Something like this

That's about how I felt and looked during last night's commute home through Seattle's "Winter Storm 2006." Only difference is that Andy doesn't have SUVs careening into him and he's staying upright enough to win the 1988 Giro D'Italia. I averaged about 3 mph riding home on an icy, slushy Burke-Gilman on a bike that I insisted did not need its CX tires put on that morning because, imho, the weather forecasters always overreact. But look who got spanked once the snow started to fall at 5 p.m. and my skinny bald tires tried to track in a straight line. My front wheel was more like an overzealous puppy dragging its owner in 10 different directions. Sure it was gorgeous and quiet and brightly lit with snowy reflection, but that glory soon ended once I started freezing because I couldn't go fast enough to keep warm. And this wasn't your ordinary, dry, below freezing cold. It was the trademarked PNW heavy-wet-snow-below-freezing-cold that makes you feel like you just dunked all your extremities into Puget Sound. My fenders and rear brakes filled with slush and slowed me down, which was quite welcome seeing how speed was not an asset, but what is normally a 50 minute ride home took 90. It would have taken longer, but I jumped off the B-G and onto Leary Way in Fremont, which was clear of ice and just supremely wet and full of drivers ready to get the hell home. I really wonder how many of them saw me through their wipers and big flakes of snow.

Ordinarily I love riding in the snow and hearing the crunch below and bulldozing through anything in my path. I kept thinking of the last CX race last year that had a good 4" of fresh ice and snow. That was my favorite race of the season! Have knobbies, will plow.


I just wish Les Schwab would start carrying studded 26 and 700 tire sizes. Wouldn't that be rad? It would send a message to all those drivers that there is an alternative to driving in the snow. Just because it's not July doesn't mean you have to resign your bike to the garage. People who are so dependent on driving need to have alternatives shoved in their face or they'll never alter their way of thinking. Maybe if they saw all these bikes getting around last night and today with studded tires while they were lined up in traffic or turned sideways going uphill they'd begin to think outside their metal box. Did it take anyone on their bike 5 hours to get home last night? Didn't think so. I've read of numerous people who rode from Seattle to Issaquah or Mercer Island and they (slowly) flew home while I-90 was shut down and drivers were stranded miles and miles from home.

It takes a lot to keep bikes from rolling. They're like cockroaches. They'll be the last ones standing and always taking us where we need to go.