It was only 14 miles.
Hell, I do this a couple times a year. Drop the Subie downtown for a little love at Reincarnation, ride a bike back to El Rancho Pendejo. Repeat in reverse to collect the old warhorse and drive ’er home. Ain’t no thang.
Except Tuesday, it kinda was.
God damn, but it was cold.
I had been expecting a temp in the low 30s, which for some reason sounds a lot warmer than high 20s, which is what it was. So I wore a jacket over a long-sleeved jersey over a long-sleeved base layer, tights over bibs, wool socks, cold-weather shoes and gloves, and tuque.
Wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. And I knew it at 9 a.m., a half-block into the 14-mile ride home.
O, lawd, I will never be smart. I had Buff neckwear, beefier tights, an old balaclava, and an even older pair of sure-’nough winter gloves … and they were all in a drawer back at the Rancho.
“Well,” I thought, “at least it’s all uphill.” And so it was, 1,200 feet of up, not including a long stretch of that fabled “invisible hill,” which is to say a damp, bitter wind out of the NNW and straight into Your Humble Narrator’s chattering choppers.
Whoever coined the phrase “What can’t be cured must be endured” was probably not thinking about stupidity. But I was as I grumbled my way up the North Diversion Channel Trail, whenever possible sitting bolt upright with hands tucked into armpits.
At Montgomery I came upon a street person’s smallish campfire underneath the bridge. I couldn’t decide whether to report him or join him. So I did neither. Onward!
By the Arroyo del Oso Golf Course, with six miles to go, I had gained some altitude, caught a soupçon of sun, and warmed up just a bit … so much so that I began contemplating some extra-credit stupidity, to wit, leaving the pavement at Juan Tabo for the trails that wind through Bear Canyon Open Space to the Embudito trailhead.
Now, in my defense, we’re talking extremely non-technical trails here, and I was on the Soma Double Cross with its 42mm knobbies. Easy breezy like a cover girl! Assuming she were properly dressed for conditions and had a pro mechanic to get her rolling again in 30 seconds after a puncture.
I, on the other hand, was dressed for conditions that existed only in my head, which was up my arse as per usual. I would be fixing my own flat with half-frozen fingers, only 80 percent of which are fully functional when warm. It would take longer than 30 seconds. Finally, there was the absolute certainty of some rapid evaporative cooling on the 1.5-mile paved descent from the trailhead to the Rancho.
So for a change I did the smart thing: took the pavement home, slammed a steaming mug of tea, and spent way too much time in a hot shower. Around 3:30 I got back on the bike and zipped down to fetch the Subie. Didn’t even need the jacket for the return trip. Ah, the desert Southwest, with its 30-degree temperature swings.
This is hardly the stuff of legend, or even unpaid bloggery. There was a time when I would drive for hours in much worse weather just to race bicycles in it, then tidy up at the car wash afterward. But that was when I was a man — a slightly better insulated man — instead of whatever it is I am now.
Plus my auto mechanic was only 14 minutes away by bike. Sometimes I’d just run home.
Mad Blog Media 
PO’G: Thanks for your, as the barristers would say, “chilling effect” confession on why P6 (“Prior Preparedness Prevents Piss Poor Performance”) also opposes the “Can’t Fix Stupid” concept ….. AND ALWAYS LOSES!
BEEN THERE …. DONE THAT!
More apropos …. standby for the latest Bibleburg temps and snow 4-day forecast: temps in the 0F to 15F; only maybe 4″ of snow; chill factors well below 0F.
Nothing compared to the Texas thru NE US impacts.
Warm/hot posole and enchiladas can do a lot to warm the heart and soul ….. PRAY for the folks further east/south who will have ice/snow/power outages/et al!
I have a relative in N. Carolina who is expecting a record 15″ of snow and the incomprehensible impacts that will have.
On a more devilish note: Look up the definition of schadenfreude. It’ll be front and center, as always, in the media. “If it bleeds , it leads!”
Stay safe and healthy PO’G’ers!
JD, the forecast for us keeps shifting. We had been expecting a medium-heavy touch of winter starting tomorrow morning, but now it looks like if we get anything at all, it’s liable to be lightweight and not until tomorrow night, maybe Saturday. Our friends in the Carolinas may not be so fortunate, sounds like.
Keeping Reagan’s admonition in mind — “Trust, but verify” — I’ve put the snow shovel and push broom in the garage where I won’t have to dig ’em out. Also, posole and enchiladas are both on the menu for the next couple of days. Good thinking there, Hoss. Stay toasty. …
Effin polar vortex hitting us this weekend, I’ll be farting icicles by Monday. Herb will be getting it too.
O, I ’member them Canadian winters from my sprouthood. Batten down the hatches, mate!
