Only Twelve Days 'til January

December 20, 2023

Crucial Pre-Tour Topics

Are You Ready for This?

All credit goes to my gigantic ego for inserting a bunch of old Greg-stories into the last couple of journal pages. Well done, gigantic ego!

All I can say is that I hope you enjoyed reading them, because this page is going to begin with another one. I hate to toot my own horn, but the following story has almost everything one could want in a piece of autobiographical literature. Great characters, great dialogue, suspense, happiness, sadness, hope for the future, and a somewhat happy ending. Plus, it's a cautionary tale relevant to the topic of wintertime cycling. Here it comes:

RUSTY THE BIKE GOES TO THE HOSPITAL -By Gregory S. Garceau

Once upon a time, while innocently riding my bike home from work, my mountain bike's chain snapped. There was a BANG followed by a CLANG. I kind of knew something was seriously wrong when I felt no resistance from the pedals. I was slowing down, and pedaling FASTER sure didn't counteract the slowdown.

I had never experienced a broken chain before, but there it was, right before my eyes--a triple chain ring with no chain attached. "What the living hell is going on here," I wondered?

I leaned my bike on the snowbank in front of somebody's yard, walked back about 20 yards and managed to find the missing chain in the weak illumination provided by a streetlight.

The next day, I drove my bike fifteen miles to the nearest bike shop for a chain replacement and a tune-up. I will never forget how the gray-bearded mechanic chastised me for letting my bike deteriorate so badly. I most certainly deserved it but, still, the reprimand hurt.

To put the gray-bearded mechanic's disgust in perspective, try to imagine the reaction of a medical doctor examining a patient who has been a life-long smoker, boozer, and couch potato who subsists solely on Twinkies and Doritos. Well, in this case, the doctor was the bike mechanic, and the pathetic patient was my bike--Rusty.

Thankfully, I earned a bit of redemption when I told the gray-bearded mechanic I was a year-round bicycle commuter. My exact words were, "I'm a year-round bicycle commuter . . . and this is my winter bike."

"Ah yes," he replied with a knowing nod, "that tells me a little more about you." He seemed to be cutting me a little slack and, judging by his bike knowledge and gray beard, I'm guessing he had been around long enough to have seen many Minnesota bikes that looked like Rusty.

He assessed the condition of my bike, said he'd try to revive it, and gave me a rough estimate. YIKES! The cost was almost 1/3 of what I had paid for the bike when I bought it 15 years earlier at the very same bike shop. I shook off the shock and said, "okay, go for it!"

A week later, I got a call that my bike was ready. The same gray-bearded mechanic was there when I picked it up and he told me he did the best he could with what he had to work with. He even removed some of the rust on the forks and frame. I was impressed. I thanked him and wheeled my bike out of the shop in shame . . . but not enough shame to start a new regimen of routine bike maintenance. Incredibly, I continued to ride that bike for another ten years.

THE END

************

Thank you for reading my story--assuming you didn't just scroll straight down to where it said "THE END." I put the story in here to illustrate a very important point I wanted to make about wintertime bike riding. That is, bikes are very resilient, but don't take that for granted. Maintain your bike. At minimum, clean the corrosives off of it. You only have to do more than I do, which is to say you only have to do a little more than nothing.

I've often used the excuse that short life spans for bikes is the price one must pay if one chooses to ride in winter climates. Up here, thanks to snow & slush & ice, our metal vehicles get rusty. Just look at the average 20-year-old car in Minnesota versus an Arizona car of the same age. Did you notice there is no rust on the Arizona car?

Conversely, here's a 20-year-old Minnesota car. I'm not going to say whose car it is, but do you think I'd lean The Reckless Mr. Bing Bong against The Feeshko's car, or anybody else's.

Far more corrosive than snow & slush & ice, though, is the salt that road crews scatter on the roads to melt the snow & slush & ice. The salt is a double-edged sword and I can't decide which edge is worse. A) The one where they salt the roads, resulting in a rusty drive train, or (B) The one where they DON'T salt the roads, resulting in me sliding in front of a car or a car sliding into ME. It's a tough call, but I'll take the salt.

Those white pellets on the road aren't big flakes of snow.

This is the third year that The Reckless Mr. Bing Bong has served as my winter bike. It has developed a little rust, but this year I am putting in some extra effort with occasional cleaning and lubing. I want it to be my winter bike for many years to come.

It's worth mentioning that there is a third edge to my double-edged sword metaphor. I guess that makes it a rare triple-edged sword. The third edge would be the easy way to avoid the two sharper edges, but also the least desirable option. It would mean no bike riding for four-to-six months of the year. TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!

A Brown Christmas is Becoming a Certainty. Bummer!

The local weather forecasters are talking about the joys of a warm El Nino winter. So are many of my friends and neighbors. I try to be diplomatic when I argue in favor of a cold and snowy winter, but generally I get nothing but cold stares. I never thought it would come to this.

I'm no fan of Bing Crosby, but I still dream of a white Christmas. That was the natural order of things before that damned global climate change came into play. So far, Minnesota's December has been a laugher. The snow is melted, and the daily high temperatures are predicted to be well into the 40's and maybe the 50's (Fahrenheit) beyond Christmas. They're talking about record high temperatures.

In a way, I like the warmth. In another way, it does not bode well for my ultra-dangerous bike tour into horrific weather like no bike tourist has ever seen before.

I ride my bike to the grocery store almost every day and sometimes I talk to people there. There is no consensus as to what the future holds. Half of them think the El Nino will continue into January. The other half think that January will make us pay, big time, for our December good fortune. For now, I remain neutral.

Last year, December cycling looked like this.

Today, December cycling looked like this.

I spent a lot of time trying to find the exact spot where I photographed the first picture in 2022 and trying to duplicate it in 2023. I knew it was on the bike trail between MY Town and Prescott, Wisconsin but I wasn't sure where on the trail. I think I found the right location, but I did not position my phone correctly for the photo. It doesn't matter though, because I didn't have to carry my bike through the snow today.

With no snow, I could wave to all my friends, and ride my bike all the way to Wisconsin and back.

MORE SCENES FROM TODAY'S ACCLIMATIZATION RIDE

He's still there from a different angle.

Ten minutes later he's still perched above the river looking for fish.

Bald eagles do not scream "CHREEEEEeeeee" like depicted on the TV show "Northern Exposure." Hawks do that. The bald eagle in this picture was cheep cheep cheeping, as if to say, "come here little fishie, come here little fishie."

I'm only up to #2 on my bird list. I like to read about the adventures of Scott & Rocky Anderson here on Cycleblaze and I know I'm not likely to catch up to them in the department of bird sightings. I've also been reading about the adventures of Boof and Andrea, and there is no way I'll catch up to them in the department of southeast Asian cuisine. But I thought I'd give it a shot. The Feeshko and I checked out a new Thai restaurant that opened up in MY Town. The reviews were positive, and several of them said the food was very authentic.

I had the Karapau Mussel. I have no idea how authentic it was, but it was DELICIOUS. So was the hot tea.

I can't remember what The Feeshko's dish was, but she liked it.

Today's ride: 14 miles (23 km)
Total: 34 miles (55 km)

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Bob DistelbergI definitely agree with you on the lack of winter weather. Here in Vermont it was 60 degrees the other day and we got three+ inches of rain dumped on us. All our trails are still a muddy mess. Actually this morning, a semi-frozen muddy mess. I'll take snow and cold over that any day.
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10 months ago

Gregory GarceauTo Bob DistelbergBob, I saw some video of the storms up your way on the national news. The rain is bad enough, but when it messes up the bike trails, that's REALLY bad.
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10 months ago