Not Riding Much Lately

The weather has been fluctuating for the last couple of weeks. First we had about four inches of snow, which put the big clamp on any riding for a few days. I guess I wouldn’t really mind riding on slick streets if I was the only vehicle out there, but I really don’t cherish the idea of becoming a slow-moving target for the fair weather drivers here. I grew up in Ohio where it snows pretty often, and people there actually learned to drive on the slick stuff and prepared their cars for the weather. I remember being a young teenage driver and learning that if you don’t know what you’re doing in the snow, you end up in the ditch. But here in sunny Oklahoma it seldom snows much, and people don’t have the opportunity to learn and practice driving on snow-packed roads.

This week I’m in Wichita, KS on a company trip and didn’t bring a bike this time. The city streets here are not very bike friendly, although the city is slowly adding to the bike path routes. I guess the good roads where I normally ride have spoiled me, but here there are NO shoulders on any of the highways or city streets here. It’s my opinion that bike routes work ok for light recreational use. But here in this town, the heavy automobile traffic, lack of shoulders, and absence of bike lanes prohibit cycling on the streets for transportation. Too bad.

So, I’m looking forward to getting back home and enjoying the daily commute.

On another topic, I’ve noticed that the Hotter ‘n Hell jerseys are finally available again. They ran out at the event in August, and just now have them available on their web site store: http://hhhstore.org/