Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Ice storm

We got a bit of an ice storm last night...we haven't had one of those in a number of years. I think there's about a quarter inch of ice everywhere. I left about 20 min. earlier than normal. The roads were fine, but of course, the bike path was covered. I walked my bike along various sections where I felt I might have trouble, even though my mountain bike with the studded tires does good. With lower air pressure in the tires, you get even better traction, but still, I wanted to be safe. A few guys passed me, and were riding road and/or hybrid bikes and were doing fine. Made me feel like a "wimp" for walking! :) ha. But everyone has to do what they feel comfortable doing.

I felt more comfortable riding across grassy areas, where I had better traction. There's an open playing field by the airport, and the bike path runs along the outer edge of it. So I rode across the field -- my bike crunching through the frozen grass, which was a little bit of a work-out and slow-going. At the 14th Street Bridge, I walked about halfway across, as it's a little bit of an incline. When the ice looked less thick and more broken up, I hopped on my bike and did fine. Amazingly, I made it to work right on time. :) The temps will rise near 40, so the evening commute should be much better. :)