Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Warming up to winter

My wife recently gave me one of those wireless weather stations. It came with a little doo-dad I had to mount on a bracket outside, and two digital monitors so I can have one in the living room and in the garage, where I finish gearing up for winter rides.

The unit in the garage has come in really handy whenever I've wanted to start feeling cold before getting on the bike. Especially over the past week or so, when temperatures have frequently been below zero.

One thing Alaskans like to do when it's really cold is talk about how warm it's going to feel when it gets a little less cold. This is what keeps us from removing the trigger locks, if ya know what I mean.

When a bunch of us rode the Hillside trails last Saturday, the temperature in that area was 13 degrees below zero. Yeah, I know my last post said it was -10. I was estimating. But friends pointed out that a weather station in the area had recorded -13F.

According the weather dudes, Wednesday's high should be in the teens or mid-20s.

Now, in some parts of the country, bicyclists call 25 degrees "cold."

I call it 35 degrees warmer.

In the morning, I plan to throw a leg over the Pugsley and ride to work. Hopefully on an inch or two of new snow. I can't wait to feel that refreshing, 17-degree warmth.

When you don't have a tropical beach on your winter travel agenda, I believe in taking your cheap thrills wherever you can find them.

2 comments:

Grill Meister said...

My sentiments exactly! When I rode Monday morning I took a slightly different route and ventured down to the Chester Creek trail into Midtown before coming up the hill to work. It was about -13 leaving the house, but dropped down to -20 along the creek. Remember on Saturday's ride when I said I thought my thermometer was reading a little high, well that was the one that read -20. Anyway, coming to work yesterday when it was 10 at my house, my first thought was "Alright it's 30 degrees warmer today." And today was a scorcher at the low 20s. Later Dude.

Grill Meister

Dano said...

Our winter rides do include beaches. Just frozen ones. This Saturdays ride will have temps about 5.
However, that will be a balmy +5. and not -5.
You win.
:-)