out when I was changing in the bathroom. Here's to hoping that it won't be as heavy later on. I have a bad case of creaky bike again. Will need to pull apart the BB and seatpost and do the usual clean and lube.

25°F with a 20 mph headwind for the ride to the client's office. Kind of slow going.

We've already hit the high for the day. Temp is supposed to continuously drop throughout the day until we hit the low single digits. I have to ride across town to our office for a noon meeting, so it will be interesting to see how much colder and windier it gets by then.

After today I've only got three more days until I've hit a full year without driving to work. At this point things are looking promising that I'll make it!

60F this morning... that's with a '6!' Rippin headwind and spitting rain but who cares... 60 degrees! Thunderstorms this afternoon (in February) and tomorrow snow. Whoever said variety is the spice of life was not a winter commuter.

45 degrees this morning after the storms rolled out of the area about 15 minutes before i left, woo-hoo!

that's stupid warm for a february morning in chicago. i rode to work in shorts!

spring must only be a week or two away, right? right?

Stormy this morning so I drove, then will ride home at nearly 70° and probably some sun out, then ride back in tomorrow morning.

I waited a bit for the showers to pass through before getting the bike out. I was overdressed for the ride (63 degrees in February??), but the 18 mph headwind sucked. Still glad to get back on the bike after the high stress of the last week.

It's rainy and a bit cold today, so I skipped the bike, and now I regret it. I would have been fine. I have a rehearsal tonight from 7 to 10, and it's in the Citi Bike service area, so maybe after rehearsal, I'll ride that home, which is about five miles.

Touch of the flu yesterday and still recovering today, temps dropped back down and didn't want to push it. Going to have alot of miles to make up this summer.

Mildly wet this morning... somewhere between humidity and fog. Made my brakes squeaky.

Saw something rather bizarre near the end of my commute. On 38th St, there was a Saks Fifth Avenue truck blocking the whole road. The tractor plus trailer was actually longer than the complete width of the street, including sidewalks, so the tractor was turned at a 90 degree angle from the trailer. The driver was carefully aligning the back of the trailer with the loading dock of a building, I think a Lord & Taylor store. The entrance to the building was about one foot higher than the truck, and maybe two feet wider, and he had to align the thing pretty much perfectly. This was about 6:30 AM and there was already quite a bit of traffic blocked by this process, and some of the drivers were getting impatient. I waited and watched for a while, and then the driver decided he didn't have it quite right, so he drove forward a bit, creating enough space for a couple pedestrians to squeeze by. Potentially a dangerous move, but I figured there's saftey in numbers, so I took my CitiBike up onto the sidewalk and joined the pedestrians. When I parked the bike a block later, I could still hear the horns honking at the traffic blockage.

Overnight rains left some wet roads and rising fog for the morning. But at 54F it was warm. Hump day - gettin' through it!

2" of snow over night, sure am glad I'm on vacation the next few days.

Coming home from work last night I was fighting the wind. It was really kicking my butt. About a half mile from home after setting a new record for how slow I can climb a hill I realized my rear tire was flat again. Walked the rest of the way home.

Removed the tube and found two holes nowhere near each other. Patched them. Put the tube back in, remounted the tire and pumped it up only to hear a loud hissing noise. Yep, another hole. At this point I was out of patches so I just replaced the whole tube. New tube held air just fine, thankfully.

This tire has been getting flats for a couple years now, and every time I can't find anything in the tire that would have caused it. Plenty of tread left on the outside of the tire (studded Nokian Hakkapeliitta.) There are spots on the inside of the tire where it looks like it's been worn down to the cord. I'm wondering if after seven seasons of winter riding the tire is just getting old and I need to replace it? Perhaps those areas are rubbing against the tube and causing punctures? Never heard of wearing out the inside of a tire before.

Today I made it to work with no flats. 8°F and a 10 mph headwind. But they're talking 40 degrees by Friday, so there's a light at the end of the winter tunnel.

Nice ride home yesterday, and also this morning. Although this morning I was taken by surprise at the extremely thick, dense fog I encountered about 5 miles from the house. I had no clue when I left the house that there would be fog, but visibility was down to 100 yards in some places. I had to keep a sharp watch out for headlights behind me, and I yelled at a couple of oncoming motorists driving without headlights on.

I was hauling butt through the park near my house going home yesterday, but I just had to stop and take this pic by the lake, after having some severe storms come through that morning:

https://scontent-atl3-1.cdninstagram...50560768_n.jpg

33F and raining. Just enough to melt the remaining snow to a hard pack of ice.

I decided to take off the panniers today for the ride home. I'd been riding with them on for most of the winter season, whether or not I needed them. The 30 km/h wind was going to be in my face today so I thought it might help. Boy, did it ever. I feel like I was consistently 2-3 km/h faster without them. They're a bit of a hassle to put on and take off as I use zip ties to make them or secure, which was why I'd just left them on. But man, what a huge difference.

Quite windy this morning. It helped me ride 20+mph for about 5 miles, but then was either in my face or a cross wind the rest of the way. Here is some evidence of the wind's strength. I guess I need to work on my bunny hopping skills.
https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t5...89796096_n.jpg

It was 16F with a windchill in the single digits as I left this morning. I wound up having a tailwind for a majority of the ride AND the wind is supposed to switch around 180-degrees by the time I ride home. A tailwind in both directions??? If this happens I may go buy a lottery ticket as well. :-)

6°F this morning. Thankfully in the direction I was going I mostly had a cross wind. The wind is supposed to really pick up as the day progresses. At noon I'm riding across town to a client's office, and should have a good push on my way there. Unfortunately I'll have to fight it on the way home.

The temps haven't raised above freezing for over a week now, and yesterday I noticed that a lot of the ice has evaporated off. Most of the patches that remain are very small and easy to ride around.

Because of this, and because of the distance I was going to be riding today I left the winter bike at home and took the hybrid. Between the non-studded smooth tires, clipless pedals and 15lbs less weight it felt like I was pedaling air. Averaged a full 5 mph faster even though I wasn't riding any harder than I normally do.

It snowed last night, about 4 inches. The city plowed the trails but then temps dropped so it was mostly ice - rutted ice at that. I really didn't want to put the studs on last night but glad I did. 16F this morning, 3 windchill, ripping winds again mostly a diagonal tailwind. Doesn't bode well for the ride home.

I usually don't pay attention to this counter but did this morning. It's on a downtown trail and even in the winter it's usually around mid 20's when I come by. Not today!
http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/...psdnjxmwzm.jpg

Just curious, how do you keep your glasses from fogging up with the balaclava covering everything else?

uhhh... luck?! If my head were pointed straight or down they would have fogged. So, I keep a gap between facemask and glasses (not always the most comfortable in sub 0 temps) and as long as I'm moving they don't fog. Also helps that when it's this cold it's usually really dry too!

we had a brief 12 hour cold snap in chicago overnight. it was 13 degrees this morning with an obnoxious 17mph NW wind making it feel like -2.

i feel like i was assaulted by that goddamn wind on my ride in.

but we're warming up into the mid-20s this afternoon, with highs in the mid-40s tomorrow and through the weekend.

still no snow on the ground in chicago for 7 weeks now. what a spectacularly weird winter it's been.

The heck with bunny hopping, you need to start working on your deer hopping skill!