Slow Poke

WEATHER THERE: sunny, -5C (-7C with windchill), 5 km/hr cross/tailwinds

WEATHER BACK: clear, 4C, 9 km/hr tailwinds

This morning was chilly. Like, people were scraping frost off their windshields and I arrived at work with numb, bright red thighs kind of chilly. I doubled up on my cotton gloves and wore a turtleneck underneath my waterproof shell, but I was still so under-dressed and cold that I felt like my legs were barely moving. According to my bike computer, I averaged about 3 km/hr less speed today than I have the last few days, barely breaking over 21 km/hr. Hitting that minuscule hill at the end of the High Level Bridge felt like punishment, and by the time I crested the hill and made my way up the stairs with my bike in tow, I was panting so hard I felt like I might pass out. Luckily I didn't, but with another cyclist right on my trail going up the stairs I felt some serious crimson-faced embarrassment over how slow and plodding I am today.

I suspect I am not the only one so affected by the drop in temperature, though. Overnight, the number of fellow cyclists I passed on my journey dropped in half - I only saw six people out this morning, and all of them were on the High Level Bridge and on campus. I didn't run into a single cycling soul out there in the west end or downtown. It's getting to that time of year, it seems - where the sane people start to put their bikes away and opt for the bus or the car. And the rest of us - the crazy winter-bikers - start doubling up on socks, breaking out the winter boots and lobster gloves, thermal underwear and ski goggles.

At least it was nicer on the way home. Still, there's a chill in the air - the chill of impending winter. It's upon us, my friends. The snow is bound to come any day now.

26" Studded Tires

DAAAAMN!!
Check out that bad-ass with the Ice Spikers on her shoulder!!

Are you as impressed as I am?

Admiring my new purchase

Consider yourself warned, winter: not only do I have a mountain bike this year, I've got these deadly studded tires, too!

I just picked up a pair of 26" x 2.10 Schwalbe Ice Spikers, with 304 tungsten-carbide spikes and a seriously aggressive tread. These suckers will get me to work on days when even my car won't be able to handle the snow. At 1.065 kg each, they're definitely not for use in fair weather conditions because the rolling resistance and weight of these bad boys will be quite a hindrance on bare pavement or light snow. Those milder winter days are what my existing 700 cc Schwalbe Snow Studs are for. I'm feeling prepared for anything now!

Okay, so these tires are expensive and really hardcore - some say they're not necessary for your everyday winter commuter. In response to that I say: I still fell seven times last winter!! And there were days I didn't even bother biking because the ice and snow were so bad. If these tires will help me out in dangerous situations, give me more confidence on the road, and maybe even save my ass from a serious accident - well, then, I'd say they're well worth their price and more.

I'm looking forward to trying them out! Not too soon, mind you . . .

Week Twenty-Four - Day Five: C-c-c-cold!

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 29 min.
TIME BACK: 29 min.
WEATHER: overcast, -18C, 7 km/hr wind there; overcast, -11C (-18C with windchill), 15 km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: warm-up pants, turtleneck, waterproof shell, running gloves, balaclava
NOTES:

Oh my GOD - I did not dress for the weather today!! It's been so mild all week, and the weather forecast predicted that today would have similar weather to yesterday's. Given that, I dressed just as I did yesterday. The difference is that it was about 10C colder today, so the plastic-y waterproof shell and the flimsy single-layer cotton gloves were absolutely not cutting it. By the time I got to work, my thighs were red as cooked lobsters from my knees to my hips and completely numb. My fingers burned with cold for most of the ride. It was - to say the least - unpleasant.

If there is any bright side to today, it's that it's become quite obvious that the days are getting longer again. It was great when I first started noticing the rides home getting lighter, but now even the morning rides are lightening up. Even in the cold and the fog, the rising sun bursts pinkly through the overcast sky and makes me feel better about everything. The cold is a little less stinging, the ride feels a little shorter, even sharing the road with cars feels safer as it gets lighter out because I'm more comfortable that people can see me. Today felt like being back to freakin' winter again, but for the most part, this week has really started feeling like spring.

Oh, I can't wait til it's really spring . . . be gone, snow and slush and freezing temperatures! I'm feeling really, fully, completely done with winter.

