Yesterday's Ride, Today's Storm

I am so glad I took my ride yesterday.  I thought I’d sneak in a short ride this morning.  But the snow started earlier than had been forecast:  When I woke up, just before 8 am, the wind was already driving needles of cotton against my window and the faces of people ploughing ahead on their way to work or school.  They weren’t supposed to encounter such weather conditions until the time most of them would have been going home.  Not surprisingly, some of them returned early to the warmth and comfort of their hot cocoa and friends, lovers, pets, books, TV shows and videos.

Pedaling as soft, puffy flakes eddy onto my shoulders would not have been bad.  But the conditions I saw this morning would are the sort you envision in a Dickens story or, perhaps, a Bergmann film. I have mentioned, in previous posts, other meteorological “lines in the sand” I’ve drawn.  For example, I am sometimes willing to ride in the snow or rain, but not when both are falling—or when they’re accompanied by sleet.  I also generally don’t ride if I can barely see out my window or if the morning commute looks like the Battle of Stalingrad.  

Well, I don’t know what the Battle of Stalingrad looked like.  For that matter, I don’t know, exactly, what a Dickensian morning looks like, though his writing and my imagination create a vivid image.  But I have seen morning in a Bergmann film.  Anyway, you know what I mean.

Days like today aren’t for riding, at least for me.  But I can bask in the glow of yesterday’s ride.  

Winter, Interrupted--Until Last Night

This has been a strange season, to say the least.  We had our only real snowfall at the end of October.  There have only been two, maybe three, stretches during which the temperature remained below freezing for two or more days.  Last week, the temperature reached 75F (24C) on consecutive days.  And, yesterday, the temperature dropped from 52 at the time I rode to work to 27 at the time I rode home.

I knew that the temperature was going to drop, but I wasn't prepared for such a large drop.  That has, in part, to do with the fact that I stayed about two hours later at work than I'd planned.  Also, the wind, which blew briskly when I pedalled to work, grew even stronger by the time I pedalled home--and I was riding into it for part of the way.

Really, though, I shouldn't complain.  Well, all right, I will anyway.  I bought some nice wool stuff this year that I never used! 

Out Again And Iced

Yesterday I rode my bike to work for the first time in nearly a month.  The day started with light rain that ended just as I was about to set off.  The 42 F (6C) temperature was milder than it's been most of this winter.  And, as if I could perform some sort of meteorological manipualtion, the skies began to clear as I began to pedal.  By the time I got within a few blocks of my main job, I was pedaling under sunshine.


And the day grew brighter--but colder.  Early in the afternoon, when I rode to my second job, the temperature had dropped enough for me to notice the wind, which was stiffening, through the sleeves of the sweater I wore under my down vest.


(Interestingly, after I parked my bike, one of the security guards asked whether I was cold.  "And how do you ride in that skirt?," she wondered.  I surprised her when I said that I don't feel cold as much below my waist as I do above it.)


All the way to my second job, I didn't see any ice in the streets.  I saw occasional patches of slush that looked like soot-flavored (as if there were such a thing) Slush Puppies.  They presented no problem, especially with the cyclocross-treaded tires I'd mounted on Marianela.


But when I got to my second job, parking was a bit of a problem:

This is the same bike rack that was full--and in which I saw a Pinarello--every time I rode there during the fall.   So I locked my bike to the fence surrounding the campus.


After my classes there, I rode back to my main job for a meeting with a student.  By that time, the temperature had dropped by at least 20 degrees (F).  Luckily, I didn't encounter ice.  After that meeting (which lasted about half an hour), I started to pedal home. About three miles into a ten-mile trip, I  managed to ride down a street that was glazing with ice.  If I were in the country, I probably would have continued riding.  However, I was near the Queens County Courthouse, and a station of the E and F subway lines.  And, by that time, I was pedaling (with a fixed gear) into a wind that, I would find out later, was blowing at 20 to 25 mph.  Plus, I had a dinner date and didn't want to be late!