Week Thirteen - Day Five

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 35 min.
TIME BACK: 33 min.
WEATHER: clear, -2C, 7km/hr wind there; clear, 0C (-4C with windchill), 15km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: warm-up pants (a soft moisture-wicking layer against my skin with a soft water resistant shell exterior), t-shirt, sweatshirt, waterproof shell, MEC lobster gloves, scarf
NOTES:
After unintentionally using the icy side roads as my personal ice rink yesterday, I figured if I was going to bike at all today I would be well-advised to leave Eastwood at home. The bad news is that I woke up pretty sore this morning - my left thigh and hip are covered in bruises, my sprained finger is swollen around the knuckle, and just about everything from both of my arms and legs to my neck are sore. The good news is that I have options when it comes to my bikes, so giving Eastwood a rest today didn't have to mean not biking at all.

It turns out that Mike with his thinner, studded tires does pretty well on ice, but fluffy and/or wet snow quickly compacts into the less-than-substantial treads and makes plowing through the snow, even the small amount of it we got last weekend, feel like I'm going to lose control of the bike. Eastwood, on the other hand, with his wide, deep-treaded tires and heavy frame, handles the snow much better than Mike, but without the studs he can't handle the ice. It would appear, then, that every morning will have to begin with an assessment of the road conditions and what bike is going to get me to work and back as safely as possible.

In many ways, this week I've been feeling like I'm right back to where I was at the beginning again. I remember being hard on myself, especially when comparing myself to other cyclists - feeling slow and lazy and sweaty and fearing I looked ridiculous. I remember working really hard, especially on inclines, but even without inclines the extent of how unfit I was seemed glaring to me. I remember having to figure everything out - which route to take, what to wear, how to use my gears. There was such a big learning curve at the front end!

In many ways it feels as though the snowfall over the weekend has wiped clean the slate of my improvements over the past three months. The average ride time, the average speed, the average effort required, the confidence I managed to build up to - it's all irrelevant now that I'm winter-riding. I really am starting all over again. I'm back to going slow, being hard on myself, feeling unfit, feeling scared and unbalanced as I ride, questioning whether I really want to be doing this at all, figuring out the hard way how the equipment works (it used to be the fenders, now it's the tires!).

What I'm learning in all of this is that I've found myself in the middle of a whole new game, so the old rules don't apply anymore. More importantly, I've learned that I need to accept that I have improved in the last three months, and that those improvements don't go away even though the game has changed. Yes, it's really hard again, and yes I'm going to have to work back up to being able to maintain an appropriate speed or take a turn without falling, but that's all to be expected. There's nothing wrong with me, it's just that everything's different now. Once I wrap my brain around that, I can put away my critical voice and just focus on the victories - like today, when I didn't even slide around at all even though the roads were icy! That's a marked improvement from yesterday!

Celebrate the victories, and forget about the past. Everything is new again. And really, is that such a bad thing?