Week Twenty-Two - Day Three: Bad Ride, Good Ride

BIKE: Mike
TIME THERE: 33 min.
TIME BACK: 32 min.
WEATHER: cloudy, -21C, 7 km/hr wind there; clear, -11C, 6 km/hr wind back.
WHAT I WORE: long johns, fleece pants, turtleneck, fleece jacket, lobster gloves, balaclava
NOTES:

There are not enough swear words in the English language to describe my morning today. It was just one of those frustrating series of events that, if each event were taken individually they would be inconsequential, but as a whole put me in a terrible mood. My daughter woke up early so I didn't get a full night's rest, then she put up a great fight when I was trying to change her and get her dressed. When we got out to the car, I vigorously scraped down the windows in vain as I realized that there was a second layer of frost on the inside of the car. The whole time, my daughter was screaming her head off. I drove her to daycare through deep snow that threw my car around as she continued to scream from the back seat, and it was around this point that I uttered, "oh my God, I already hate today".

The ride to work felt slow and long. It was hampered by the chain coming loose from the freewheel, which could only be remedied by me awkwardly pedaling along with a chain that would only catch at every second rotation while playing around with the gear shifters until everything clinked back into place. My hands were cold. My eyelashes froze together. My stomach growled the whole way. My key almost broke off in the frozen U-lock when I finally got to work. Throughout the entire shitty ride I thought repeatedly to myself, "It is too fucking cold for this."

Luckily, by the time I got to school, things started looking up. I had a hot, yummy breakfast, and when I checked my client schedule I saw that all the clients I was going to see today were ones I genuinely enjoyed working with. It's so nice to work where it doesn't really feel like work. By the time I changed into my work clothes, wiped the sweat and condensation off my face, and did my hair and makeup, I was back to my usual dancing-in-the-hallways self.

After work, the ride home was fantastic! It felt easier and faster than the ride to work (though it was only shorter by one measly minute). I was warm and happy, biking into the sunset with the sun on my face. I didn't get stuck in traffic for long at all, or stuck start-and-stopping behind a bus. It felt so good to be out in sun, breathing that fresh air. It's amazing how different that afternoon ride was from my morning ride! But, I have to say, it's a whole lot better to end the day on a high note than to have my shitty ride be the one home.

Here's to staying on the bright side!

Week Sixteen - Day Two: Cooooold Again

I was hoping I might be able to bike today. I got my biking gear out, packed my panniers, and laid out my biking clothes last night before bed in preparation. I knew it was still supposed to be cold, though, so when I woke up this morning the first thing I did was turn the computer on to check the weather as I sleepily brushed my teeth.

At that time, it was clear and -26C with wind of 15km/hr from the south, which means it would be hitting me from the side. Factoring in the wind chill, it was -36C. Hmm . . . I was planning to bike, but then again, the wind chill pushed the temperature beyond my cut-off point of -30C. Tomorrow is supposed to be outright mild, even reaching a high of +2C on Thursday! Can't I just wait one more day, and bike the rest of the week? Wouldn't that be more comfortable?

I feel somehow like I'm disappointing myself, letting myself down, but I've decided I'm going to drive again. I've actually had dreams of the spokes on my wheels collapsing in the cold, throwing me from the bike and leaving me stranded in the middle of a frigid ride. I don't believe this bike was built for the kind of riding I've been doing with it. Sure, the whole reason I bought a less expensive bike was so that if I ended up killing it over the winter, I wouldn't be out so much money. Still, the colder it gets, the more brittle the thin, metal spokes get, and I worry about breaking the bike.

So, driving today, biking tomorrow. And it'll remain mild all next week, too, so I can bike right up until my last day of work on the 24th. Three days of bike commuting this week ain't so bad, right? Right??

Week Sixteen - Day One: Cooooold

Over the weekend, a wind chill warning was in effect as the temperature dipped to -41C, and my city had the dubious honour of being the coldest spot on earth overnight. The Canadian prairies have remained in a deep freeze all weekend, and the cold temperatures continued today. As I was out and about yesterday, trying to get some Christmas shopping done, it occurred to me that perhaps my temperature cut-off for biking should be -30C. Last week I managed to bike in -20C weather, but this -30C is a whole different ball game. It was just too damn much. When exposed skin will freeze in less than five minutes, I figure it's just not the right kind of day to ride my bike for 40 minute commutes.

So this morning, when I checked the weather to discover it was -32C outside, I drove. And once again, I battled terrible congestion and a very busy parkade and arrived frustrated, late, and very cold. I saw some cyclists on campus, and while it initially made me feel guilty for not biking when clearly other people could do it, I took comfort in thinking that perhaps they weren't coming from the west end and that perhaps their rides weren't 40 minutes long. A cold 10-minute ride would be a whole different story than a cold 40-minute ride.

But I digress . . . tomorrow is supposed to be -29C in the morning, which means that unless the wind chill contributes significantly to that temperature, I'll probably brave it on the bike. I'll keep you posted!!

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!!

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.

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!