Thursday, January 17, 2008

What was that comment about being a crazy person?

"Freak!!" is what someone yelled out of their car window at me this morning. This means that they saw me, and decided it was a good idea to roll down their window in 15* weather, and voice their opinion about what they thought of me being on the road......on my bike.

Yes I rode to work today. The streets were barely plowed, and I forgot to switch over to cyclocross tires or ride my MTB. I was rollin on 28s (C). Sure that's fatter than normal 23C tires, but still pretty darn skinny in snow. The thing is, I made it to work just fine. It was a little hairy in spots. The side street getting to Center St had frozen snow with car tire ruts covered in a fresh layer of powder. If my wheels got in those ruts, my bike went where it wanted, even if that wasn't where I wanted. No biggie, just wiggled my way to Center then it was smooth sailing. Center wasn't plowed, really, but enough traffic had packed down or moved away most of the snow. All cars that passed me were only going a few mph faster, instead of the normal 20mph faster, so that was nice.

My motivation for doing this was a blurb on the news last night. They were talking about the snow and mentioned that "it didn't keep this South Omaha man from riding home on his bike," and had video of this guy riding. The video clip was short so I couldn't tell who he was or where he was riding, but I thought, if he can do it, so can I. We'll see what tonights ride will be like. I'd love to ride for an hour or so, but that may not be possible with traffic. I might ride down to the Keystone trail and see if it's rideable. Should be fun regardless!

4 comments:

bryan said...

Hey, freakshow! It could have been Tim Wilson from Bike Masters. He doesn't have a car, so pretty much nothing stops him from riding home.

brady said...

It's too bad there isn't a Forest Gump of cycling. I couldn't tell you how many times I've heard, "Run Forest, Run" being yelled at me. If it wasn't for Forest, I'm sure "freak" or much worse would come out of their gaping pie hole when inspiration strikes

bryan said...

Umm ... never been called "Lance," huh? There are people in the damn office who call me that.

Anonymous said...

It's good to be a freak.