So soaked. Last night's commute was not exactly the safest, so last night I charged up all lights, repaired my string lights, changed all 4 brake pads, lubed the chain, and added another headlamp on the bars. I look like a rolling christmas tree again!

Another drencher this AM.

Should have put the bigger fender on the front of the bike on the ride home (I have a set of pdw origami fenders made for regular mountain bikes and sks fatboards) lol...It snowed this morning which was awesome but as the day went on it warmed up to slightly above 0C and riding home the road spray off my tires just soaked me in muddy shmoo. When I got home I looked in the mirror and it looked like I had some sort of exotic disease. Fatbike tires (especially fairly aggressive ones) really throw the awesome everywhere!

Only one day of commuting last week for a big 25 mile week. My lowest all year. But I made up for it by eating lots of turkey, ham and pie.

This morning I looked at the temp when I woke up and liked the 49F so got ready and just went with shorts but with warmer layers for the upper body. Stepped outside with the bike to see it was lightly raining and must have been for a while as the streets were very wet. I never looked at the radar or out the window. So off I went.

It was fine but I'm a little chilled now at my desk. Forecast is for a sunny afternoon and a high of 56.

I alternated between "It's not as cold as I thought" and "It's chillier than I'm dressed for" riding in this morning, depending on how sheltered from the wind I was. Came down and around the hill just before getting to work and the wind smacked me in the face for a quarter mile. Think we had 15 minutes of sunshine yesterday, hoping to match that total sometime today.

Right after a holiday weekend, isn't it a great idea to have a meeting on Monday at 9am? Oh well. I turned off my repeating weekday morning alarm on Wednesday night, because I didn't want to wake up early on Thursday and Friday mornings. I forgot to turn it back on last night, so my alarm didn't ring this morning. I woke up an hour late and had to move fast to make it to my meeting. I was only 6 minutes late, but still, it was embarrassing. Of course, I rode as fast as I could, and luckily (and unusually) there was pretty much no wind in any direction. We are due for heavy rain today, so we will see about my ride back home, but at least I didn't get wet on the way in.

we got about 6" of heavy wet snow overnight.

i bailed on riding and took the train instead. to my surprise, the CTA was shockingly on the ball this morning.

6" of heavy wet snow is simply too much for my schwalbe marathon winters to effectively deal with, at least over the course of 8 miles.

and being that it all came down in the wee hours of a sunday night, i'd bet dollars to donuts that the MUP that makes up 80% of my route didn't get plowed.

Four days off the bike made this morning's 12F air temp and sub-zero windchill feel extra cold. With the headwind I averaged less than 10 mph. Just didn't have the motivation to push it any faster today.

45F, hard rain, not much wind.

Not much traffic either.

Also, not so many campsites in the woods along the MUP. The municipalities have squeegeed a lot of the homeless into camping in vacant lots downtown.

20's and a cold wind! Had one to many layers on though and was drenched. Roads were alot better, some patches that forced me more in cars way but it was few. Had alot of fun yesterday playing on the snow and ice. Poor drivers tried climbing ice covered hills but the old bike and studded tires just went up.. I bet they wondered about that. In the lowest gears I was spinning in a few spots.

Pretty wet last night. Seems there's been a lot of rain this year. I'm tired of it.

New Job = New commute!
 

8°F this morning. The wind was lighter than yesterday so even though I rode twice as far this morning (8 miles) overall I didn't get quite as cold. I threw on my "single digit" layers and dressed about right. My fingers and toes got a little cold, but after all these years I've accepted that's pretty much a given at these temps.

Most of the river is now iced over from bank to bank.

Only saw one other cycle commuter, one walker and one jogger on the MUP. All of them were in the dark without lights, although to the cyclist's credit he was wearing a reflective safety vest so my headlights lit him up from a distance.

Or get an e-bike and redirect the battery's power from the motor to your clothes? I've wondered about heated grips on the handle bars.

No bike commute for me today. Had to take my son to a doctor appointment and then drove to work. Cold, but sunny day would've been pretty nice too.

Actually as I was riding this morning I was thinking about the feasibility of heated socks. I think I frequently have that thought while riding throughout the winter, but then once I'm off the bike and inside where it's warm I forget about the idea. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

Cleared off as the temperature dipped below freezing this morning. It was nice to see the sun again, and the tailwind was gentle enough I hardly noticed it until the last jog into the wind and into work.

