Last year, at least, I had an excuse. I was shaking off the cobwebs at this time a year ago because of my surgically-induced layoff. But this year...Well, OK, the streets were covered with snow, slush or ice, or some combination thereof, for a good part of two months. Still, I feel that I'm getting off to such a slow start to my cycling season.
Now I can recall years in which there wasn't a cycling season. It seemed that for a few consecutive years at the end of the last century, we had mild winters. In fact, there were a couple of years where we barely seemed to have a winter at all. The cold has never been a deterrent for me, but even with studded tires, commuting is not always feasible when there are snow and ice on the roadways.
Even so, I've never been tempted to move to a warmer climate. Somehow I can't think of cycling, or anything else, without the rhythm of the seasons. However, if I were to move to, say, Southern California, I suppose I'd adapt: When you come right down to it, most people do what they need to do in whatever situations they find themselves. It's a bit like learning foreign languages: Lots of people, at least in this country, never do and assume they can't. However, I would think that at least some of them would learn, in one fashion or another, if they moved someplace else.
Ever since the warm weather we had a week ago, it seems we've returned to winter. I suppose that if I were more religious or believed more in any sort of cosmology than I do, I'd say this was retribution for my arrogance in riding in the middle of major local roadways under the biggest, brightest moon I'd seen in a long time and thinking myself Queen of the Road, or some such thing.
All right...If I get out for a good ride tomorrow, all will be right with the world. Maybe I'll still be off to a slow start. But even a slow start is a start, and a move forward.