Herb IS getting it alright. Minus 2 when I rolled out of the sack not including wind chill which was blowing like Dizzy Gillespie. Am I the only one that read about POG’s multiple layers of clothing and immediately had to pee? Happens every time I layer up for XC skiing
Ayuh … a feller wants to make sure he’s paid that critical second visit to the Reading Room before setting off on a frosty day, sporting more layers than an ice-cream cake.
Folks in Kentucky will be getting the ice once again. Hope it’s not so much to bring down tree limbs and power lines.
How ’bout Minneapolis? Minus-21° at just after 7 a.m. Dog Time. Hay Zeus.
Jeezus it is now colder than a mother-in law’s heart this morning in the Mitten State. Minus 15 sez my two gauges. But hell, the low humidity would be appreciated by youse desert folk. Dead car batteries galore along with frozen this n that’s including some cellular comms. O Lord…what will teenagers do?!!
-15 degrees! Hell, what would anyone do? I do not miss extreme cold or ice storms. Herb, has the desire to become a desert rat, or at least a snowbird, gone away?
The cold hard truth (pun intended) is that I like winter, the more snow the better. But negative numbers on the weather station screen? Not so much. Of course I have a closet and cedar chest brimming with cold weather clothes of all sorts. In recent years I’ve thinned out the synthetic base and mid layers by going back to woolen options. And goose down cannot be beat. But I might succumb to some new fangled battery heated gloves now that they are perfected. The warranty on Herb Factory extremities (hands/feet) expired awhile back.
I have all the synthetic base layer stuff from my years of X-C skiing, which I rarely do since we moved down to Fanta Se. But the wool stuff is as cherished now as when I bought it back in the eighties. I still have all my old Protogs stuff.
I still have all the decades-old, made-in-USA Patagonia baselayers Herself acquired on the cheap when she was still working for outdoor retailers. But I need to invest in some new wool.
Wool socks and gloves I got, from Smartwool and Darn Tough. Good durability there too.
We got a touch of rain overnight, always welcome, smells great. The wizards continue to speak of snow, but it’s 40° at 5:57 in the ayem and you gotta wonder if their Magic 8-Ball got sold to buy pepper spray for the ICEholes.
PO’G: Back in the day when I flew fighters, we used to say “Flexibility is the key to air power; indecision is the key to flexibility; and weather forecasters are the key to indecision.” Amirite? 🙂
5F here in Bibleburg and light snow …… as forecast! 🙂
Ouf! Cold! My mouldering carcass still remembers those bitter mornings on our rocky, wind-scoured hillside at 8,880 feet in CrustyTucky.
The Lopi would quit cranking out the BTUs sometime around stupid-thirty in the morning, the propane furnace would prove insufficient, and Ike the cat would criticize our climate-management practices from downstairs — “MeeeeeeeOOOOOOWWWWRRRRrrrrr!”
Why is is that a cat will always holler on you from a considerable distance instead of getting right up in your grille? Survival mechanism, I expect.
I kept a full woodbox right outside the door, but man, opening that door in January was not at all like stepping out of a cabana and onto a white sandy beach.
Only 14 miles, but 1200 feet of climbing. Fortunately, not HC.
Well, I made it. Another trip around the sun. Whew…..but with today’s weather, I think the birthday ride will have to wait.
Well done, sir. My ride from Reincarnation to El Rancho Pendejo on Tuesday was practically identical: 14.1 miles, 1,225 feet of vert. A lot of it comes right out of the box, climbing from Mountain and 2nd to the North Diversion Channel Trail. A nice eye-opener at 9 a.m. in subfreezing temps.
Today? I’ma try to get out for a run between rains. And this might be just the time to do it.
This is the kind of cold that will hurt or kill you. Combine below zero temps and wind, and the result is frostbite and hypothermia that can happen very quickly. That is bad news for older folks living alone and homeless people and pets.
What makes Greenland more valuable and polar vortexes bigger? All time record loss of Arctic sea ice from warming temperatures. Climate change is what, although anus tangerinus denies it. The con job abides.
This is mostly the Biggus Dickus Syndrome with orange fuehrer. We can already militarize Greenland with the Dane’s permission.
The original.
Anus tangerinus? POB-this terminology concerns me deeply. It implies that there are more than one out there otherwise the genus/speciaes nomenclature might not apply.
But I’m not a scientist or researcher so maybe there is only one of them. In shades of orange anwyway. I believe however I’ve seen other colors including a bearded variety and several others I think from the “Bimbo Maximus” family fluttering around the orange one.
Chickenhawk Pumpkin?
Uncle Scam?
Agent Orange?
donny daintydigits?
donny taco?
trumpleforeskin?
Dickless Dumpster?
Redtie Menace?
Lame Ducklord?
I got a million of ’em.