With winds up to 70 km/hour, today's bicycle commute was... um... interesting. For the first two kilometers I had a tailwind and felt myself pushed along a somewhat icy shared pathway. Scary stuff. If I were more like James Bond, I guess I would have just let the wind take me where it would, but being who I am, I used my brakes a lot.
The shared sidewalks over the 102 Avenue bridges are in pathetic condition -- icy and slushy and downright nasty. At least on a bike I didn't have to stick my feet into the mushy stuff, but I felt sorry for the pedestrians I saw picking their way across.
As I turned onto the 121 Street/100 Avenue bike lane, I thought things looked pretty good, but when I rounded the bend, the wind caught me, sweeping me right into the snowbank. Surprise! It took awhile to regain my composure, but after that it was fine. I was ready for anything!
At lunch time I went out for a short walk and again was almost blown away; for the first time in my life I actually held onto a pole while I waited for the light to change!
To my happy surprise, after work the roads were in great shape, even sort of dry, thanks to the powerful wind, and it was a fun, although sometimes difficult, ride against the wind back to the car.
I think some of the people at work are now completely convinced that I am a total looney, as evidenced by the looks on their faces when they saw that I'd ridden my bike today. But that's OK.
There's a profound bit of truth that they don't know:
when it comes to a bike ride,
even when it's bad, it's good!
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