Cycling through snow days

The view outside today.

It’s 2 degrees (Celsius) and snowing outside. It’s times like this I wish I’d started this whole cycling caper a few months ago. You know, when it was summer. Instead, I procrastinated.

A former workmate had a creative way of dealing with procrastination. Journalists are notorious procrastinators. They won’t miss deadlines, but most tend to like deadline pressure bearing down on them before they get busy. My friend … let’s call him Paul, because that’s his name, always had an answer if I asked him why, given tomorrow’s deadline, he wasn’t working on a particular story now.

“Oh that’s Tomorrow Paul’s problem,” he’d say. “Today Paul doesn’t care.”

Inevitably the next day, Today Paul would wail about how lazy Yesterday Paul was and how he always made life difficult for him.

Summer Kirstin really should have got her shit together. Now Autumn Kirstin is paying the price and Winter Kirstin (who will become Summer Kirstin once she crosses into the Northern Hemisphere in July) will be incensed.

We had a particularly crappy summer, but in its defence, it didn’t snow. Now it’s autumn and so far today we’ve had snow, hail, sleet, rain, thunder, lightning and a teensy weensy bit of sunshine. Tomorrow severe frosts are forecast.

Even my spectacular new bike is no match for snow and ice. I end up on the spin bike. I despise exercising indoors. Time moves more slowly on a treadmill or spin bike. I look at my watch and then check it again half an hour later, but only five minutes have gone by. The only good thing about the spin bike is watching cycling DVDs or catching up on TV on demand. And there are no bees. And no ice. Or trucks and buses trying to run you off the road. And no wind.

Until this spell of bad weather the biking was going well – three-hour rides and hills are now part of my repertoire, albeit slow three hour rides and fairly minor hills. This week I am trying to fit in my 80km ride during the week, because I won’t be anywhere near my bike this weekend.

Obviously it’s not happening today, and more snow is forecast on Thursday.

Ah well … I’ll let Tomorrow Kirstin worry about it.