Winter Has Come
As I sat down to write about my ride the other day, the scenery outside my window was this..
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Not my type of cycling weather, although I'm sure it will probably stir the heart strings of those who have an affinity for chosing wheels over skiis when it comes to traversing snowy roads.
No, the prior day, which I chose to herald my first ride in 2022, was much, MUCH warmer, certainly nowhere near as white, and almost perfect in every aspect...except for the rain. Rain which arrived in the early morning and, like an uninvited guest who preferred to overstay their welcome by lounging around drinking coffee all day, completely ignoring the increasing ire of the host to get on with delayed activities while there was some daylight left in the sky. Thanks to the dense gray cloud cover and spotty rain, I was kept off my bike until about 4pm which, at that point, the rain decided it would go annoy some other section of the county, and decamped without a word leaving behind wet, muddy gravel roads and soggy fields. It's departure also left an open window for an abbreviated bike ride
I had been out raking my long gravel driveway earlier, between intermittent showers, smoothing out the increasing number of washboarding that had developed through the last few months of our local drought, and had texted my neighbor asking if he'd like me to rake his driveway as well. My neighbors are up in their 80s and not quite as mobile, so I like to do little favors for them since they graciously allow me to use their barn for my excess hay storage. My neighbor immediately texted me back three words, all YES, all in caps. By the time I'd finished grooming his driveway and filling in the scattering of potholes that had gown into cute little ponds up and down the 1/4 mile length of his lane, the rain had ceased, leaving behind only a gloomy sky full of obese, disapproving clouds. The temperatures were still t-shirt warm and fairly calm, although the forecast promised a dramatic flip flop to bitter cold and snow in less than 10 hours. If I wanted to get in my bike ride before nightfall and before the onslaught of Arctic cold, I had only an hour to do so.
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I chose a quiet route on the gravel roads that would first take me past a local centuries old cemetery. I wanted to do a quick check for a particular gravestone for the ancestor of a gentleman who lives on the west coast. That little diversion cost me a little under a half hour, but sadly netted nothing in the way of discovering any stone or marker for the gentlemen's elusive many time great grandfather who had died in 1818. (The gentleman was very appreciative of my efforts, nonetheless, which I thought was quite kind of him).
The loss of that half hour, unfortunately, had set me back in the distance I'd selected to ride, but I didn't know that at the time as the day was still relatively decent, and the roads beautifully serene with grand views of the mountains so close by and lots of open fields sporting a clean look from the recent rains. It was a pleasant ride, unencumbered by any need to share the road as I was about the only one out traveling at the time. Only one or two cars passed me the entire 13 miles, both polite and pleasant with waves hello to match mine.
Perhaps I only noticed the first change in the weather because my bike is such a silent creature, gliding along with naught but the near silent whisper of the tires gently caressing the roads. I had been admiring the passing of a multi-field horse farm when I felt the first hint of a breeze. A breeze that seemed to build with every turn of my pedal until the breeze became a series of abrupt gusts, one so vindictive as to shove my bike sideways, causing me no small amount of alarm as I fought to keep upright under the unexpected assault. It was about then that I noticed the declining light was becoming even more declining, further increasing my building sense of alarm. I was over 6 miles from home, but time was definitely not on my side. Overhead the bare limbs and branches of the winter-shorn trees morphed from friendly to sinister as the winds urged them into a bit of a diabolical dance over my head. It was the archtype of darkening nighttime that one finds in spooky tales of goblins, monsters and haunts of centuries long ago. And I was now in the midst of it.
I ducked my head and began to pedal, the pleasure aspect of the ride having dissolved into one far less eager to be outside anymore. As I raced on in the growing darkness, buffeted by the increasingly hostile winds and dropping temperatures, I began to notice lights shining from the windows of houses along the way. People home in the warmth, out of the oncoming cold front, unaware of the lone cyclist passing by in a hurry to put the final miles under her tires and far behind her. I had been smart to dress warm, but my biggest concern was I could no longer clearly see the road. I could only guess at times what lay in front of me in the dim light and had to trust my bike to handle whatever came it's way. We were all alone on the road.
I guess I was fortunate that the prior rains had helped soften the gravel roads to the point where the tires of passing traffic had smoothed out the surface ruts and bumps. At 20mph, cycling alone in the dim twilight under a black cloud covered sky, I was graced with a smooth passage, meeting not one pothole or washboard. Even as the ghosts of every spooky story ever told swirled around me in the wind and dark rustling trees, I kept up my pace, pedaling hard and fast until I reached the paved road a mile from home.
It was completely dark by then, my front light heroically doing its level best to illuminate the road in front of me. Thankfully, the road is an old familiar friend who threw no surprises at me in my final dash towards home. I pulled into my driveway, the warming lights shining through my house's windows welcoming me home. A short hop to the garage to park the bike for the night, open the door to announce I was home, and then a mad dash to the barn to give the impatiently waiting horses their dinner. I was smiling as I tossed an extra heavyweight blanket on each horse for additional warmth in the face of the coming storm, happy that I'd logged my first bike ride of the new year.
In less than 6 hours the snow would begin to fall in the darkness.
Winter had come.
I need the weather to cooperate first and stop looking like below! 
