Well, I managed to both blog and ride every day of februari, through hail, snow storm, mush, ice, fierce headwinds and unforgiving cold. I’m pleased, and it really wasn’t that hard to do. For next year I’ll try and recruit more people to start biking, if only to the store, and have some material ready to post every day.

The total for Tour de Feb came down to 241 km (150 miles) in fifteen hours and twenty minutes for an average pace of 16 kmh (10 mph)

It will be good seeing asphalt on the roads and bike lanes in a few weeks again.

…which means that the frozen, highly packed snow in the lanes becomes soft and mushy. :( Spring, please!

24 hours in the saddle for 2011.

Same uneventful commute as always. While the cold has been slowly grinding me down these past thirty-eight days (since january 18th), the sun is really starting to pick my steam back up again. It’s brigther every day now, and the sun feels like it’s been warming better the past week as well. Really looking forward to cycling the rest of the year now, with the hard part already behind me.

Hovering around -8°C to -12°C, but the newspapers promise warmer weather starting in a week or so. My biggest wish is that that does’t mean it will go from warm to cold every day, ice is a bitch to cycle on.

200 km for february and 350 km for the year!

Worked late, -13°C when going home… stiff legs, rosy cheeks.

Also, added Disqus, a blog feels weird without ability to comment.

Interesting how commuting around the year makes you so focused on the weather. I don’t think I’ve ever really remembered or cared about the weather much until I started cycling, and with winter commuting it got a lot worse. I now feel like a farmer in the sixteenth century where my life and well-being is dependent on how the weather is going to be. :) Which in a sense is true (for the well-being part at least), but at the same time I haven’t had too many problems cycling whether it’s been -14°C, icy, slushy, or wet. So it feels a little bit out of proportion.

The short of it is that winter cycling is more than manageable. Even pretty enjoyable most of the time.

I like having February show its true colors though: cold, but with the sun out again! Hopefully we’ll have minus degrees without too much snowfall until a swift spring sets in, but days like these are still wonderful to be out riding on (if you’re dressed appropriately :P). It’s cold, but not too cold, there’s good traction in the ground, no wind to speak of, and the sun shining on your face. — I love my morning commutes right now.

Only thing of note today was that there were three guys suspiciously standing around my bike as I exited the store that I stopped by on my way home.

Good fast lanes now with hard packed snow, quite fun to ride on.

The temperatures since I started commuting at the middle of january have stayed between 3°C (37°F) and -19°C (-2°F), however the coldest I’ve actually went through with riding all the way to work was a mere -12°C (10°F). It has been snowingfour times.

For these conditions I have:
-Wool beanie
-Buff Polar (fleece) covering the mouth, nose and neck
-The North Face shell jacket with fleece liner
-Wool finger gloves
-T-shirt
-Icebreaker/200 wool long sleeve shirt 

-Jeans
-Icebreaker/200 wool leggings
-Underwear

-Thin wool socks
-Haflöfs Trail 2 (sturdy, isolated ankle boots)

That’s all! You really don’t have to go overboard in order to battle the winter. Especially not if you’re cycling as you’ll generate a lot of heat doing it, the thing is to have clothes that doesn’t waste the heat.

The thing I’ll prepare different for next winter will be to get a pair of ski goggles, for when it’s hailing or snowing, it’s really irritating to not be able to look ahead of where you’re going properly. I’ll probably also get some sort of shell/wind breaker trousers to wear on top of the jeans - some days my legs have felt a bit cold to tell the truth.

Also, wool.

I realize my Tour de Feb entries aren’t very exciting to read, but neither is my commute to write about… for next year maybe they should ditch the requirement to tweet or blog about every day.

Good lanes and better speed today at 17.4 km/h, but still a far cry from what I’d like to go.

A little warmer today (-7°C :P) but some really dangerous spots in the city where the bike lane wasn’t plowed and you hade to steer out in to traffic. Also oblivious pedestrians everywhere. Got home safe anyways.