23123087[/url]]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.