Friday, December 11, 2009

Week Fifteen - Day Five: Driving . . . Again

I drove to work today. Not because it's too cold out (though it is damn cold today), and not because fresh snow has fallen (which it did, overnight), but because today is the day my itty bitty kitty is getting neutered. Lucky dude! Why might this effect my mode of transportation, you ask? Because I had to drop my daughter off at her west-end daycare at 7:30 am (it doesn't open any earlier), get my kitty to the downtown Spay Clinic by 8:00 am for drop-off and registration, then haul ass to the south-side university to start work at 8:30 am.

I was on campus by 8:30 am, to be sure, but freakin' parking . . . I had to wait in a 20-minute lineup of cars - on a Friday - during exam period - when campus should be virtually empty - to pay the exorbitant parking fees to get into the parkade. Then I had to drive my way all the way up to the top level to find a spot, which meant having to run down four frozen flights of stairs and then hustle over to my building and sneak in just a couple minutes before I was scheduled to see a client at 9:00 am. I was frazzled, hungry (because of course I hadn't eaten yet, usually using my half-hour administrative time first-thing in the morning for that while I check my e-mails), and pissed off by the time I got into work.

At the end of the day, I have to pick up my daughter from the west end sometime before 5:00 pm and then make my way - through rush-hour traffic - back downtown to pick up the cat between 5-6:00 pm, then go back to our home in the west-end. BAH! What an annoying, frustrating, run-around kind of day!

As much as time constraints and my cargo (i.e., a small fuzzy kitty) required me to drive today, I think I would have been a much happier camper if I could have just ridden my bike. I doubt I would have been such an angry, bitter counsellor for the first hour of the day if I'd biked!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Week Fifteen - Day Four: Sidewalk Surfin'

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 39 min.
TIME BACK: 40 min.
WEATHER: overcast with light flurries, -15C, 9km/hr wind there; partly cloudy, -13C, 6km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: fleece pants, thermal underwear, wool ski socks, turtleneck, fleece mid-layer, waterproof shell, lobster gloves, balaclava, ski goggles (waterproof shell in panniers on the way home)
NOTES:
Yesterday, after reading my blog as she does every day, my mom e-mailed me saying something along the lines of "Okay, you proved you can bike in the cold - now STOP, for the love of God, STOP! Your daughter will become an orphan unless you STOP BIKING RIGHT NOW!!!" As much as she worries (read: panics) more about my safety than I do when it comes to bike-commuting, I can definitely agree that a lot of yesterday's ride just didn't feel safe. I stuck to sidewalks more than usual yesterday, which turned out to be a good thing because the parts of the trip where I am required by law to pass from the road onto the sidewalk (i.e., while going over narrow bridges), I would have been unable to do this if I had actually been on the road since massive snowbanks blocked the road-to-sidewalk path.

Last night I assured my mom that while I would not stop bike-commuting, I would dedicate my ride today to sticking as best I could to the sidewalks. To ease her worry - and, I'm not going to lie, to feel a bit more secure myself! - I planned to throw all regard for the city bylaws to the wind and ride on the sidewalks. Screw you, city! Pile up snowbanks in MY bicycle paths, will you? Feel my wrath!!

Most of the sidewalks were actually quite clear, and it was a great relief to me to know that even if I did fall at any point during the ride, the likelihood of getting hit by a car was decreased substantially. I stuck mostly to the sidewalks along major routes, rather than sticking with my regular route through residential neighbourhoods, because I figured the major route sidewalks would be more consistently cleared than those in the residential areas. This was largely the case, except for a few really bad blocks. One of them was a patch of sidewalk in front of a storefront and small parking lot that was rutted with large, deep, tractor-wheel tracks that had frozen solid. This part was extremely treacherous, and as I tried to negotiate my bike over this horrid terrain I skidded and got stuck and nearly fell a couple times in quick succession. Another part was along a busy road where it seemed nobody thought to actually clear the sidewalks in front of their homes, so whatever path existed (where it existed at all) was a narrow path trampled down by brave pedestrians. For both those parts, I just got off my bike and jogged with it until the next block where the path was actually cleared of snow. Pedestrians wouldn't have a problem on terrain like that, but my poor road bike was seriously suffering.

Of course, the sidewalks are not without their perils. I had to negotiate around pedestrians on narrow, slippery paths through snowbank-edged alleys, and any time the sidewalk intersected with a road (i.e., every block), I had to ride perpendicularly over frozen moguls of car tracks made through hard-packed snow and ice. Every time - and seriously, I mean every time, which means every single freakin' block, I shook my head to myself as I guided my bike as best I could over these concrete-hard, uneven, slippery, speed-bump-esque features.

