Frozen Friday

This past Friday called for freezing rain turning to rain. I hadn't tried out my new tires that have some tread but aren't the annoyingly knobby mtn bike tires. I figured, what better test than a day with frozen roads? It was about 32 F when I set out, but what I hadn't figured on was the volume of rain nor the brutal headwinds. Normally I don't worry about it in the morning since it's rare to have a wind out of the east, but on Friday, there was some strong east winds, it was raining pretty hard, and it was cold.

Well, once I get past a certain point, work is closer than turning around, besides, turning around is sort of an admission of failure. I got about 1/3 of the way to work and realized I was really in trouble, well, not really in trouble (like I was going to die or something), but that I was going to be feeling some bad hand pain due to the cold. Normally I can ride a little with no hands to warm up my hands behind my back, but the wind prevented that. Also, the gloves I used are not waterproof, so they got soaked. So, with my hands stuck on the handlebar, wet, windblown and freezing, I was swearing. I was miserable, even though the rest of me was mostly comfortable.

I had to go slow, doing some one-handed recirculation attempts, it probably looked rather humorous. When I finally got to work, my bicycle was covered in ice, shimmering like it had a new wax job, icicles dripped from my helmet, my jacket was soaked (also not terribly waterproof) and my hands were like frozen sausages, just defrosting. As they did warm up the pain stopped me in my tracks. Finally, I got their use back and went about my day.

I had some trouble getting my clothes dry at work ... but they were dry enough for the ride home that started out quite nice with tail winds and no rain. But, the second half of my ride got a little rainy and windy (the winds had shifted from the morning ride, insidiously enough). Though it's still early February, I hope I can learn to better equip my hands and that such nasty weather won't grace us too much more this season.