Tried and failed. Again....

So I finally tried again to bike into work, I modified my face mask so that my mouth could fully breath. I greased up all my gears, etc..  There was no snow and the weather was calling for low -9 and a high of -5, perfect!  I started to ride and it was FREEZING.  I stopped and looked at my phone again and it said the same thing, expect it was currently -19.  Gah.  But I still continued to bike to work.  I've never heard of any other job, where you can report on things and be wrong 40% of the time and still remain employed.  

And then it snowed. I was plowing through about 2 inches or more at times and this is that slippery stuff.  While going straight, I wiped out for no reason at all.  Crack goes my side mirror and I think my rear break line snapped.  So I give up, there is no safe way for me to get around town as a commuter.  Time to review the road and bike again mid February.  Until then, I'm driving to work.

Recreational biking vs. Commuting

So commuting out of my town is near impossible, while remaining safe cycling.  But I am able to bike around, which I was able to do for 4 hours on the weekend and man, do I miss it.. and man, my legs were burning!

I've been thinking about replacing my current straight handlebar with one that is similar to one that found Stopped by at a local bike shop and picked up some new handlebars, to give me a more of a cruiser feel but I have my eyes on a BMX style handle bar.

It's going to be a pain to try the handle bars out before I go spend some cash on a higher quality handle bar.  But after being on the straight bar for 4hrs my wrists started to hurt.  My thought is, that with this style of bar, I can move it forward or back, depending on my mood.  Aerodynamics is not something I care to much about when my average speed is 22 km

Safe riding

My plan was to bike into work this morning but I decided that I had to figure out a safe path to go from point A (Home) to point B (Work), so when I was driving around on the weekend, I looked all all my options and I'm rather disappointed that there is no safe way for me to bike out of my little town of Aylmer to Ottawa.  Once I get to the bridge (half way mark) then there is plenty of cleared paths and cleared off shoulders that I could ride.. but getting to the bridge will be impossible with out being one of those bike riders who rides along with traffic but is forcing drivers of cars to vear out of my way.

Even the shoulders on the roads aren't being plowed.  I thought for sure with my bike I would be able to handle the shoulders but it's about a foot tall everywhere (not talking the lower Aylmer road, that is plowed but that shoulder is slanted and I'll end up in culvert/ditch on the first ice patch)

Getting back on the saddle.

I haven't rode my bike since last year!

I have to admit, over the holidays I didn't bike as much as I wanted.. and I got really use to driving the truck around.  Has a auto starter, so it's nice and warm when I get in it.  Outside is just cold, messy, slush, icy and over all, not very pleasant to be in.  I know I love the ride and just getting on the saddle and taking the first pedal rotation could convince myself of that.

But I just can bring myself to hammer my face with frost bite weather.

For the month of January I'm going to remain off the bike.  *SIGH*


I should of grown out my beard for the winter, guess that's next years plan. My goatee needs to morph!

I've Always Loved to Bike

I can remember being a child, biking to first grade.. loving the ride to school and back.. not caring to much about being at school.  I always though, it would be awesome to have a small motor to help me along.  So, just the other day I realized that I achieved a life time goal.


To be honest, there are times I wish the motor wasn't there as it add's A LOT of resistance to the ride and I am carrying around an extra 125lbs! But it's worth it.  Just the other day, I went for a 45km bike ride, where I was peddling as hard and as long as I could, pushing myself into part of the town I wouldn't normally go with my bike, I could feel the inside of my coat was drenched in sweat and my hands were sore.  I pushed myself to a limit I would normally never go to, since you have to save energy to bring your tired body home too.  But that day, I saved nothing, I pushed and pushed. Felt great... and then I realized I was fairly far from home, in fact two towns away!

So, I turned on the motor, while still peddling to keep the bike moving along.. I got home, exhausted and I ended getting more out of myself then I normally would have.

Along the way home from a long ride, I saw another fat tire bike rider, riding along the side of the road, on the dirt path, I waved a nice "Hello." and in return, he gave me the finger.  Guess he saw that I put an electric motor on the bike and just assumed I converted it to an electric motor cycle or maybe he just doesn't like to be social.

Merry Christmas

Now that the holidays are nearly here for me, I plan on continuing to bike around the city instead of biking to work.  Trying to remind myself that, so that when I do start biking back to work, by legs won't be crazy sore!

So Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

P.S. I've snuck a few Christmas gifts under the tree for myself, in order to have a safer bike ride in the new year! :)

Oh ya. I'm love'n it.

My target for biking into work was until the end of October, then it changed to end of November now, it's any day that isn't expecting 10cm+ snow falls.  I can't believe that December 15th, I'm still biking into work!

When riding into work, I pass another fat bike rider.. and waved "hi" gesture to them and they waved back.. nice to see other people still riding.  However, I came across this one person who was still on a bike and it was one of those high performance bikes with super skinny tires, no studs...  How does he even move in the snow?