I rode today. Did you?

Nice first ride in the COLD.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by grayn8 on February 20, 2014 at 3:55am

Agreed. Weather is fine. Not even that rainy at times. I avoided the 18th street bridge pit of despair though. Of course, I might regret my choices if the wind/storm/ragnarock shenanigans happen this evening. It's just nice to be riding in some warmth.

rwein5 said:

Didn't think it was any worse than a typical rainy day. I opted for streets instead of the LFT on account of flooding.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Underwood on February 20, 2014 at 4:10am

I know right!? I thought I might have needed my rain jacket for a second when I started noticing some small drops but glad I didn't cause it would have been raining inside the jacket from my sweat. Went through some huge puddles and couldn't see if I was about to fall into a crater sized pothole or not. Lovely ride, the wind was helping me a little. passed about a hundred cars on my way into E-town. One thing was my gloves were definitely too warm, should have worn the thin ones.

Kelvin Mulcky said:

Who's putting on the scuba gear this morning?

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Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on February 20, 2014 at 4:33am

I rode today. Roads were totally fine save for a few large puddles on my street. Zero ice, and it wasn't even raining!

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Permalink Reply by JeffB on February 20, 2014 at 8:14am

I opted not to ride due to reports of road problems on WGN and the thick, fresh slush on the sidewalk in front of my home, which made me think the roads would not be safe.

Regretted it though. The walk to the train was treacherous, and then we had two delays on the brown line; sick passenger at Belmont and fire on the tracks at Merch Mart. I got off while we were waiting at Chicago and Divvy'd the rest of the way into the loop. It was fine (although I still wonder if the first leg of my commute on Wilson would have been unsafe; its always worse than Clark).

But I'm still iffy about tomorrow. With all this water and the sub-freezing temps overnight, the morning could be risky on the roads.

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Permalink Reply by Simon Phearson on February 20, 2014 at 8:21am

Yeah, tomorrow's the real question. I am hoping that the forecast holds and the rain stops well before it hits freezing and the wind keeps up. I think that'll help dry some of the surfaces. And then it's not supposed to get too cold - I think the puddles will often be slushy but not hard and the ice limited to snowmelt flows. That said, the wind is supposed to be vicious, and I never like hitting an ice patch with a strong crosswind.

Never know until one sets out, I suppose. I'll have the tailwind tomorrow morning, so maybe I'll just sail in.

JeffB (7+ miles) said:

I opted not to ride due to reports of road problems on WGN and the thick, fresh slush on the sidewalk in front of my home, which made me think the roads would not be safe.

Regretted it though. The walk to the train was treacherous, and then we had two delays on the brown line; sick passenger at Belmont and fire on the tracks at Merch Mart. I got off while we were waiting at Chicago and Divvy'd the rest of the way into the loop. It was fine (although I still wonder if the first leg of my commute on Wilson would have been unsafe; its always worse than Clark).

But I'm still iffy about tomorrow. With all this water and the sub-freezing temps overnight, the morning could be risky on the roads.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on February 20, 2014 at 6:11pm

Lake Front Trail was very flooded this afternoon.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Michael Ignacio on February 20, 2014 at 6:34pm

Best tailwind EVER! Apologies to all poor souls who had to ride south tonight, but on my ride home I caught in my peripheral more than one driver glance over at me in surprise as I kept abreast of them...

BEST. TAILWIND. EVER.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin C Dormant on February 20, 2014 at 7:08pm

YES. IT. WAS!

Paul Michael Ignacio said:

[snip]

BEST. TAILWIND. EVER.

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Permalink Reply by EssFresh on February 21, 2014 at 2:24am

Decided to slow roll my skinny fixed gear today. Roads weren't terrible, Elston Lane was snowy but rideable. Passed by one guy on a more adequately set up machine. Otherwise all I saw were tracks.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Underwood on February 21, 2014 at 4:19am

Last night I got completely drenched because I didn't feel like stopping to put on all my rain gear, plus I wasn't cold anyway, just wet. there were some huge puddles and I wasn't ready for one and got a bunch of water down into my boot. some puddles were like six inches deep along the evanston lft and big ones on the chi lft as well. this morning was fine, I liked that the roads were not wet at all. And the wind helped me most of the way, but every so often with out warning it would wip around and hit me from the side or front... almost knocked me over once as I was slowing down coming to a red light about to put my foot down, as far as balance goes that's my weak moment. almost got me.