Week Seven - Day One

TIME THERE: ??
TIME BACK: 42 min. (including the ride to daycare, picking up my daughter, getting her dressed for the weather and strapped into the trailer, and heading back to the house)
WEATHER: cloudy, -5C (-8C with wind chill), 19km/hr wind there; cloudy, 0C (-6 with wind chill), 30km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: scarf, cotton gloves layered under running gloves, waterproof shell, turtleneck, long underwear layered under yoga pants, winter boots.
NOTES:
There are many, many reasons why my ride to school must have taken longer than usual. For starters, there's snow on the ground. It started snowing on Thursday the 8th, and has continued on and off ever since. There's not a lot of snow on the ground, it's not in great banks or deep ruts or anything, but it's enough to make me ride with a great deal more caution. Also, it's the coldest weather I've biked in so far, which in turn made me wear more layers than usual, and I was facing the wind in the morning, all of which might contribute to lengthening my ride to work.

Further, it's the first Tuesday back from a long weekend. Between the long weekend and the conference I went to at the end of last week, I haven't biked since last Wednesday, almost a week ago now. So maybe I'm a little rusty. It also doesn't help that I spent the entire long weekend sick with a cold, to the point where my feverish chills and inability to breathe through my nose kept me sleeplessly tossing and turning all night on Saturday. I only started getting better yesterday, and while I feel like I'm about 80% back to normal health, I'm still feeling the effects of being sick for the past four days.

Also, this morning I began biking my daughter to daycare in the Schwinn trailer I bought specifically for that purpose, but have not used for that purpose yet (given that my daughter hates her helmet with a passion). So normally I've been driving to daycare, dropping off my daughter, driving home, picking up my bike, and leaving from there, using the time I mounted my bike as my "start time". Today, I loaded my daughter into the trailer, carefully brought it down the front stairs, then took out my bike and hooked the two up before starting out towards daycare (which is only a few blocks away, but in the opposite direction of work). I dropped her off a bit later than usual, then biked back home with the intention of dropping off the trailer at the house. By this time, the morning had already involved many more swear words than most mornings do, as my cold hands could barely work the pins and latches required by the trailer. When I got home, I figured it would be too inconvenient to unhook the trailer and opted instead to keep it latched to my bike for the duration of my journey. Throughout my entire ride to work, a quote by GOB from Arrested Development ran continuously through my mind: "I've made a huge mistake."

The trailer added weight, rolling resistance, and width to my ride that I'm simply not used to, especially on snowy, dead leaf-strewn streets. I had to drop a gear to keep my legs pumping with the added weight, and on more than one occasion the wheels of the trailer caught on something - a rut in the street, a curb - and caused my bike to drag and skid. Once, heading onto a sidewalk (where it was legal to ride on the sidewalk - don't judge me!), the trailer caught on the curb, bounced around, and managed to knock one of my panniers off. I had to stop, fix the pannier, and make sure the trailer was still attached, before I continued on. Further, I couldn't follow my usual route as it involves walking up a flight of stairs, which I can do with my bike but cannot do with the bike and trailer, so I had to take a longer and more uphill route than usual. At one point during the detour I dropped down the 9th gear, panting and wheezing my way up a sadly minimal incline as pedestrians looked on with worry, and I wondered if I'd be better off just walking. But I stuck to it, and I made it up, and was rewarded with a largely (slight) downhill ride the rest of the way across campus to work.

I wish I could tell you by how much all this slowed me down, but I can't because I managed to forget to check the clock on my cell phone before leaving my house! Without a start time, I can't determine a ride time. I know I got to work at 8:24 pm, which is later than usual, but I also know that biking my daughter to daycare made my start time later than usual. Perhaps I'll never know - ALAS! Even on the ride home I don't have an exact time because of however many minutes were spent in the daycare, chatting with staff and getting my daughter suited up for the weather. Perhaps it'll remain a mystery for ETERNITY . . . or I could try timing it more accurately tomorrow. Either way, really.

Lesson learned, though: leave the damn trailer at home!