Freezing My Asphalt: Bike commuting in the raw weather.

 

This is the second entry in The Commuter Chronicles.

I have been writing about how I have been getting to and from work as a bike commuter (and sometimes as a runner) in order to exercise more and pollute less. This entry explores how I deal with riding in the darkest, coldest times.

Thick frost on the glass frames darkness, a streetlight, the mountain of plowed snow across the street.

The phone says it’s 7 degrees outside. My body says, no way in hell, I’m biking through this to work. But then I think about how I’ll answer the question waiting for me when I walk in the door: “How did you get here today?”

Thirty-six hours have passed since the last flakes fluttered out from the monster blizzard that pile-drove its way into Connecticut. The roads are cleared — sorta. Just don’t count the 100-foot patches of compacted snow. Also, ignore the frozen canyon walls the plows left behind and the buried margins that leave a non-existent gap between the bike and traffic lanes. I sip my coffee, and I factor in the extra time I’ll need to take the less-trafficked back roads. I unseal the handwarmers.

Visibility

Learning to deal with weather has been the most consistent, and interesting challenge I’ve faced as a New England bike commuter. It is a challenge I relish. I have learned new ways to dress, and to anticipate what my body will need exerting itself on a freezing January morning versus a June afternoon. I dance with the changing seasons. Those who encase themselves in climate-controlled vehicles, complete with headlights and seat warmers, are sitting it out.

In the sun’s absence I rely upon technology for seeing and for being seen.

There’s a bicycle light, a $60 gadget, and literal pale imitation of what the sun provides for free. Other than the bike itself, it is the most expensive item in my bike commuting arsenal. For years, I used either a cheap headlamp (not so comfortable when combined with a helmet) or a rechargeable flashlight attached to my wrist with rubber bands. The latter, was actually, better than the headlamp, but remained a consummate pain in the neck.)

Note to people just starting bike commuting: you absolutely don’t need a bike light if you want to save the money. It sure is nice to have one, though. I’ve found that lights that were perfectly serviceable for a night hike simply don’t cut it for a bike ride, where the faster speeds require a brighter beam to see the road ahead. Now that I have a stronger light, I pedal with more confidence, and find myself hitting the brakes less cruising down hills.

I still haven’t bought myself a similarly high-end taillight, for the excellent reason that I am cheap. I usually rely on a blinking solar lantern that I have rigged off the back rack and a red blinking wrist band. Neither of these will help me be seen better in daylight, though I do wear bright colors to help me stand out.

Dressing warm, dressing weird

I begin the roll down the crunching street by the headlight. Orange glow pools along the southeastern sky; stars, then planets dissolve in the flood of dawn.

The frigid air stings the exposed flesh around my eyes. I’m dressed for the cold ride, though not in comfort. My body is encased in a menagerie of equipment, including kayak gear. These include a neoprene balaclava hood, designed to keep me warm in frigid water immersion.

The hood is thin enough to fit easily under a bike helmet, but it still creates a bombproof layer against the wind.

Pogies are another piece of kayak equipment that has served me well biking. Also made of neoprene, pogies wrap around a paddle shaft and create a toasty pocket for the hands. They fit imperfectly around bike handlebars, but they buffer the wind, and work well with mitts and handwarmers.

Then there is the surgical mask. Not only do these tragically politicized symbols of pandemic times protect against airborne viruses, they also can take the edge off a brutal draft. I’ve only worn surgical masks on the coldest days. I accept the fact that it will be half-frozen and ruined by the end of the ride, but it is a cheap item to replace. I generally ride with masks that have reached the end of their useful lifespans. One disadvantage: fogging makes it impossible to ride with both glasses and mask on, so I end up stowing the former item in my fanny pack.

I can steer a bike competently enough as a two-eyes and accept crappier eyesight in exchange for feeling in my cheeks.

Moving from head to torso, my garments are more conventional. I have a flashy neon windbreaker over a puffy layer. Warmth, plus visibility. I don’t always wear the extra reflective vest, but do today, due to the reduced margins and dangerous driving conditions.

So far, the few cars on the roads have passed slowly and left ample room. Here and there, the tires crunch over fresh snow, and I stay in low gear. Nothing has stopped me yet.

The snow pants I wear are almost overkill. I can feel sweat beading on my legs as I crank the biggest hill, but I am infinitely grateful for them as wind whips around me when I swoop down an accompanying grade.

Footwear turns out to be my biggest gear mistake. My slides, perfect for dressing and undressing quickly, are simply not up to six miles of riding in the coldest conditions, even though I am in my warmest socks. I scold myself for not wearing boots as the stinging wind lashes helpless toes.

Door to Door to Door

By the time I reach the last uphill, I am happy for the warmth of effort.

The back wheel spins out on an icy drift. Clenching teeth, I hold the handlebars in place and inch my way past.

I crest the hill and the destination is in sight. I think of all the days when I’ve ridden my car and my coworkers tell me, “Of course you rode in. You can’t ride your bike in this!

I hope someone asks me today. I’ll let them know the score.

The beams of sunrise play through the spectral winter branches. I almost feel the warmth. There are hints of spring, in spite of the obscene cold. Earlier in the year, it was still dark when I got to work. The bird songs seem new and decadent to me. I crouch down for the final descent.

The parking lot is empty. I don’t bother locking my bike, but key myself directly into the building and pull out my phone. Of course, there was an email — sent out about the time that I was taking my bike down the apartment steps – explaining that the poor road conditions have bought everyone a day off.

I stomp around until I get some life back into my extremities. I climb back into the saddle, going home. Woodsmoke, lit DayGlo orange from morning light bright, billows up from a chimney. I ride along the frozen Mystic River where plates of brine ice have shattered up against the rocks in lucent piles. I feel my brows frozen too. At least my legs are still moving.

