There is just something about February.
Even though I am, and have been, a routine winter rider, over the past few years February has routinely turned up as my least active month for riding. It is tempting to blame this on the fact that it’s the shortest month, but let’s be honest - those two or three missing days aren’t the issue. It’s not like I was planning going to go out and ride the last couple of days in the month, only to suddenly discover that they weren’t there...
I think, ultimately, I have to blame the weather. Winter cycling aside, in northern Illinois, (and I think this is true for the upper Midwest in general) February is simply the least cooperative in terms of cycling friendly weather. Looking back across the calendar over the past three years or so it’s the month typically with the lowest number of rides, as well as the lowest distance. Lower distances make sense - my rides are typically shorter in the winter, as I try to make loops that keep me closer to home in case I need to call for help. But the smaller number of rides are the things that point to the weather.
As I discussed a couple of weeks ago, poor visibility conditions and freezing rain (and lightening, but that’s not much of a problem in the winter) are about the only things that will keep me off the trike. When I look back through the calendar, my usual ride days in February are missing ride events. Sometimes there are things to explain it - I missed a Sunday this February because we were traveling down to Florida, for example - but often the ride that should be there just isn’t. And that suggests something prevented me from getting out, which suggests weather.
Fortunately, if I isolate February from other months, and just compare them, it looks like the pattern is improving. The graph below shows my mileage for the past four Februaries - 2017 thru 2020:
I rode once in February 2017, three times in February of 2018, and six in both 2019 and 2020. In fairness to 2018, I also went cross country skiing on two occasions, so I did have five outings for the month. And even though the number of outings is the same for 2019 and 2020, the distance has increased.
The big change from 2017 to 2018 was the acquisition of the Catrike Pocket. I had been thinking about getting a mountain bike to better handle both gravel and snow, when it occurred to me that a trike would also be good at those surfaces (or at least much better than my Cannondale road bike), and that I’d wanted one for a very long time. And I did discover, after my two outings on the skis in 2018, that I preferred winter riding over skiing - at least on the type of snow that northern Illinois has been offering over the past several years. Those two outings in February 2018 are the last time I’ve done XC Skiing.
Admittedly, some of this is not new information - there are certainly other examples here of me discovering that: you know what? I like riding trikes! But when I look at that comparatively low number for February and start to feel a little down on myself, I find it helpful to step back and look at the bigger picture. In this case, that picture is: Yeah, February sucks, but at least it’s sucking less than it used to...
And, of course, now it’s Not February (also known as "March"), so it’s about time to go out and ride...