Cold

Winter came on quick here in Columbia this week. I love it. When it gets cold I get to break out the layers. The layering is course the key to successful winter bicycle commuting.

This is from a few warmer months back. We got a new Aldi's in Columbia
 including a bicycle rack. The rack is not so useful since whoever installed it
mounted the thing about six inches from the front wall of the store.
This limits the racks usefulness when trying to use it as intended.

Suddenly, the streets are less full of other two-wheelers. The fair-weather riders have hopped back in their cars or quit their jobs and stay home now and await the unemployment checks to trickle in. I am glad to see other bicycle commuters. For a few weeks there up until this week there was a proliferation of bike commuters. We were everywhere. On streets, in bike lanes and on sidewalks doing our thing.

Then it got cold. It was 28 degrees on my way to work this morning. I saw no other bicycle commuters in the morning or the afternoon, which is rare. What is holding up in the cold are the bus riders. Since Columbia rejiggered the City bus routes, the whole system seems to work better for my household and the folks who ride the bus and get on along my one-and-a-half mile daily one-way work commute. They are not deterred by a little frost but perhaps bus riders lack the transportation choice that I am so well-endowed with.

A few years ago I wrote a post on this blog about how-to cold weather bicycle commute and got a snotty comment from a bicyclist in Alaska who dressed me down and said that a Missourian knows nothing about cold weather riding. I was deterred. This post contains no advice which is par for the course. What this post does contain is a high degree of satisfaction that I have switched over my summer for winter clothes, found the gloves and hats that work for the ride and am continuing my bicycle commute each and every weekday (and some weekend days, thank you) to my gig.

See you in the streets.