No way it was January

I slept fitfully last night. The wind was howling from midnight to 2:30. Just when I thought I was in the clear, WHOOSH!!!

Today was about 30 degrees colder than yesterday. The winds had changed direction and was now coming from the northwest. This meant that my morning commute would be every bit as difficult as my ride home last night.  I rode Big Nellie for the last bike commute of the month. The fairing on the front makes a decent wind shield. Despite the headwind I broke 30 miles per hour on the Park Terrace Drive downhill.

Coming through Dyke Marsh I had to stop again for the sunrise. My name is Rootchopper and I’m a Dawnaholic.

There was no use trying to go fast. It wasn’t going to happen this morning.

The National Park Service keeps cutting a slot in the beaver dam north of Slaters Lane. Good thing too. All that rain and the high tide had the beaver pond overflowing its banks right up to the edge of the Mount Vernon Trail. This section of the trail was repositioned a few years ago because of flooding.  The old trail was under a foot of water.

North of the airport the real work began. The wind really hammered me from here to Rosslyn. At the Humpback Bridge, I relaxed my hold on the handle bars. A gust caught the fairing and turned the front wheel to the left. Good thing no one was trying to pass me.

I saw a great blue heron in its hiding spot at the end of the TR Bridge boardwalk. If I were you, I’d head south, Dude.

On the sidewalk in Rosslyn, the buildings turned the wind direction to my rear. I glided from the MVT to my office, pedalling only when I needed to start up at a traffic light.

The ride home was a whole lot easier. The wind was to my back and side. I took it easy. It was in the 40s and my body was wondering what the heck happened to spring.

Today was the 18th and final commute for the month of January.  All told I rode Big Nellie 11 times to work. Little Nellie got the call the other 7. My total mileage for the month was 598.5 miles, all of it outdoors.  That’s some kind of personal record. Last January I rode 9 times to work and totaled under 450 miles.

My longest ride of the month was 32 miles. My commuting mileage was 533, which means I did very little weekend riding.

I won’t be riding tomorrow. I will be driving so I can see my daughter perform in a play tomorrow night. I have to kill a couple of hours before the play begins, so I will celebrate mi enero grande with a taco platter and a cerveza at Cactus Cantina.

Burb.