Yesterday's rides were great. I had a slight tail wind in the morning, which is unusual.

I'm still perfecting my route. I still haven't found a way around some stairs on the campus. I think I'll ask one of the security guards. Lucky I'm strong enough to carry my bike, but in the long term, I'd like to avoid it. There are bikes on the bike racks on the campus level, so how do people get to that level?

Today, instead of riding, I took the subway for the first time. I might take Citi Bike back. So I haven't had any exercise today except that I walked up the stairs to my office. The campus level is the 4th floor, and I walked from that to my office on the 12th floor, so that's eight flights. I wonder how long before that becomes easy. It's not terribly hard for me, and my breathing recovers pretty quickly.

Now I both live and work in the service zone for Citi Bike, which is excellent. The trouble is, seven miles is a bit of a long ride with the tanks they call bicycles. It starts to get unfun after the third mile or so.

OK, I won't try that. Thanks.

Thanks, [MENTION=152773]noglider[/MENTION] and [MENTION=25132]ptempel[/MENTION] for thinking about my little family! Yes, my "baby" is a toddler now, as she is 2. We wanted a second child, but it wasn't in the cards for us.

We are STILL in the hospital (ugh), but we should be getting discharged in the next few hours. We'll need to have our 2 year old on oxygen while she's sleeping for the next few days, but the hassle of oxygen at home is worth being able to get out of the hospital and go home!

We are all stir crazy. Oh, and I feel I have the BWE (best wife ever)--she made a point of telling me, "You should be able to get a ride in once we get home." :love: So glad we'll be breaking out of here soon--I haven't ridden since Tuesday!

Lol, I was thinking of the Danny Macaskill video where Santa Cruz asked him to destroy their rims.

The past few days have been amazing. Riding without numb fingers, ears and nose is a pleasure. Lot's of joggers out though...

I love to see the joggers, so well dressed and so fit.

Meow! Meow! :D

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Back to the Monday. I had Friday off work in exchange for today's holiday. Quite day at the office though.

I left an hour early and went to the gym on the way in. It was misting a bit with wet roads, but the temp was about 50F. I had not charged my headlight lately so it pretty much died on me. I could still see well enough, but I knew cars coming at me or turning from side roads could not see me. I had to brake for one guy who pretty much was going to ignore the stop sign anyway.

Both head and tail lights are charging now at my desk.

Friday after work, I jumped on Citi Bike and rode to the bus terminal to take a bus upstate. It rained the whole way, so I got wet. I wasn't cold. I rode the bus, and the 90 minute ride turned into a two hour ride. I was still wet but I wasn't cold. Then I got off the bus and waited for my wife to pick me up in the car. It was cold and windy, and I got cold! I guess I should have a change of clothes whenever I'm likely to get wet.

Quite the misty, foggy morning. Weather page actually says 100% humidity. Warm enough for shorts though at 54F. The roads were wet and my clothes were a bit damp when I got to work, but not soaked.

The forecast is for a high in the 70s today and the next few days. Gonna start feeling like late spring.

One nice thing about where I live in Sioux Falls is that geographically, bad weather often passes just to the north or south of the city. The areas all around us got pelted with a pretty good snow storm last night. I woke up to about 3" of fresh powder that had fallen. Underneath that was a layer of ice from when the precipitation started with freezing sleet. Made for very slick roads as the loose snow just slid around on the slick ice underneath. The plows had just started to hit some of the emergency snow routes, which meant most everything else was yet unplowed.

Certainly conditions like this are too bad to drive in, so I rode my bicycle instead. The air temp when I left the house was 6F. There was a 15 mph head wind which brought the wind chill down to -12F. The unplowed snow made me work hard to pedal through it, and the slow speeds meant I wasn't generating a whole lot of additional wind chill on top of that which was naturally occuring, so overall I stayed pretty warm.

The layer of snow was thick enough to hold the carbide studs on my tires up far enough so they wouldn't dig into the ice. That meant things were very slippery, especially in the spots where cars had mashed the snow into ruts. Felt my bike sliding around underneath me quite a bit, but I never went down so it was all good. I did have one close call where I hit a big icy rut hiding under the snow. I managed to get my foot down at the last millisecond so I stayed upright.

Coming down a big hill with a stop sign at the bottom, I could feel things were getting slicker the farther down the hill I got. In my rear-view mirror I could see a car driving too fast behind me, and I envisioned them not being able to stop at the bottom. I decided that if that happens I want them to be in front of me not behind me. I pulled over and let them pass. Sure enough, they got to the stop sign and slid right through into the intersection. Thankfully for them there was no cross traffic coming at the time. Thankfully for me I had the presence of mind to let them get ahead of me.

