Week Twenty - Day Two: Off-Roading

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 36 min.
TIME BACK: 30 min.
WEATHER: a few clouds, 0C, no wind there; clear, 0C, 4km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: yoga pants, t-shirt, waterproof shell, running gloves, folded-up balaclava
NOTES:
"You see this?" I said, indignantly holding up my helmet to a colleague after my ride into work this morning. He examined it with a look somewhere between impressed and incredulous. Mud splatter covered the back of my helmet, leaving some drops of slop on the top of the helmet, and a couple slop-drops even made it to the peak in the front. "I don't even off-road!"

As much as I claimed not to off-road, I felt like I was mountain biking for most of my commute today. The constantly shifting wet snow threw me around aggressively and threatened to bog me down if I didn't keep up my momentum. I had to speed up to get through the deep, heavy, slippery mash of just-starting-to-melt snow at every intersection, rising out of my seat and climbing as best I could to keep going as the crap around my wheels did all it could not to let me pass through.

"Get off the sidewalks, get off the sidewalks!" my inner voice yelled at me as I fishtailed dramatically over the messy terrain. But I couldn't! There was no safe way to pass onto the street from the sidewalk because of the mountainous snowbanks that separated the two. I was stuck. So I ended up having a pretty white-knuckled, difficult, and messy ride (at least the part from the west end into the downtown area) this morning.

"That's it! I'm sticking to main roads on the way home!" I vowed. So on the way home, I abandoned my regular side-streets-and-sidewalks route and kept to the major roadways. The roads were wet, to be sure, but far more stable - and I'd take puddles over that wet shifting snow any day! I was able to ride at a decent speed, the drivers were considerate enough and gave me ample berth as they passed, and most importantly I didn't feel like I was in a constant battle between me on one side and snow/gravity on the other. Huzzah! I'm planning to stick to the major roads again tomorrow, but tomorrow is supposed to be a bit cooler so the roads might be pretty slick when all that moisture freezes. We'll see how she goes . . .