Almost every Sunday morning after I wake up and - let’s be honest - after I have my first cup of coffee, I start thinking about where and when I will ride. And while I experience that virtually every week, this Sunday, in particular, the feeling is especially acute.
There is a combination of factors contributing. First is that I made the conscious decision to forgo a ride last Sunday in favor of getting a couple of projects finished. These were things that definitely needed attention, and Sunday is also my day for projects. Usually I prioritize riding and do what I can for projects afterward, but occasionally things have to go the other way around if a thing is going to get done. But this means that I’m a ride short in my mental tally now.
The other factor is that we have snow.
We’ve had dustings and such this season, but the snowfall over the past few days is the first that we’ve seen in earnest, offering an actual ground cover. I’m very much looking forward to being out and about in it.
But there is also a problem: we have snow.
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The snowfall was continual over the past couple of days - slow, but persistent. But the temperatures during the day were hovering around the mid-low 30°’s (F), slightly above freezing for much of the day each day. This appears to have led the road crews out in our rural area to bide their time before getting out and running the plows on the backroads - to wait and see how much will melt away before committing township resources to removal. As a taxpayer and owner of vehicles with all-wheel drive and snow tires I can appreciate that.
For the next several days, however, high temps are forecast to stay below freezing, which means the plow trucks will be out. Which means I need to wait a bit.
To be clear, I am not afraid of riding through a little snow. This is a thing I’ve been doing for a while now - it’s all part of the fun. But I don’t want to be on the road on my trike when the plows go by. You’d be astonished at how much snow can actually land in the lap of a person on a recumbent trike. Or so I imagine...
So I’m sitting, waiting, listening and watching for evidence of snow removal vehicles. Over the years I seem to have developed the ability to detect and isolate the characteristic sound that a plow truck makes as it passes by the house. It’s a little like how my dogs can hear the kibble landing in the food bowl from anywhere in the yard.
Maybe one more cup of coffee, and then maybe they’ll pass by...