Today presents a classic case: a significant storm has been brewing all week. The sensationalist news outlets have played up its worst potential. Where it's bad, it could be pretty bad. The organizers of the Seacoast Century bike rides on the New Hampshire shoreline have canceled the event. But I see the sun and bits of blue sky. The big stuff isn't supposed to come down for a while yet. So do I ride to work and roll the dice on conditions for the evening half of the commute?
When my commutes were less than ten miles -- sometimes a lot less -- total for the day, I would ride in all weather. I also didn't have a car, so if I didn't ride I walked. In the blizzard of 1983 in Annapolis, Maryland, I snowshoed the six or seven miles across town to work. Coworkers who had cross-country skis and lived just a few blocks from work phoned in because they had better things to do on a day when central Maryland got a visit from New England conditions. Now I live a hilly 15-ish miles from work, for a 30-mile total day. The route follows roads that aren't safe for walking, let alone skiing. If the bike option doesn't work, I'm sealed in the capsule, stuck in traffic.
When the probability of precipitation is at 50 percent or higher, but the amount is a tenth of an inch or less, and the day length doesn't crowd the evening ride, I will most likely ride. Unfortunately, sunset already puts me in twilight on the best of evenings, let alone when thickening clouds, increasing rain, and rising winds give passing motorists even more to deal with.
We've reached the part of the year in which motorists don't expect to see bikes in morning and evening rush hours. Some of them get downright resentful when presented with some idiot on a two-wheeler, obstinately defying weather and darkness when any normal, rational person would drive a car and really get in their way. How is sitting behind a fully lane-blocking vehicle for ten miles better than having to slow down a little -- maybe -- and diverting slightly -- if I'm lucky -- to pass me on a bike? We never get to have these discussions when I'm getting honked at or close-passed by someone driving a monster truck, who's sick of accommodating whacko idiots on bikes after a long summer of putting up with them. Quit already!
Malice is fairly rare, but drivers can still have trouble coping with the challenges of darkness and weather that can lead to conflicts with vulnerable road users. If everyone in a motor vehicle slowed down as much as would actually make their passage safer, they would barely travel above biking speed anyway in a good thick rainstorm in the dusk. That ain't happening.
Today's forecast with summer daylight wouldn't raise a question. I'd be suited up and out the door. We're on the fringes of the storm anyway. That's too bad in a way, because we need the rain. We don't need the wind, though. Most of the trees are still in summer green, so high winds will take more of a toll on limbs and weaker trees. And, speaking of wind, it will be a headwind on the way home.
The worst case when I drive due to weather is if the weather doesn't happen and I could have made it both ways. Worst case when I ride is that the weather doubles down and I'm plodding into the gale while getting soaked. Then add the deeper dusk of a stormy evening.
We're in the part of the year where the day gets shorter even as it is beginning. The sun rises with increasing reluctance and scurries away with increasing urgency to share its light with the bottom half of the planet. We don't have the margin for error that spring and summer lavish on us. The transportation cyclist has to decide for the entire day in just a few minutes at the start of it.
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