Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1367:

Haven't posted much in a couple of weeks. Been riding as usual, and then my wife and I took a much needed vacation to a warmer climate. We got back on Wednesday evening. I had taken Thursday and Friday off from work as well. I took Thursday off because nobody likes to get back from a trip and then go right in to work the next morning. I took Friday off because why go back to work for just one day before the weekend?

However, after sitting at home on Thursday I realized there was probably better use of my limited vacation time, so I opted to return to work a day early.

A whole slew of challenges awaited me this morning. I woke up to an air temperature of -11°F with about an inch of snow on the ground. I had spent a week in glorious 70 degree and sunny weather, which sheds the winter skin rather quickly. The time zone difference also managed to completely screw up my sleep schedule, so getting up for work made it feel like I was getting up in the middle of the night. Not riding the bike for a week and going on a feeding frenzy only added to the cards stacked against me. So, long story short, I found myself sucking wind really hard as I slowly trudged through the snow and up the hills in the sub-zero temps.

Because the temp was south of -5°F, it reached the cutoff temp I've negotiated with my wife. Colder than this and I do a split commute where I catch the bus for part of the way. Most days I protest a little and try to get her to let me ride the whole way, but this morning with all of the above factors I listed, I didn't put up any argument against riding the bus for part of the commute. A co-worker told me he saw me a riding a few blocks from the office and said that I looked to be going slower than normal. I can believe it.

It's supposed to hit 16°F this afternoon, so I'm planning on riding the whole way home.