All that stuff is water

Road crews have used heavy equipment to shove back the encroaching snowbanks along some sections of roadway where regular plowing had reached its limit. The towering piles of icy chunks look impressive, as do the dramatic icebergs at the sides of larger parking lots.

Even where the special effects have not enhanced the effect of a big snow year the regular plowed banks run wide and deep.

Another snowstorm is coming on Wednesday.

All that stuff is water. When it thaws rapidly, rivers flood and the land turns into a quagmire. When it thaws slowly, rivers merely rise and the land turns into a slightly shallower quagmire for a longer period of time.

For the bicyclist spring thaw means deep, salty puddles at the base of the snowbanks. It means wet, briny grit spraying up from your tires onto anything not protected by full fenders. It means potholes and pavement cracks. The frost heaves are much less of a problem for bicyclists than motorists because we can maneuver among them. The mostly rounded ones feel like waves. But the fault lines where upthrust has lifted one section of pavement higher than another deliver rim-bending jolts to the inattentive rider.

The rail trail I might use for a few early-season park-and-rides on studded tires will turn into a swamp once its packed covering of ice and snow gives way to warming temperatures. Sections of it drain well and dry readily, but other stretches notoriously do not. And if Wednesday's storm brings glop that never really sets up, the only way to pedal the path will be on a fat bike.

I will speak more of fat bikes in a separate post. I don't have one and can't justify the expenditure to get one, but I like the concept well enough. And even a fat bike will bog down in deep mashed potatoes and applesauce.

Time to head out on the pavement on a fixed gear with fenders. Wear waterproof shoes. Things are going to get messy. But before that we can still use the snow for its various purposes until it undeniably turns into nothing but a sloppy liability.

Commuting Season Fast Approaching

Bike commuting season never ends for some lucky or absurdly dedicated riders, but I would venture to say that the majority of riders in regions where winter conditions bring a halt to the easier riding conditions for at least a short time have to or want to hang up the bike for a while. This winter that would include most of the country.

My own routine purposely included a shift to snow-related activities. It was a relief not only to use my body a little differently but also to get around without the sudden intrusion of someone's hostile opinion. I don't ski on snowmobile trails because I don't want to think about motor vehicles when I don't have to.

As snow-related activities have faced various challenges the routine has taken a beating. But this winter factors combined to bring somewhat regular cross-country skiing back into the mix early in February. It was not quite enough to make up for the loss of bike commuting, but at least it helps lay down a base so I'm not coming straight off the couch and car seat right into 30-mile riding days. And it underscores the effectiveness of moderate aerobic exercise as an antidepressant.

If I could figure out how to commute on cross-country skis I would do it. I've said many times and will repeat it often: exercise in commuting time is the perfect combination. You have to be going to or from work anyway. There's no way to salvage driving time. You shouldn't be doing most of the things people to do to try to combine driving with social or work-related communication. So you might as well be getting that beneficial exercise. Then when you get where you're going, work or home, you're ready to do whatever needs to be done there, whether it's work or fun. But I can't ski from home or from my park-and-ride starting point. So it becomes a bit of a luxury, something to fit in around more pressing responsibilities.

I do recommend cross-country skiing to anyone who can manage to arrange it. It provides the best full-body conditioning, much better than bicycling. Not only will you come out of it with a very usable physique, it also cranks up your metabolism enough to let you turn the thermostat down in your house a bit to save on heating expenses. Try it. You'll be amazed. Any physical activity does that to some extent, but I feel the warmth from skiing for hours.

Winter seems like a massive, unstoppable force this year, but of course it's not. So anyone who likes to use cross-country skiing as a winter program needs alternatives. These include hiking and running -- with or without snowshoes depending on conditions -- indoor spinning, weight training, swimming, running up and down stairwells, various exercise machines, drinking and bitching. Really vigorous bitching, particularly if you get up and pace around, can burn some calories and get your heart rate up more than just sitting around moping. And if you keep your beer in a fridge on a different floor or at least as far as possible from where you consume it you will get some exercise going back for a refill.

Obviously if you are below legal drinking age or otherwise disqualified from participating you will have to work around that. I'm only tossing out suggestions.

Whatever March does, Daylight Relocating Time kicks in this Sunday, shifting usable daylight later in the day. This would allow bike commuting right away. But I want a little saddle time before I charge right into the whole route. And icebergs line the roadway on most of my route, seriously limiting my options when dealing with early-season motorists who have happily forgotten what a cyclist looks like. In the best of years there's always a little friction as I retrain them. I prefer not to be dealing with narrowed, icy roads and my own lack of fitness while smacking down fractious drivers. But we're getting there. Regular riding will return.

Whoa

Every driving season I reach a point where I know I've crossed the line. I catch myself driving faster, taking risks, getting impatient, trying to cram one more thing into the schedule. Or maybe I'm just trying to make up for a late start. In any case I start to drive like a normal person instead of a sane, considerate one.

