Thanks, dudes!
I picked those up in the olive drab last year when they were $5ish too, they do suck, way too big, really only meant for bigass atv cockpits. Or like Riv Chocomoose bars or something.
Yah, they are a little floppy. But if you don’t have to signal much, they can work fine.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wind-chill temperatures. I find them to be pretty helpful. I could also probably get the same impression from a temp + windspeed, but wind-chill works fine.
Pretty wild commute this morning on 12" of partially compacted snow all the way to work. Lots of powerslide burnouts punctuated every few blocks by the need to hop off the bike and ram it through a 3’ tall plowbank. With a glorious few minutes on the perfectly plowed bike trail in the middle.
i fuckin hate the winter
I am getting burnt out trying to explain to random people that PNW cycling in our mild winter isn’t that big of a deal. I don’t ever bring it up but random people keep approaching me in this weird patronizing manner assuming I should be absolutely miserable about the moisture falling from the sky. I’ve been trying to be more forgiving and understanding that they don’t know what angle to approach the subject without sounding tone deaf.
My go to replies include:
“When you exercise your body becomes a heater, like the one in your car, that keeps everything warm and sometimes even TOO hot so you often need to take layers off after 10 minutes of riding”
“Sometimes a little rain on your face is refreshing”
“The trail outside work is great for a little fresh air and checking out critters”
“Morning and afternoon exercise helps me wake up in the morning and decompress from the work day”
“Tail winds are incredible when your route aligns with them, nothing quite like moving swiftly with minimal pedaling”
“Exercise makes me feel emotionally balanced in the winter whereas I used to get really depressed when I wasn’t forced to do it”
But TC, sometime I really want to say something snarky about humans not being made of sugar
They’re not wrong. I currently prefer sunny and -3F to raining and 40F. Still get a lot of incredulous comments from folks though.
I just go straight to snark. Maybe this is my problem.
Whenever we have really shitty weather here, at least one person inevitably asks, “How was the ride in this morning?” My usual response is to jingle my car keys and reply, “fine.”
I choose to imagine that this is how you ride even when it’s 80 degrees and sunny.
We got lots of snow last night and having read the apocalyptic weather reports, Ash really didn’t want me to ride today, but the schools were closed so there was nobody out on the roads! It was type one fun all the way to work!
Ok, this is getting ridiculous.
wow did you commute all the way to australia
Went for a ride yesterday on 10 mi of continuous glare ice. It was good fun, tho not being able to slow at road x-ings was unnerving.
turdy jumper
haha, poor rusty and his photos.
I’m eagerly awaiting the inside-out photo from Rusty.
i was in southern california for work earlier this week. i got off the plane and i was like “i could do this”
and then i sat in traffic for 50 minutes to go 15 miles and i was like “fuck this bring me back to the snow”
This morning’s ride was so much fun. Left the house at 6:15 so it was still really dark. Lots of fog with either freezing rain or light snow. Rode the 1.5 miles of pavement to the first dirt stretch and it was hero dirt with even more fog. Actually caught myself grinning more than once. All in all, a successful winter bike-to-work day.