Tell Me About it, Stud

 

Tell Me About it, Stud

 

OK.  Fine.  I will confess that…… the title of this post was a wee bit of a ruse to get your attention rather than the sordid tale you might have been hoping to read here.  What this is really about is that I have been commuting by bike in late December on snowy and icy Minnesota roads ever since I purchased studded tires.  There are 240 studs per tire for a total of 480 studs keeping me upright.  Each carbide stud is about 1/8 inch in diameter and sticks out about 1/8 of an inch from the rubber part of the tire.  Pedaling through snow and slush is much harder work than pedaling over ice…..the 5 miles to the train station seem more like 10 miles would be during the other three seasons of the year. People in their cars usually give me plenty of space, which has been a pleasant surprise.  Unless the temperature is hovering near zero I am usually overheated by the time I get to the train and I have to strip off layers to cool down.  I can only hope that my fellow train commuters don’t take offense.

 

There is a remarkable feeling of serenity I get when pedaling through the winter landscape.  I often find myself riding over the tracks left by snowmobiles along the edge of the road, which, I suppose, is a hint that I am being foolish.  Perhaps that is so, but I actually enjoy it.  I guess that part of it is the pace, or lack thereof, that I am able to maintain.  When I am not white-knuckling it through loosely packed snow, I notice the world around me, the softening of sounds, the subtle colors of a winter sunset, the flitting about of hearty birds, tracks left by deer when they crossed the road.  When I get to the train in the morning or I get home at night, I don’t have the feeling of having conquered Mother Nature, but instead that I survived her harshness for a little while.  The experience is both invigorating and humbling.  While I am recovering from such rides, I take a moment to reflect on how much more it is possible to do since I had weight loss surgery 2-1/2 years ago, for which I am so grateful.

 

RP

 

 

Loved your post! Yes, I was hoping for a sordid confession, but then I became afraid it was some kind of math question with all those numbers! It turned into a very nice commentary about MN without the usual complaints of our weather!!

Sarah

 Yep!  I fell for it you tease!  LOL!

It's truly a blessing to be able to do what you haven't been able to before because of the weight.  So happy for you that you can ENJOY the MN weather, while staying healthy in the process.  What a great post.