Ride the tiger

Getting home was not easy last night.

The snow stopped around 5 and I had to work until about 7. I was hoping they'd get around to clearing some of the roads/bike routes/(I'd have even taken a sidewalk).

Given my description of 10 of 10 being on the cusp of impassable, I'd give the ride home last night an average difficulty rating of 9 out of 10. The downtown area was appalling. I took the streets to the bike path, where I discovered six inches of snow saturated with footprints.

Yeah, right.

So I turned it around and got back on the streets where I loaded up the playlist of ride, wash out, ditch and just hit repeat.

Fortunately traffic was minimal. I rode in the right lane if I could, I rode in the left lane if it was clear, and I carried the bike if I had to.

I achieved a new first on a bike last night: I was pedaling eastwardish down Dayton Street away from Engineering Hall. Without warning, forethought, or even so much as a desire to do so, I suddenly found myself flipped around and facing westwardish, still upright on my bicycle.

That's when I knew I had my hands full.

Much of the standard bike routes were non-navigable without highly specialized sorts of bicycles. In fact, the lakeshore path had nordic ski tracks in it. I gave the finger to them.

I could envision riding through 3" of packed slush on a Pugsley. But having a standard road bike with 23mm slicks, I was reduced to foot travel for a large part of it.

Once I hit the east side, things got better. The bike paths were not plowed, and there were a bunch of jackasses skiing on them. But the main thoroughfares were and I was able to just stay on Atwood the whole way home. All told, what is normally a 25-30 minute commute under good to crappy weather conditions took 55 minutes. I guess that's what 13" of snow will do for a city's infrastructure.

Crash tally for the bike ride home: 0 full crashes, uncountable ditch bike and jump over the handlebars moments.

Some late night tom foolery saw me go down hard in some slush on Milwaukee St. So I did crash once, bailed numerous times, and dabbed with my right foot through all sorts of sketchiness. Definitely a 9 to 10 day.

I'm probably at 2.5 hours on the bike so far this week, with the bulk of it being some serious strength/power riding in the deep snow.

I'm going to get on the trainer for an aerobic 8 mile Time Trial tonight for "testing purposes" to get a baseline idea for comparison through the rest of the season.

With a couple of easy rides this weekend and a weightroom session where I steal a CES workout and dumb it down to my level, I should get a solid 9-10 hours this week and be ready to start with another 3 weeks of base training/force training next week.

And USAC granted my upgrade to Men's B based on the fact that I'm already a Cat 4 license holder.

Should be an exciting collegiate season, assuming I can muster the power and the gonads to put myself at the front of a race.

I also am pretty excited about the new guidelines for upgrades in the USCF, but that's an entry for another day.