I felt pretty good overall, until I got to the shower and took my socks off. My feet were COLD!

Once again, I headed out underdressed deliberately. This strategy is working out well for me. I was cold at first. For a while, I thought I ought to at least put my neck thing on if not my jacket, both of which were in my backpack. But I pressed on, and soon enough, I was warm enough, and I was never extremely uncomfortable. Now I understand some of the people I see who look underdressed to me. I still don't understand the men who go hatless, and not just because I'm balding and they are not; some of them are balder than I am.

I started out with a very strong crosswind, and it soon changed to a mighty tailwind, so that was fun.

I used heated insoles for several years and got tired of replacing them each year. I'm currently experimenting with different combinations of socks, boots, toe covers, etc. May go back to the insoles!

23F this morning, snow, and pretty stiff crosswind. I expected ice from yesterday's weather and rode the studs... and no ice. Oh well, I was prepared

My daughter got a flat on her way to middle school this morning; she was close enough to walk and had time to be on time so I let her go then delivered the bike up there. Her favorite parking spot was long gone though. Typical crowd despite ongoing pineapple express

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3372721104.jpg

Derailleur went boom last night so no commute today, hoping to resume tomorrow! Messy out there with the snow melting.

Woke up to snow. It was just a dusting though, so it didn't really slow me down. 23F which meant it actually got warmer during the night compared to when I rode home yesterday evening. A 15 mph tailwind made the pedaling pretty easy, which was good because I wore a little too much clothing.

The cool thing about fresh snow is you can easily see how many bicycles were out before you. I counted the tracks from at least nine other bikes.

I noticed the river is now completely frozen over.

A couple times when I was pedaling hard to accelerate from stop signs my chain slipped. This is a brand new chain and cassette, so I'm guessing it might be the derailleur. It's the original one to the bike and had survived a decade of winter riding. When I replaced the chain a couple weeks ago I noticed the jockey wheels are worn down to pointy nubs. Might be time for a new derailleur.

Even though the snow was just a dusting, I still rode the winter bike. We're supposed to get freezing rain this afternoon and I will probably be glad I have the studded tires.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...16a27dfee8.jpg

I forgot to mention my ride home on Monday night. We had had very heavy rain with flood watches. I looked out of my office window, and I wasn't sure, but it looked like the rain had stopped. It's hard to tell because I'm up on the 12th floor, and it was dark. It turns out that it was raining somewhere between lightly and moderately, so I put my rain jacket on. I figured oh well this might be miserable, but I might as well get it over with, and I can change clothes when I get home.

Well I did get wet, especially on my butt, since I still don't have fenders. But luckily I didn't get cold. The worst of it was the blindness. And it was bad. My eyes filled up with water for some reason, and my glasses got wet, of course. I couldn't see most of the puddles. Sometimes the trees looked like people. One lucky thing was that there weren't many people, either on foot or bike. I mean there was far fewer people than usual. What do people in NYC who ride to work do when they don't ride home? I guess they take take the subway home and then back to work where their bikes are? Another saving grace is that the light improved as the trip wore on.

I still couldn't read the street signs. I got off the greenway two blocks too soon, but that was no big deal.

Yesterday and today we have a furious wind from the west. My trip to work is north-northwest so it amounts to a tailwind in the morning and a headwind at night, but last night it didn't seem like a big struggle for some reason.

A balmy 16F this morning. I know the wind chill was single digit but I didn't look... don't want to know. There's snow left over from yesterday and some ice but not enough to warrant studded tires. We're not supposed to get above freezing until tomorrow afternoon. Isn't it still November?!

Bottom 10 commute last night. The ride itself was OK, colder than normal and I ramped up the pace for some reason. At threshold, some unexpected fatigue that I wrote off to street clothes. But when I got home I was drowning in mucus, coughing up, and couldn't seem to catch my breath for about an hour it seemed. I'm still sore ... I guess I won't do that again. :(

My ride home was nice. No wind around mid 30s with increasing fog. When I finally got home, viewing distance was about 1/8 mile. People at intersections were shaking their heads at me and I'm surprised nobody yelled at me saying I was @^#% crazy or whatever.