When I went to bed, last night, the weather forecast for today was for noontime snow showers producing maybe one inch of precipitation. So, I loaded up the yellow bike, and went to sleep.
When I got up, there was already three inches of snow on the ground, and all of the weather forecasters were letting loose a collective "D'oh!"
So, I swapped all of the stuff into the bags on the snow bike, and transferred one of the tail lights from the yellow bike. Then, I noticed that the tail light which was already on the snow bike needed batteries. So, I went to unsnap the light from the mount, and pulled the mount off of the sizing shim.
That meant that I had to unscrew the band, and remount it on the rubber shim (changed the battery while I was at it).
Finally, I was able to leave the house, and ride north into what the weather guesser said was a 39 mph sustained wind. As I rode, slipping and sliding on the slushy ice under the snow, I began to overheat from the exertion. I unzipped my outer wind layer a bit, and continued on. Some of the heat I was producing escaped through the open zipper, and I was comfortable for the rest of the ride.
I got to work, after about an hour (everyone who drove complained that it took an extra hour or two to get there), and when I took off the outer jacket, I had about an inch of snow on the front of my wool sweater. I guess the headwind had pushed it down my collar as I rode.
The snow stopped around 10:00 A.M., and the main roads cleared up a bit. Of course, I don't ride home on main roads. The roads I was on were pretty icy, so I took it easy and rode even more slowly than normal. Good thing, too, because about a mile and a half from home I hit a nice little patch of ice with a thin layer of water on top.
This might well be the surface that inspired the coining of the word "slick". Even my studded tires were ineffective, and I fell flat on my face. Smacked my knee pretty well, but otherwise no harm done.
Tomorrow morning's ride promises to be interesting.
x
Jon,
ReplyDeleteSorry bout' your bumps and bruises.
It makes me feel better to know that I wasn't the only one who had ride issues today....I got my *ss kicked.
I was excited to ride because I just installed my new SKS fenders on my commuter, but I hit some of that insanely hard, hard ice that forms on the quiet side streets near the Country club hood'.... The kind of ice that sucks you into a groove and if you try too hard to maneuver out of it, you're going down. I didn't go down, but I had to take the lane which pissed off the 4-wheelers to no end. Today was the worst street cleaning job ever in Denver, on my commute anyways.... Someone did a wonderful job on the Cherry Creek trail though; That baby was spotless!
Jon,
ReplyDeleteSadly.. I went down too.. about 50ft from my house on the way home.. front wheel sucked into a rut.. went down hard enough to make me a wee bit mad that the roads weren't plowed.
cheers