I think about warm blankets.

 

“

 

A Night in Pachaug

Enchantment One

Awareness of large predators is, apparently, one of those basic instincts that has dulled for me over time. It took me almost a minute for me to grasp the significance of the large gray form, close along the roadside with fangs bared.

My distracted, 21^st century mind was focused on my friend Phil, who I was convincing that we weren’t lost, that I had been in these woods a hundred times. I could get us to our destination easily. We had just stepped off the trail to a gravel road, an obvious shortcut (or was it?) in the middle of Pachaug State Forest. Middle afternoon was giving way to late. The February sun was still a couple hours away from checkout, yet there was a menace to the shadows pooling beneath hemlocks, those skeletal woods where no birds sang. Bare deciduous trees afforded fractured views of the gray hills, and long-abandoned farm walls. There was plenty of landscape to go around. At over 26,000 acres, Pachaug is Connecticut’s biggest state forest.

Even, as I pondered exactly where in those 26,000 acres we might be, my attention zoomed in toward the foreground, the spot right behind Phil’s feet.

“Uh, Phil, you might not want to turn around right now,” I said.

Of course, he did exactly that. The creature was right out of Grimm’s fairy tales, an Eastern Coyote, sprawled out dead. A wound in its side hinted at a mortal injury. Perhaps it had met a speeding ATV earlier. Another distracted mind.

“Whoa! Of course, I’m going to check this out!” Phil exclaimed.

We were on a short overnight doorstep adventure. We had started from our homes in Mystic and pedaled our bikes into North Stonington, about an hour’s ride, so that we could camp out at a nearby lean-to and hike around. Phil, a longtime friend, has climbed in the Andes and Himalayas and is no stranger to the extremes. This adventure was a meant to be a simple getaway however, not an epic

It had been months since I’d spent a night outdoors. Although I had taken brief requiems biking and hiking in nature, I hungered for a larger pilgrimage, a pilgrimage where I could take a break from distracted thinking and contemplate small enchantments. Such wonders included the coyote corpse, grotesque, beautiful, and a reminder of the wilderness character that never left our state.

Eastern Coyotes are, in fact, hybrids, between coyotes and wolves – the thinking goes, and so it was unsurprising to see resemblance between the Canis latrans specimen at our feet and the scourge of Little Red Riding Hood. Attacks on humans are vanishingly rare. Yet, buried instincts had surfaced at last. The coyote’s broad muscles and sharp teeth gave me pause.

The corpse made a fitting ambassador to Pachaug, which has always seemed a little strange, to me, a little dark. The many fens and hollows lie beneath towering, schist escarpments, thrown together, as if by sorcery. Small family graveyards lie moldering beneath snags.

Enchantment Two

Ice stalagmite in Bear Cave

When I was a kid, my dad and I spent many trips wandering these woods looking for Bear Cave in North Stonington. Before the Internet heyday, there was far less information than there is now. We got lost plenty of times. Eventually, we found Bullet Ledge, a ship-like bulwark of fractured rock that rises above the trees. Halfway up the ledge, we found an opening.

Back at the coyote, I mapped a rough sketch of how I could get back to the cave. My mistake had been following a reroute on the Narragansett Trail, which missed the cave, apparently. Instead, we followed the road, in what I hoped was the right direction. I made an informed guess at an intersection, and in another 20 minutes we were back on course.

It was Phil’s first time inside the cave. I always enjoy taking newcomers up the steep path up Bullet Ledge and then casually stopping next to the cave opening. Much like a dead coyote, it’s very easy to miss. Once upon a time, Phil had heard, there really had been a bear inside the cave. A group of natives led a colonist to the spot – so he could shoot it dead.

We clambered inside, where there was the familiar musty darkness, tiny dribbles of groundwater percolating from the top of the hill. The cave goes in 30 feet or more. It was nothing new for me, However, I was most taken by some of the ice formations at the cave mouth. Icicles were utterly smooth and clear. Low afternoon light struck orange fire within the crystalline enchantments. An icicle stalagmite was perfectly symmetrical, clear, and balanced, with utter improbability, on a narrow base. It was an elongated teardrop. It was an alien shrine.

Phil emerges from Bear Cave

Camp

Enchantment Three.

We hiked swiftly back to the shelter where we’d left our bikes. The wood we gathered earlier waited by a fire pit. We were on a ridge, and I could see miles in all directions, including still frozen lakes and swampland, out to the surrounding ridges. In the last six hours, we had only seen one family out hiking, one off-roader. It wasn’t a bad record for Connecticut.

As the sun lowered, we coaxed wettish twigs into sullen flame, and then cheered as the fire blossomed over the larger branches.

Phil graced me with a beer. I balanced a pot of creek water on a grate to make couscous dinner.

Outside, the twisting morass of trunks and forest branches compressed to a two-dimensional print against orange horizon and darkling blue. Planets emerged. Stars winked into existence. Well-being trickled into my restless mind. To fill completely, I’d need more time. A lifetime.

Owls boomed from distant trees. I smiled at the night.

Enchantment Four

The dark blue and gathering orange framed the branches again. I enjoyed seeing the last night’s show repeat itself, but in reverse.

Woodpecker staccato Boodooboodabooop! Badabadapop! resonated through the forest. Small chirping birds raised their voices at last.

Fungus on a cut log made a soggy Christmas wreath.

Phil and I talked about the owls we’d heard last night. After I conked out, he claimed to have heard some coyote yips as well – at least it sounded that way. After a while he hit the radio, and why not? I wanted to hear the latest about the troop build ups.

Wolves everywhere. Circle the wagons.

I raised a fire on the embers of the last, brought water to a boil. We drank our coffee, packed the bikes, and rolled out.