The Fat Guy In The Back
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Sioux Falls, SD
Posts: 2,532
Bikes: '81 Panasonic Sport, '02 Giant Boulder SE, '08 Felt S32, '10 Diamondback Insight RS, '10 Windsor Clockwork, '15 Kestrel Evoke 3.0, '19 Salsa Mukluk
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Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1588:
This morning the air temperature was -7°F. This was 2° below my wife's threshold for allowing me to ride the entire way, which means on a normal day I would do a split-commute and take the bus for a portion of the trip.
However, on this particular morning I had a blood coagulation check appointment (yay mechanical heart valves) scheduled before work. The good news was there was a bus stop right there at the hospital. The bad news was, the stop was on a different bus route than the one that is closest to my house. The worse news was, in order to try and ride the bus(es) to the hospital, I would have to get up several hours early, catch a 1st bus downtown, wait in the cold 1/2 hour for the next bus to arrive, then take that 2nd bus to the hospital where I would get there 45 minutes prior to my appointment. More or less, it wasn't a better option than just riding the entire trip.
So that's what I opted to do. My wife was still in bed so she wouldn't know, and it was one of those "easier to ask forgiveness than permission" situations. I first rode the 4.25 miles to the hospital. On the way, I found myself about 200 yards behind my friend Scott (@Labrat here on the forum). I'm not a fast rider in normal temps, let alone below zero, so there was no chance of me catching him. I did wave to him as he was going over a bridge after a pigtail turn, and I was just going under the bridge. He stayed in view ahead of me most of the way to the hospital (where coincidentally he works) until about the last 1/2 mile when I lost him at a stoplight.
Thankfully the wind was extremely light, so the -7°F temp wasn't bad at all. My only issue was the normal fight I have with my goggles icing over. I arrived at the hospital good and sweaty. After my appointment I had to put my soaking wet gear back on for the next 2 mile ride to work. Yuck.
For some reason the city was unusually pungent this morning. Maybe it was due to there hardly being any wind? Various scents greeted me throughout the commute. The area around the hospital had the distinct smell of weed. When I got downtown I thought it smelled like a cat box. I wrote it off as just a figment of my mind until a coworker mentioned that "it smelled weird outside today."
Last edited by Tundra_Man; 02-01-23 at 10:02 AM.