I haven’t really had a bad ride yet this winter, which I often force myself to remember on mornings like these.

It’s not the cold, in fact it’s not really that cold and the miracle of technical clothing means I’m typically warm and cozy, kept dry from the outside and even from the inside. We haven’t even gotten snow yet. I’m hoping we do see at least a little winter weather so I can make and try out some of the homemade studded tire recipes on the internet. And after all, this is the Mid-Atlantic, it’s not Buffalo or Chicago or Minneapolis or even New York City winter. This is pretty easy as far as winters go.

But on mornings like this, 33 degrees and raining, I take a look outside and my first thought is, “maybe today’s not such a bad day to take the Metro in to work.” Thankfully, riding the Red Line is only a little more pleasant than hopping to work in a gunnysack with my shoes on the wrong feet, so that thought didn’t have long to live.

Rain that’s just this side of freezing initially gives me the kind of anticipatory dread one usually associates with a dentist holding a hypodermic needle. Of course, that wouldn’t get Ruby to school, we’d have to walk, though that might be nice too. I also haven’t ridden the Metro in something like 11 months, and that streak is starting to mean enough to me to stand up to my initial resistance. And without fail, every time I get to pedalling my trepidation falls away and I’m fine with it.

But Nigel’s still without fenders, which means we’re puddle stompin’. Yes, I ordered some. But, no, 26″ 60mm Planet Bike Cascadia ATB fender won’t fit over 60mm Fat Franks no matter how much you want them to. Frank’s Fat, and that’s that. 29’s have been ordered, but it didn’t help this morning. Sylvie’s got fenders but I didn’t want to leave Rebbie without them for the day, so Nigel it is and Nigel it was and I knew it was going to suck but I figured what the hell let’s go.

And it was great, it took all of about 3 minutes before my inner voice was chiding me for even considering taking the Metro behind a little rain. Wool is magic. Capilene is magic. You put the two of them together and it’s twoo wuv. I couldn’t help but get soaked down where the action is below the knee, but the magical wool socks and shpants joined forces with the magical Capilene long johns and I was never even chilly.

It is also double-plus-thumbs-up to have warm slippers and a change of pants stashed in the desk, I hope I don’t have any meetings today.

Tags: bicycle commuting, bicycling, bike gear, public transportation

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.