February

Tuesday morning winter sky

I'm sitting here half an hour after getting back from a Tuesday morning ride, still waiting for my toes to return to body temperature, and contemplating the fact that February always seems to be the hardest month for riding. The novelty of cold weather and winter kit has worn off, and that warm speck of light at the end of the long winter tunnel seems a very far way off right now. 

Relatively speaking, the weather this morning wasn't all that bad - low 40s with a 10 mph NNE wind. Up in the frozen north people are posting photos of deep snow and the few who are riding are busy discussing which types of tire studs provide the best grip on the patches of black ice. Last night email was bouncing around with everyone saying they'd be riding this morning. Wishful thinking. At 6 am there were just two of us - Scott and me - up on the levee. There was a bit of a tailwind here and there on the way out, and we were pretty much just in cruise mode, taking long steady, silent pulls in the dark, hoping to see the sun eventually. As we usually do when there's a low turnout and it's windy and cold, we turned around at the Big Dip around LaRose, knowing the ride back would be more of a struggle. It was. We picked up Pat somewhere along the way, just in time for the sun go back behind the clouds. All-in-all is was an OK ride, far better than my solo battle with the wind had been on Monday.

In contrast, last Saturday's Winter Ride Series ride up on the northshore had been way more enjoyable. We had a nice manageable group of nine or ten, and although the temperature was in the upper 40s I guess when we started, it was never really very cold or windy. Knowing that the weather would be nice for the last Saturday in January, I'd posted a 77 mile route we'd done the year before. I wasn't feeling too great at first. My arm was sore from the vaccination I'd gotten on Friday and I was just generally kind of run-down. As sometimes happens, though, I started feeling better as the ride progressed. Luck was with me on the way back when two large dogs ambushed us on Dummyline Road and I had to grab two handfulls of brake to avoid them as the ran right into a gap in the middle of the group. They always seem to do that. It's how I crashed in the Giro years back and broke my first collarbone. At least this time everyone stayed upright and the dogs headed home amid angry calls from their owners. Anyway, I had a good ride and felt none the worse for wear by the time we got back to the cars at the Lee Road ballpark. 

On Sunday I'd planned to ride the Giro. In fact, I got dressed, strapped on the helmet, and headed out right on time. A few blocks later, however, I pulled the plug. The streets were wet, there was more rain in the forecast, and I could feel a light rain starting to fall. As it turned out, the Giro wasn't rained out and that light rain had been only temporary. I ended up going back out in the afternoon for an extremely windy solo ride on the levee just to psychologically salvage the day.

The forecast for the next week or so isn't looking all that terrible. Tomorrow morning it will be around 42° for the WeMoRi, but at least the winds will be light. After that, it will start to warm up a bit with increasing rain chances Friday. Hopefully Saturday morning won't be rainy, but it's still too early to tell. Anyway, it's looking like morning temperatures in the 40s and low 50s for the foreseeable future. 

Must be February.