Once I got to the MUP I was pedaling through mostly virgin snow making my own path, so the riding got a lot easier as there were no ruts or drifts from umpteen cars driving through the unplowed snow. For a short while I rode along side a track made by a fat bike, but for a vast majority of the trail I was the first one to use it today. This made it a little tricky in a couple of spots where I wasn't able to see where the trails edge was located and accidentally rode off the trail.

Once I got downtown and left the MUP, the plows had already made their initial pass through the area so the final 1/3 of a mile was pretty easy pedaling.

I left the house 15 minutes earlier than normal, and arrived at work 5 minutes late. I still beat most of the people who drove their cars to the office so the 5 minutes wasn't a big deal. Took me 50 minutes total to ride the 4 miles, so certainly no speed records were broken.

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As a counter to [MENTION=175954]Tundra_Man[/MENTION], it was 66F this morning... in February! There was a ripping 15mph headwind but seemed easier to deal with. It's too early, I need a gentle increase in temps to know how to dress for this. It's supposed to be in the low 70's on the way home. 70's and 15+mph tailwind - yeehaw!

27F, dry, gray

I did get to ride a little over the weekend--thank goodness! My toddler was released from the hospital Friday night, and she's going back to her school (daycare) today.

Although I was sad to not ride this morning--I shoveled instead. We got a few inches of snow overnight.

Just one commute this week, MTB yesterday. Today I judged it too cold for the daycare run, tomorrow it’s my wife’s birthday and that gives me errands, Th and Fr off.

Ha, I know what you mean.

I noticed so many of the fairer sex last Wednesday (the first warmer night), and I was thinking, 'are they all super motivated to run because they are single on Valentine's day?' Then I realized it was all about the weather.

It was a very nice uneventful commute this am with the temp above freezing(36f).

70+ for my ride home yesterday. A lot of walkers with strollers and/or dogs and joggers out and about.

This morning was probably the warmest of this year at about 64F. I wore a lightweight long sleeve top and light gloves. The sleeves were rolled up by mile 3 and the gloves were off by mile 6.

I got honked at for the first time in a pretty good while. What-evs.

It's February.

And I wore shorts and a t shirt to ride today.

Take that, winter!!! Take that and shove it up your snowball! It's gorgeous out!!!

Are you sure it was a bad honk? Maybe you were just lookin' good :D

First ride this week.. cold! That north wind had a bite. Probably will ride tomorrow since it's supposed to ice again. Driving is worse than riding in bad weather.

41F and raining this morning with a nice tailwind. What a contrast to yesterday's ride home - 76F and ripping tailwind. I wore shorts, no jacket, no gloves!

On my way home from work last night, two things happened. First, one of the ties holding my front fender stays in place broke. My front fork on the winter bike doesn't have eyelets for fenders, so I just zip-tie the stays. It works pretty well most of the time, but every few years one of the zip ties succumbs to the elements and snaps. Yesterday was the day for my right side. So most of the way home the fender would rub every time I hit a bump. I fixed it in less than five minutes once I was back in the garage.

The other event on the way home was I had my first crash of the year. The MUP hadn't yet been plowed and the 3+ inches of snow was still sitting on a sheet of ice. I came around a slight curve at the base of a hill and suddenly went down. Thankfully the unplowed snow cushioned my fall so I wasn't hurt. As I lay on the ground I brushed the snow off the path and could see that this section had a full inch of glass smooth ice over the pavement. The thick snow kept my studded tires from digging into the ice so I had no traction. After a minute of evaluating my body condition and straightening my now crooked seat back into place I resumed my ride home.

This morning the MUP was still unplowed. I was extra careful in the area where I went down. You could still see the imprint of my body in the snow.

Temp was -2F with a -12F headwind. Lots of bikes and pedestrians had used the MUP and had trampled down the snow, which then froze in the cold temps and made for lots of ruts. Where I could I tried to ride through virgin snow as it was a lot smoother, but there wasn't a lot of it left. Slow riding again today, but I made it.

Was a nice ride in today albeit a little wet. Its strange to wear short sleeve jersey and shorts in February but I ain't gonna complain. ;) Have to enjoy the warn weather for today 61F going up to 70F or so. Tomorrow will be back in the 40sF which I think is where it should be. 70F or more is enough to break a record for this time of year here. My drivetrain is starting to get a little chatty. So I ordered a KMC X10 chain and Campy Veloce 13-26 cassette for the bike. Will install probably this weekend (assuming I get the chain in the mail by then).