Consecutive bicycle work commute number 871:
First day back after taking an unexpected week off work due to Influenza A. Still not feeling great, but feeling good enough I guess. You definitely lose your winter skin when you don't leave the house for 8 days, and being covered with blankets for most of that time.
My wife was trying to convince me to take 1/2 the day off and go in at noon. I decided if I'm only going to work 1/2 a day, I'd rather it be in the morning. This leaves me the option to work all day if I feel up to it. This way if noon comes and I feel good enough to continue I didn't burn 1/2 a day of vacation time unnecessarily. She was also encouraging me to reconsider riding my bike. I threw out the option of riding to the bus stop and taking the bus downtown, and she didn't care for that due to the monster hill I had to climb between our house and the bus stop. I then threw out the option of just walking to the bus stop, but she didn't like that idea either. She finally agreed to let me wake up this morning and make a judgement call of what I feel up to doing.
16F with a 15 mph wind. We got about and inch of fresh powder last night. I'd heard from some friends that the MUP hasn't been plowed after the last couple of snows and has gotten really icy and rutted. I decided to ride, but left the house 15 minutes early so I could take my time and ride at an easy pace. I debated between the winter bike with studs and the fat bike. I decided with the fresh snow to go fat and drop the tire pressure down to 6.5 lbs. I'm glad I did.
I rolled along around 6 mph without exerting too much effort. The fat tires cut through the fresh snow with ease, and the snow gave me some decent grip on top of the ice lurking below. I'm glad I left early, as I used every extra minute I had allotted myself.
For some reason my goggles were really icing over. Usually it doesn't become an issue until below zero, but this morning just two miles into my ride I noticed I was having trouble seeing. At one point I started going up a hill and thought, "wait a minute, there's no hill here." Turns out my goggles were so iced over I had missed my turn. I decided that it was unsafe to continue to ride like that, so I just took my goggles off and finished the last 1.5 miles bare eyed.
I arrived unusually sweaty for temps in the teens. I'm guessing it's a residual effect of my sickness.