The good news about all this is that guiding Mike over such uneven, slippery terrain has been a fabulous workout for my core. There are muscles in my abdomen I didn't know I had until they started hurting from all the bike-balancing I've been doing in the past couple days. Also, all this rough going has made me very curious to try mountain biking. I've always thought of people going down mountains on wheels so they can go faster as completely insane, but now I can see the appeal. The physical challenge, the mental problem-solving, the incredible skill that must be involved - all very cool! Perhaps I'll look into trying it come spring/summer . . .

Then again, maybe I should have kept that to myself - I believe my mom just had a heart attack reading that last line!!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Week Fifteen - Day Three: Victory!

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 40 min.
TIME BACK: 40 min.
WEATHER: overcast, -20C, 4km/hr wind there; a few clouds, -15C (-22C with windchill), 11km/hr wind back
WHAT I WORE: Baffin "Chloe" boots, thick wool ski socks, thermal underwear, MEC Watchtower fleece pants, turtleneck, fleece mid-layer, waterproof shell, balaclava, ski goggles, lobster gloves
NOTES:
Fuck yeah, I biked to school today! In frigid temperatures! On snowy, icy roads! And you know what? I'm damn proud of myself. Sure, it took 40 freakin' minutes to get there, and I was dressed like a yeti, and I faced some challenges (see below), but I made it, I survived, and I felt really good about it.

So, the challenges - those included:
  1. Lack of sleep: This is hardly a new one, being a single parent to a not-quite-toddler who's perpetually either going through a growth spurt, teething, or both. Still, I was already tired yesterday but still didn't get to bed til sometime after 10:00 pm because of my annoying 9:00 pm second-wind. Then my daughter was up at 2:00 am, and after taking care of her (changed a diaper, got her some milk, gave her some Tylenol for the teething pain), I had difficulty falling asleep. Then she was up again sometime around 6:00 am, and the alarm went off at 6:45 am. If it weren't for the ride in the cold, fresh air, I would feel a whole lot less awake right now!
  2. Snowbanks: Thank you, City of Edmonton, for treating bicycle lanes as convenient space to pile up the massive snow banks that accumulate when you clear the roads. At one point I ended up having to stop, get off my bike, and actually carry it over a ~4ft. high snow bank that completely blocked access to the bike lane. Then I had to bike on the road in one of the tire ruts because the icy, snowbanky bike path was too treacherous for me to feel confident riding on. Thanks, city!
  3. Falling: Yes, I did fall - ONCE - and it really wasn't a big one by any stretch. What happened was that I was biking on the road, in one of the tire ruts, through a side street in the neighbourhood of Oliver, when I heard a car come up behind me and slow to a crawl because I was taking up his lane. Feeling bad about this, I tried drifting out of my rut and over to the more snowy, icy side of the road so he could pass me. Unfortunately, trying to drift my way out of an icy rut did not meet with success, as the sides of my tires were unable to bite into the "wall" of the rut and therefore I tipped over onto the icy, snowy part of the road that I was intending to move into. I was going about 5km/hr at that point, and the car behind me had plenty enough space and was also going slow enough that stopping for me was not a problem at all. Still, this fall was a bit embarrassing, added time to my ride, and left what feels like a lovely little bruise developing on my right hip. Nothing serious, though, and I've learned my lesson well: later on in the ride, when another car came up behind me as I rode in a tire rut, I said under my breath: "fuck it", and stayed exactly where I was. If the car wanted to pass me, he could go around me, I wasn't going to try pulling over again!
  4. Breathing: Such a simple thing, really, and yet condensation can be quite a bitch and interfere with some pretty basic and important functions such as seeing and breathing. With my helmet on, my ski goggles pressed down against the bridge of my nose and made it nearly impossible to breathe through my nose at all. That's fine, I usually pant and wheeze my way to work anyway, so mouth-breathing it is! The problem is that the condensation from my mouth-breathing would gather on my balaclava and freeze, which then made it much harder to breathe through. As more ice built up on the balaclava, it got harder and harder to breathe through, and by the time I got up the hill at the end of the bridge and carried my bike up that flight of stairs onto campus, I felt like I was suffocating. I pulled my balaclava up and gave myself a minute to breathe freely, unhindered by the frozen fabric that fit snugly over my mouth. Around the same time, my ski goggles had become virtually impossible to see through because of condensation building up on the inside and making them foggy. I rode on for another block or two being able to see with only one eye, but this felt too dangerous so I finished off the last couple blocks of my ride with the goggles around my neck and ice quickly accumulating on my eyelashes. I'm not sure what other cyclists do about the condensation issue, but it's definitely a problem for me! Perhaps if I run into another winter cyclist soon, I'll try to ask them about it.
I've learned that just because there might be other cyclists out, even in this weather and on these roads, it doesn't make my efforts any less triumphant when I face down this unknown beast of winter biking and win. I might be going slowly, but I'm doing it. I might feel pretty sketchy trying to navigate the mini-moguls of icy ruts that make the roads so difficult to bike on, but I'm surviving it. And I might be terrified that my poor lightweight road bike is going to break going over this frozen, jarring terrain that is much better suited to a shock-absorbing mountain bike, but so far Mike is holding up. And all this means that I can keep on keepin' on.

