In Which I Wonder What 20s Will Mean

27th Street near Eastern this morning. The darker color is not pavement, it's ice. And this was actually one of more cleared streets on my route. It was a slow ride.

Bike tire shortly after I arrived. Sorry janitors, my hall parking will make a mess, I'm afraid, when the ice holding this sand in place melts. No outside parking available right now--all bike racks snowed in.

The garage door was frozen shut and I had to chip ice to get Francis free. Then, I had to lube my chain and the lube was very thick. The one thing I wasn't on the ride was uncomfortably cold--despite a bitter wind, I was well dressed before the trip. Here is my bike in my driveway before I put the bag in the basket and begin my ride.

Well, darn. I actually watched my odometer on my bike during my ride this morning, perhaps I should not have done so. It informed me that the ride from my house to my office at MMU is pretty much 4 miles.

I used to claim it was 5. I realized that was too much, and thought it was 4.5. Nope. Just the big 4.0.

Well, shoot. I may take the trail route home today, just so I can see what the longer ride is, since I’ve finally discovered the odometer.

The ride this morning was the first of this week. Winter has settled in deep in this corner of the north central US. Winds, snow, below zero temperatures—not ideal biking weather, but it has been 48 hours since the last storm, and my sidewalk wasn’t too bad, and I was itching to ride, so I did.


As it turned out, I did very slowly. Almost all of the streets were snow and ice packed, especially everything in the Kenwood area where it appears they plow the one block around Kenwood School and call it a job well done. I wonder how the plow even gets there. Is it dropped by helicopter and retrieved the same way? Because it seems to reach that one isolated block of clearing without much discernable impact on any road that approaches the school.

Well, I my heart isn’t really in my occasional rant about city snow clearing or lack of it. Given the weather this week, the fact that there was ice and snow on the roads can’t be called a surprise. We didn’t get a lot of snow, but it’s been so windy that snow is just going to be packed into just about any paving.

Still, I managed to get to school safely. I was so not used to riding that I forget my vest—which means I’ll have to leave early enough to ensure it’s full light out. Given that there is snow forecast for later, that’s probably a good idea on many levels. Still, it should warm into the 20s today. It’s hazy cloudy, but that’s warm enough that some melting can take place where the sun hits pavement.

Not sure that’s a good idea. I wonder if that will simply make these snow packed roads more icy? Hmm.

This was actually last week, Jan. 13, but I didn't post it on my bike blog yet. I saw an eagle in the morning during my ride along Eastern Avenue, and I think that was pretty cool.