Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1569:

Two more inches of snow fell yesterday bringing the storm's total in our city to around 16". Much to my relief today it has stopped snowing for the first time in three days. We need the moisture, but it will be nice to have a break for a little bit to allow us to clean up.

It was 19°F this morning with a 20 mph headwind. It really didn't feel cold at all. I think my fears of losing my winter skin during our holiday travels were unfounded. Tomorrow it's supposed to drop down into the low single digits so that will be the true test.

There was so much snow it's overwhelmed the city plowing system. They're way behind. They've called in people from other departments (including the fire department) to help drive plows. All of the main routes are clear, but as of this morning maybe only 1/3 of the back roads and side streets had been plowed. The MUP hasn't been touched at all, so I didn't bother trying to ride my normal route.

Instead, I did a repeat of yesterday morning. I got up extra early, blew snow off my driveway (hopefully for the last time for at least a few days) and then hit the road. I started to ride the same busy streets that I took yesterday, but quickly realized that traffic was back to normal. I decided to try a side-street route. The first 10 blocks of this route were pretty easy, as the plows had already come through. As I crossed into a different neighborhood that hadn't yet been plowed, things got a lot tougher. The next few miles were through mostly unplowed streets. Thankfully a lot of cars had packed the snow down, so while it was slow it was at least ridable.

I finished up the last couple miles back on a major road and just held my breath as cars passed me on the slick streets. Thankfully there were no incidents. Even on the plowed roads, there was enough snow that there's nowhere to push it completely out of the way, so things have gotten very narrow. Four lane roads are currently two lanes, and two lane roads are often just one lane.