Took my first post-Snowmageddon ride in this morning, and it wasn’t too bad. I wanted to do it yesterday (Thursday), but on Wednesday I decided to go jogging for the first time in, oh, around 6 months. Then on Wednesday evening, I ground out another 10 miles on the trainer. So yesterday, the executive decision was made to rest my legs, as I knew I’d be feeling the run, and I’m not 25 any more. But anyhow..
It’s interesting how being on the bike changes one’s perspective of the road vs. driving. For some reason, the snow-narrowed roads look a lot less daunting from the bike than they do from the car. I felt a lot more confident biking on the roads than I thought I would based on driving them the past few days. It’s an interesting phenomenon, and it raises an interesting point: it’s a good idea to drive your bike routes every now and then in various conditions, as it helps provide a sense of how drivers see and react to you on the bike, which in turn helps you learn how to ride defensively and safely around them.
I decided to bypass US 1 and attempt to hike into Patapsco State Park via the Howard County side access road. It was doable, but it wasn’t fun. There was about a foot of snow on the road and not much of it was packed down. I ended up half-carrying, half-dragging the bike through it, which was very slow going and tiring. Even so, it still may be preferable to battling traffic on US 1, even for a short distance. Not sure what I’ll do on the way home. If I’m going to hike this on any regular basis, it might make sense to lighten the bike up as much as possible, and maybe use a backpack instead of a rack trunk and panniers.