I've been lucky so far. No one's gotten hurt, although I'm sure some have gotten pissed off. If someone drove like me around me I'd want to see them upside-down in flames around the next bend. When I catch myself going too far I slink off to a quiet corner to reflect on my sinful nature and emerge with a renewed vow not to let myself be a dick. It usually holds up for about a year. Then I hit the dead-ass middle of driving season again, when I'm about fed up and still months from relief, and I slip to the dark side again.

The answer, of course, is a zen-like detachment from desire. Or, in other words, "chill the f*** out, dude." Accept whatever rolling road block has been cast before me. Forget that in biking season it would all roll past me while I continued at my best pace unhindered...and un-tailgated. Because the flip side of being stuck behind a blockade of meandering boneheads or old farts is being the meandering bonehead or old fart. But on the bike I keep my human flotsam mostly out of the way on the parts where someone could reasonably drive fast.

Daylight Relocating Time kicks in on March 9. That's just over a month away. The weather may not cooperate, but if it does, that date marks the beginning of bike commuting opportunities in my particular schedule. That brings its own challenges, but at least it gets me out of the car. If we're still getting wintry precipitation I won't be able to charge right out there. And it's always a good idea to cultivate mental discipline. No matter what happens, self control is vital.

Chill the f*** out, dude.

Soldiers wear helmets

On a day of snow squalls I sit in a warm house, perusing the Internet. Lots of signs of progress there, reports of improvements in cycling infrastructure in city after city; studies showing how urban cycling improves the human condition; articles about fashion designers catering to the city rider, and about the fun, genteel experience of urban transportation cycling. Helmets? We don't need or want them They're actually harmful and brand you as a geek. Upright bikes for people, not bent-over torture rigs for racers, are the finest expression of pedal power integrated into normal life.

I see little acknowledgment of the riders who preceded this incipient golden age. With or without helmets we used the streets. We asserted bicyclists' rights. We supported the nascent bike advocacy movement and we kept riding. The heroes of that age might be known and celebrated, names like Forester and Oberstar. Frankly I did not read much about riding. I just rode and developed my own techniques and opinions. Immature and undisciplined (which I remain), I did not get involved in the details of legislation. When I heard of an opportunity to chime in I did. Otherwise I was out on the road.

Over time I developed the habit of wearing a helmet. I've had a thing or two bounced off my head, and many more objects aimed in its direction. The hard hat has deflected the missiles that made it. I know it won't save me in the event of a really hard smash, but the helmets soldiers wear won't stop a bullet, either.  The helmet is a little something you can do. And, in many real-world riding environments it is a realistic response to a riding venue that is anything but genteel.

Days and weeks go by in which nothing disturbs the rhythm of the daily ride. When incidents occur they may be isolated or in a cluster. I live where it would be very complicated and expensive to add a protected cycle way to every right of way. Such places are far more common than the ones now being eyed for or turned into transportation cycling Utopias. Even in Utopia the bliss runs in channels with reefs and schools of sharks in the surrounding waters.

The people who "aren't cyclists" and "just ride their bikes" owe more to the beat-up veterans than they may care to acknowledge. They owe the very fact that there was a nucleus from which to start to the continuing obstinacy of decades of riders who simply did not quit. We go where we want, hoping to blaze trails that many will follow. We endure hostility, indifference, carelessness, simply to keep bicyclists in the public eye, not in the media but through the damn windscreen, day after day. We're here, we pedal, get used to it.

Some of us die out there. It won't be the happy helmetless urbanite on the protected cycle track. And that's fine. But it will be other  riders on other roads to which we all have a right, keeping on in hope that the better world will reach that far some day.

All things to all riders

It's tough to be in the bike biz these days. In order to run an open and accepting congregation where all are welcome and all feel well served you would need a budget in the millions and either a very large facility or a whole bunch of small boutiques dedicated to each specialty.

How about a bike mini-mall? Specialists might all work for one company or be part of a cooperative venture in which all share their resources to serve each category of cyclist and the riders who cross categories.

In Wolfe City we see a little of everything. If we went with the largest common denominator it would be a tricky split between comfort bikes ridden predominantly on the path and performance road bikes. But neither of those categories would carry the place and neither of them represents such a clear majority that we can turn our backs on other types of bike. Mountain bikes used to dominate and still represent a strong third, but that's divided between cheapo hard-tails, a few higher end front-suspension-only models and a sprinkling of full suspension. The 29-inch tire size is becoming dominant, but 26-inch has been around a long time. And then there's 650B. And in the road category it's hard to stock a lot of models because we have to guess whether the incoming customer will want an entry-level bike to take a tentative foray in road riding or something that will make fellow riders in their group drool covetously.

In the summer we've seen variety ranging from a bakfiets to full-on weirded-out tri bikes. Mechanically adept technicians can figure out how to fix anything in the broad "bicycle" category. But the owners of some of these machines, feeling unique and extraordinary, might have trouble believing it.

Mountain bikes provide the most trouble these days. With more joints than a centipede, hydraulic brakes and the commonplace variety of whacky shifting systems, procedures on a maxed-out full suspension mountain bike simply eat a lot of time with all the disassembly and reassembly some repairs require. One of those can fill a work bench in a hurry.

