My First Ride Through Snow (Comments: 2)

I rode my bike to work yesterday knowing there was going to be a big storm, because I wanted to ride in the snow. I’ve never done it before and I wanted to know what it was like. I will think twice about doing it again.

I lucked out, because they sent us home early. This meant there was not as much snow at 2:30 as there’d be at 5, and there was also some daylight.

My bike doesn’t have studded tires yet.

The ride up Orange Street taught me a lot. I could not ride in the tracks cars made because the packed snow would just break away, and I was sliding all over the place. Lark Street was so messy I actually got off my bike and pushed it to a side street. Which I couldn’t ride on either.

Washington Park was a dream! There was nobody there. The snow was unbroken and I just cruised through it. It was beautiful.

From there I rolled through the snow at the edges of streets down to New Scotland. New Scotland was a mess. I don’t know what I was expecting. I cut down to Helderberg and rolled through that.

It took me an hour to get home, and the trip usually takes 20 something minutes. I knew it would be slow, I didn’t know it would be that slow. It was exhausting work. And then I had to shovel when I got home. I am glad I did it, but it is not the sort of thing I want to make a habit of. I could’ve walked home in a little more than an hour and I wouldn’t have been as beaten, nor as near to traffic.

Some people would say the biggest mistake I made was doing this at all. I say the biggest mistake I made was not wearing waterproof pants of some kind. My pants were soak through by the time I got to the park, and then the water in them began to freeze.