Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1806:
After getting off easy in November and December, winter finally arrived to eastern South Dakota.
I woke up to about 8" of snow on the ground, with snow predicted to continue to fall through tomorrow morning. When I went to bed they were estimating between 5" - 10". If it continues to snow at the current rate we'll be well above that amount.
Schools got cancelled for the day. Many businesses were closed. I briefly considered working from home and breaking my streak, but then I remembered I left my laptop at my desk on Friday afternoon, so there wasn't any way I could work remotely. Then I briefly considered taking a vacation day so my streak could stay intact, but then decided that was the weenie way out. So I sucked it up and rode my bicycle.
I left the house at 6:45 AM hoping that between things being closed and the early time that I could avoid heavy traffic. I took the fat bike on its inaugural run of the season. Virgin snow was too deep to ride through, so I had to walk the bike down my driveway and out into the street where I could ride in the ruts made by a truck which had gone by earlier. I immediately gave up the idea of taking my normal route to work, which included a substantial percentage of MUP riding. There would be no way I could ride the unplowed MUP with this amount of snow.
Instead I took to the main streets. I was hoping that the emergency snow routes would be plowed, but the ones that I rode on had not yet had any snow cleared. However, enough vehicles had driven on them that I could follow their ruts. I couldn't see my speedometer in the dark, but there was no way I was maintaining more than 5 mph. Even in the ruts the snow was causing a ton of resistance. The snow was too deep for drivers to venture outside of the established path in order to pass me, so when I would notice three or four cars stacked up behind me I would pull over and let them pass. The street route I rode was about a mile longer, and a lot hillier than my typical route, but overall was a better choice than trying to ride the MUP.
I almost went down a couple of times when I would hit drifts while crossing intersections, but never did hit the ground so that was a good thing. The temp was 23ºF with a moderate wind, but given how hard I was working I wasn't cold in the least. I actually started having a hard time with my glasses fogging over due to how much heat was coming off of my face. I had to stop a couple of times to try and wipe the lenses clear so I could see. It's rare I have trouble with glasses fogging. Usually that's a problem I fight with goggles.
During one of my stops I noticed that my pannier bag was only holding on by one of the three mounting clips. Had it fallen off I probably wouldn't have heard it hit the ground in the snow. This would have been a bad day to have to go back a couple miles to search for a lost bag.
About two blocks from the client's office I pulled over to snap a photo. That way when all the emails started coming in from people saying the roads were too bad to drive to work I could just reply with this picture:
By the end of the week the temps are predicted to drop to sub-zero F, so winter has definitely arrived.