Snow Ride

Today’s entry was going to be about what lightweights Seattleites are when it comes to weather—how our recent little bit of snow has been made such a big deal of (from people’s reactions to a light dusting of powder, you’d think the sky was dropping flaming meteorites instead of gentle snowflakes), but that was before my semi-epic bike ride home this evening that took me through a blizzard, sheet-icy roads, and turned out to be a full-on adventure lasting two and a half hours compared to my usual travel time of just over an hour and thirty minutes.

I almost didn’t make it; that is, I practically gave up about a third of the way from school to home. In Lake Forest Park, on the Burke-Gilman trail, the fast-falling fat flakes were accumulating rapidly; at least two inches of wet snow had already fallen, and more flakes were coming down fast enough that my tracks were covered almost as soon as I laid them.

Fat handfuls of snow stuck between my tires and fenders, at one point, so thickly that my rear wheel stopped turning altogether. As long as I was able to maintain a straight line, I could poke along at around five miles an hour; anytime I skidded out—which was every hundred feet or so—it was practically impossible to get started again.

For some time, I had no choice but just give up and walk.

If it weren’t so beautiful—such a bona fide winter wonderland—I would have despaired of carrying on.

I passed just a handful of fellow cyclists; I got wished “Merry Christmas” by two of them.

Eventually, the snow thinned out, and by the time I got to the UW, the trail was all but clear.

I thought the fun was over, but the last few blocks in my neighborhood, the streets were paved with ice.

Fun as it was this evening, should be a riot tomorrow morning.