In Which a Slip Favors the Beast

Feb. 6 sky, corner of Blair's Ferry and C Avenue, riding to campus.

Feb. 10, morning sun in Dry Creek Valley, seen a few minutes into my bike ride. Pretty light.

It was sometimes warm, more often cold, in Iowa this week. Today, for example, when I left campus to bike home, the temperature was about 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

Which, honestly, is not super cold if you’re dressed for it and it’s not windy. Sadly, today it was plenty windy and my ride home was into the north wind. I unlocked the bike from the rack at Regina Hall, across Mercy Drive from the library, where the newspaper office is. I had been helping students edit materials for next week’s paper.

Super cold is not always bad news, in one way. In a week like this, when there have been a few days warm enough to cause melting of our rapidly receding snow cover, the pavement can get wet and can, of course, freeze. However, if the melting is modest because it’s not that warm, what happens is the colder air will dry the pavement out, and instead of ice, you end up with nice, bare pavement.

Which, largely, we did. Friday started warmer, and the day grew colder in the afternoon. Wet pavement from overnight light precipitation dissipated, and the streets were largely dry when I rode home.

So, today, it was super cold overnight, but I didn’t plan to go to campus until the afternoon. It was “warm” by the time I left home, as in, it was above zero. With a windchill well below zero, but on the ride to campus, I was riding with the wind, which makes the chill far less of a factor.

The Fancy Beast, my mountain bike, parked Friday Feb. 11 at MMU. Had an early meeting with students in the library, so am at the Regina Hall bike rack, the nearest one to that building. Below, my bike is the one that's not leaned.

Anyway, so I don’t think my decision to ride with the hybrid bike today was all that crazy. Yet, I rethought the wisdom of that very early on the ride home.

It was shortly after 5, the light growing dim, but not yet dark. I had my lights on as I peddled across campus, exiting down the drive by Warde Hall—the gentlest slope on campus, and thus my standard exit point, no matter which route I use to ride on to campus.

Where the Warde Hall drive meets the street, there must have been some running water that was too deep to evaporate in the dry air. I didn’t really see it well. I was flying down a hill. I had slowed for the corner, but there were no cars on the street, so I didn’t slow as much as usual as I attempted the right turn from the drive to the street.

And that’s where I slipped.

The only times I’ve had falls in winter have been riding a hybrid bike. On my previous bike, over a decade ago, I took a bad tumble on F Avenue, hurt a knee and was in pain for months. Ironically, I went to Seattle that year, was barely able to walk, and yet that was the spring when my oldest son invited me to ride RAGBRAI for the first time, and I agreed.

Back to today. I turned. The bike hit the ice, it slipped and I lost my balance.

I was lucky. The bike slid sideways to the left, and hit dry pavement. There was a jolt, and I easily could have flipped to the left. But I did not. The front wheel badly wobbled, the bike thumped hard, and I kept control (barely) had kept on riding.

It was one second of terror in an otherwise cold, but satisfactory ride. I had been enjoying the hybrid bike, Clarence is a nice change of pace compared to The Fancy Beast. It’s a quicker bike, lighter with a slightly speedier cruising speed.

Speed, I decided, may be overrated. Although I had no other trouble with ice on the 7 or so miles I rode today, I frankly decided that the clunky old back mountain bike may serve me better until there is less freezing weather.

Fatter tires. Lower center of gravity. Slower rolling speed down hills. There is something to be said for being on a mountain bike when there may be some unseen ice on the winter streets.

Feb. 12--Hybrid bike, Clarence, at bike rack, MMU, above and below.

I didn’t ride Monday, but did ride six days this week (yes, I have been to campus seven days in a row—at times in the semester, that’s what a professor’s life is like).

I rode 44.76 miles. In summer, that might be a modest one-day ride, but it’s not bad for a week in winter. In February, less than halfway through the month, I’m at 70.99 miles so far, 186.29 for the year.

That feels pretty good. Despite the second of fear. May the miles continue to add up for me, and for you, too—and may we avoid those near or actual falls.