This was mostly expected, but as the daylight hours recede – shrinking down as the sun is deep into winter hibernation – and the clouds move in, lowering the sky and dropping the blanket of cool moisture on the city, my biking activity has also dropped.
I continue to use my bike as my primary mode of transportation, riding to and from campus regardless of the weather. But the weather (and the workload of the last weeks of my inaugural quarter of grad school) have worked on the back of my brain and kept me from the longer exploratory rides I reveled in when the sun was out.
It hasn’t been a conscious decision, really. It’s just that in the past, where I might have found a spare hour or two, looked out the window and made the decision to ride, now it simply seems more appealing to spend those hours working on something else, or just drinking hot cider and listening to the raindrops on the window.
But as I continue to commute on bike, I’ve found the weather doesn’t really create a barrier to biking. In addition to the rain pants, I made a thrift store find and now have a nice breathable, waterproof jacket (this is a more versatile option than my previous decision of a non-waterproof jacket or a non-breathing rain coat – I would usually go for the non-waterproof item, as even in a heavier rain the exterior would get wet but the water rarely soaked through the interior liner). I still would like to find a better glove option, but I’m OK on that front as well. So it’s no worse biking than walking in the rain, and biking has proven to be a faster option than the bus for any of my short-hop transportation needs.
What the dreariness has done is build a mental barrier which makes it less likely I’ll just hop on and go. But now that the quarter is over and I’ll have more free hours, I’m going to try to at least occasionally step out and pedal a bit. There’s still nearly an entire city to explore.
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