With bicycling so fragmented, a small shop in a small town faces a challenge that a small shop in a populated area does not. With many people to attract, the small shop can focus on one or two market segments and develop a following. In a more rural area, a bike shop run by people genuinely interested in nearly all categories of pedal-powered equipment can't narrow its focus in case the next person through the door needs something we've eliminated from our spectrum. They need the help and we certainly need the money.

I can't work in a place day after day for decades without taking pride in my work. If I could just slouch through the day, squeezing money out of tourists as best I could I might be happier, but only if I could shove an ice pick through not only my conscience but my self respect. That would only work if I could figure out how to get scandalously wealthy doing crap repairs on people's bikes. I could console myself with a lavish lifestyle and the arrogance of the con artist.

That ain't happening on bike shop money. You make that kind of money wrecking people's finances, not fixing their bicycles.

Right now it's the middle of what passes for winter these days, so it's tough to be in the cross-country ski business instead of the bike business. And our short staff just got shorter because one of our guys, an enthusiastic climber, just took a 100-footer down a gully on Mt. Webster. While that reduces payroll expenses for the duration of his absence while he recovers, it means the rest of us have to fill in the schedule. If the snow conditions don't recover we will make no money. If they do, we will be running frantically to cover rentals, lessons, sales and service on the ski side, as well as taking care of whatever winter riders shuffle in with cold, wet, salt-encrusted bikes.

When spring finally arrives we'll continue the salty theme as riders bring in the machines that have been clamped in a trainer all winter under a deluge of sweat.

Oh boy.

Whatever the weather does, spring is far away. When winter skedaddles early I can start regular commuting in March, but even the most disappointing winter often ends with a series of nuisance storms with gloppy snow or ice.

Windows

Rain dots puddles between crumbling sheets of ice on the parking lot.  The temperature has drifted up to 34.5 from 31. Occasional downpours grow more frequent as we work up to this afternoon's flood watch.

It's a good day to look out windows.

After our little piece of the Polar Vortex rolled off of us the prediction of warmer temperature made me keep an eye out for winter cyclists. I don't blame anyone for staying in their burrow when the temperature is 3 and the wind is 30. But the way many riders correlate temperature with their desire to ride means that they come out in the greatest numbers when the roads are the sloppiest with briny silt.

Oh yeah. I want me some of that.

Granted, the greatest numbers are none too large. But still, the majority fixates on warmth rather than the advantages of subfreezing temperatures.

A lot depends on how much water has been around.  Extensive ice will call for studded tires. Most riders don't make that investment.  Most motorists don't even make it. So road crews have good reason to try to eliminate ice from the travel way.

Winter conditions for anything are tricky. This is true of cross-country skiing,  hiking, climbing, walking your dog, taking out the garbage, and anything else that takes you outdoors. That's why the living is easy  enough in summertime to warrant having a song about it.

My favorite winter riding conditions are a sunny day with light winds and a temperature no warmer than the mid 20s. If the sun is strong it may melt some ice and snow,  but not enough to be a total slop fest. You can wear enough layers to be able to vary them as conditions require.

All my physical activities have been imaginary for about a month.  I have no trouble convincing myself I have better things to do than ride a trainer. If I could ride home on a  bus equipped with treadmills that would be perfect. Exercise would be back in "drive time."

I've always liked just looking out windows on a crappy day.

Been thinking as well about one of the schisms in cycling, between the Transportationists and their self perceived antagonists, the contemptible Recreationists. As someone who will do nearly anything on or from a bicycle I hate that riders have to divide into camps. But I understand it as well. My faction is the people without factions. It's fun to ride in many ways.  Just not today.  It's gross out there.

Money

Long before the recent news blip about Chicago's proposed bike tax I was already thinking about how America would react to a surge in transportation cycling. We would be monetized, of course.

The concept of cyclists as freeloaders is a major rallying point for the champions of motoring. You can explain about how taxation really works and the relative burden non-motorized users place on infrastructure until you run out of breath. A large percentage of the opponents of cycling simply will not believe you. Cyclists are parasites. Every improvement made for our benefit adds to our perceived debt.

I am willing to look at a full and honest audit to see whether cyclists are holding up their end. But a bicycle can be ridden in so many places and different ways that it would be hard to draw a firm line around the bicyclists who owe society and the ones who may safely and freely play in their designated areas where they don't bother the grownups.

Every form of mobility except bicycling and walking has a price tag attached to it. And, if you walk to the bus or the light rail, even if you don't get a seat you pay a fare. Wherever people gather you end up forking out to hang around. So, inevitably, bicyclists come under pressure to dig in the pocket lint for their contribution. The more successful we become, the more people will want a piece of the action. It's the American way.

Is there any chance we'll discuss the issues rationally, as cooperating adults? Not if our entire political history is any indication. But one can hope. Everything has a true cost. It needs to be fairly divided once we know what it is. Then we know what's reasonable and what's excessive.