This evening I could have used one of these:
Actually, I did have raingear for my ride home. It hadn't rained on my way to work, but the weather forecasters promised rain for the afternoon and evening.
I managed to stay pretty comfortable throughout the ride. The only problem was that it was dreary: If someone wanted an image of what it's like to fall into a depression, tonight's ride home could have provided it. It was almost, but not quite cold enough to snow. Hard, real rain fell: not a drizzle that fizzles as it reaches the ground and simmers softly around the halos of streetlights. And, this is the time of year when houses are still decorated for Christmas because people haven't yet managed to take down lights they are no longer turning on.
To paraphrase Wallace Stevens, I may just be the sort of woman who prefers a drizzle in San Francisco to a downpour in Corona.
Isn't it too cold for you to ride?
How many times have you heard that? It seems that even in the mildest of winters--like the one we had last year--someone asks that question whenever I'm on my bike, or look as if I've been on it.
What I find interesting is that some of the cities with the largest contingents of year-round cyclists--and the best infrastructures for cycling--experience more intense cold and get much more snow than New York ever has. Such a city is Montreal, where a cyclist took a video of the winter commute I posted last week.
Other such cities include Oulu, Finland and Umea (Sorry, I couldn't get the little circle over the "a" !) in Sweden, where the weather doesn't seem to deter these cyclists:
Don't you just love the light in that photo? '
We haven't had any snow in these parts, so I have to content myself with views like these when I start my commute home:
I hereby declare today the 14th Day of Christmas.
Why?, you ask. Well, for one reason and one reason alone: so I can post another Christmas bike photo.
Actually, it's not technically a Christmas bike photo. At least, it's not intended as such. But it's hard to deny the austere, if stark, northern Yule beauty of this Negatone image, which was taken on the main campus of the University of Michigan by "Image MD".
Have you ever seen a bike parked somewhere, day after day, and wondered about its owner?
I guess I'm weird that way. Sometimes a bicycle (or, for that matter, some other object) will catch my attention and I'll start to imagine some detail or another about the person who owns it.
Ever since the fall semester began, I've seen this rig on the campus bike rack:
A bike in a color like that is pretty hard to miss. It's also a pretty good bike: a Specialized Allez. However, it's not terribly remarkable, as it's one of the most common racing bikes today.
But seeing it parked in that very same spot on the rack every day has got me to musing about its owner. Does he or she come to school before everybody else just to get that spot? A student or faculty member? Or a staff member, perhaps--in administration? Does its owner race or take long rides?
And, of course, there's this question: From whence does its owner ride? What route does he or she take?
For all I know, it may belong to someone who lives down the block. Or, perhaps, it might be ridden by someone whose commute puts mine to shame.
So far, this winter hasn't brought much snow up this way. However, we still have a couple of months to go. You never know what can happen.
That's the reason why you never know whether you'll need this bike:
The fellow who posted the photo uses the bike to train for triathlons. Seriously, he does triathlons and lives in Minnesota. Maybe he's using that rear wheel to grind the grain he'll use to make one of his training foods.
