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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By the time I got home last night I had been bounced around so much that every joint in my body was aching. I even took some ibuprofen, which I rarely ever do.
This morning's commute was more of the same: lots and lots of rutted ice. I'm not the only one noting the poor road conditions. Plenty of car drivers are talking about them, and there's lots of online discussion about how bad they've gotten. It's pretty rare that we see streets this bad in our area as usually the city is on top of it. I think it was a perfect storm that set this up: On December 31st we got some unexpected weather, so the pre-treatment trucks weren't out. Then we received a base layer of freezing rain, followed by just under 2" of snow which wasn't enough to cause the plows to run. The wind picked up and caused drifting. Then on January 1st when all of the city employees were off work the temps dropped below zero which turned everything into a frozen rutted mess. At this point there's not much we can do but wait it out until evaporation, friction and sun warmth eventually melts everything off.
At least the other day's factors were pretty nice: 28F, very little wind and the sun was starting to come up.