I just wish it didn't take so long! The bike ride itself has gone from 25 min. in the summer to 40 min. now, and add to that the 10 min. or so it takes to get changed into my winter weather riding clothes, it makes the commuting longer than I wish it was. Alas! It still beats paying $12 for parking every day.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Week Fifteen - Day Two

I'm feeling a lot better today, thanks for asking!

I went to bed at 8:30 pm last night and slept right through til 6:30 am. I felt great when I first woke up, though by late morning I was fading again. Perhaps it'll be another early-to-bed night.

I drove again today. I figured I wouldn't bike again until I could eat properly again, so I would give myself a rest from biking today to see if my stomach felt well enough to handle normal food again. I've been eating just fine today, though I'm still feeling pretty tired. Perhaps I'll venture out onto the snowy streets with Mike tomorrow. I won't promise anything, because even the short walks from my house to the car and from the parking garage to my building on campus have been surprisingly chilly. How can I possibly bike outdoors for half an hour if I feel like my nose is about to fall off when I'm outside for 30 seconds??

Even if I wimp out for the rest of the week, next week is supposed to be warmer, so I can take comfort in knowing that I can bike again then. I've been thinking about setting a limit for the temperature - like, say, making it a rule that if it's going to be colder than -20C that day, I'm not going to bike. It would make sense for me to come up with something like that, but I feel it would be premature to do that at this point without having biked in really cold weather. How will I know that -20C is my limit if I don't try it? What if it's really more like -25C, or -15C? I need to get out there and give it a shot, test my boundaries a bit before I know exactly where they lie.

That's my argument for trying to bike tomorrow. I'll see if I can actually get myself to do it, though. It is freakin' cold out there! And whatever rare cyclists I do see all look like they're sporting 26" (mountain bike sized) tires with huge knobby treads AND big studs in them. None of those dinky 700cc (road bike sized) tires like mine. I'm honestly afraid the cold might weaken the spokes and then the roughness of going over the frozen, rutty snow will snap them. I'm afraid my tires just won't grip the snow or ice the same way in temperatures this cold. I'm afraid I will get frost bite or at least wind or cold burn on my inner thighs, toes, fingers, and face. But of course, how will I know any of this if I don't try?

Perhaps I can use my natural curiosity to my advantage here: be a scientist, Johnson! So many questions, and there is only one way to find the answers - EXPERIMENT! Give it a try! And maybe, just maybe, my desire to seek out new knowledge will trump my survival instinct and it'll get me out biking to work in the freezing cold. Maybe . . . just maybe. I guess we'll have to see tomorrow!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Week Fifteen - Day One

All day yesterday, a debate raged within the confines of my brain: should I bike tomorrow, or should I not? Has the snow been cleared enough that it's not too much of a danger? And if I do go, which bike do I use? Eastwood is better on snow, Mike is better on ice, and the roads out there are currently sporting a bunch of snow over a thick layer of ice. Hmm.

I went to bed last night determined to ride to work, and also determined to take Eastwood so I can plow over and through the piles of snow without fear of getting stuck. It's settled, I'm doing it!

And then I had a terrible night. My daughter was up several times, just about every hour, and from about 9:00 pm last night I've been feeling some pretty un-fun stomach pains. Through the night and into today, I've been hit by waves of nausea and I feel as though something is burrowing a hole from my stomach through my intestines. I know, it sounds cool, but it actually isn't very pleasant.

I woke up this morning exhausted and still feeling unwell. There is no way I'm biking today! Hell, I don't even want to go in to work - I just want to curl up in a blankie and sleep all day. But I'm so short of hours after staying home with my daughter when she had the flu that it's just not an option to stay home. So I drove to work, having to rock myself out of large piles of snow TWICE. Driving in this weather really isn't much more pleasant than biking might be!

I haven't eaten anything all day, and now that it's lunch I'm trying a cup of chicken noodle soup to see if I can stomach it. It actually feels very good. Perhaps when I get home, I'll make some soup for dinner (I think all I've got is onion soup mix, but it's better for a sore tummy than leftover sausauge - *puke*). I've had two clients this morning plus an intake client, and I've been steadily fading all morning. I have no idea how I'm supposed to get through another three hours of clients this afternoon. During the last session of the morning, I actually had to pause for a moment and make a snap decision whether I should vomit in the waste basket or see if I can make it to the bathroom in time just in case that particular wave of nausea got to that point.

I can hardly keep my eyes open. My stomach hurts. I don't want to see any more clients or write case notes or take care of my daughter when I get home tonight. I just want to curl up in a fetal position and sleep, waiting for whatever's got a grip on me to let go. But alas, responsibilities - those crazy bastards - they just won't let me be, even when I'm sick and I wish everything could be put on hold just for a few hours until I feel better.

But I guess I just have to keep on keepin' on.