Riding Home in the Blizzard

by Alix Kerl

I drove into work on Thursday just as the weather turned from freezing rain to ice.
I was definitely in the top 10 worst driving I have ever done. My little car could barely make it up the icy hills, and the snow had yet to hit. All day, I watched the snow fall outside the window and by the time I was done with work at 5pm, close to a foot of snow had fallen. I decided that it would be better to leave my car at work and ride a bike home rather than potentially die trying to drive home in the blizzard. Let’s just say right now that it was a really bad idea.

Luckily, I had borrowed a Surly Pugsley for the weekend, which (with 4 in. wide tires) is made specifically for riding in the snow and sand. It also weighed about 30 lbs. I work just less than 15 miles south of my duplex in South Minneapolis and it usually takes right around an hour, depending on how fast I’m riding. I expected that the ride home would take up to two hours because of the foot of snow that had fallen, but I wasn’t prepared for the wind. I hadn’t even thought to look and see which direction the wind was coming from, which turned out directly from the north at 20 mph. As I left work, it was still snowing, but rather than light, fluffy flakes, the snow was falling as pointy ice chunks, or “hurty snow”. It was the type of snow that would have been mesmerizing had it been at my back, but flying directly into my face was not so charming.

The roads were, of course, horrible. There were one or two inches of ice on the roads from the freezing rain that morning, with the addition of the snow that had fallen throughout the day. The main roads had been plowed and were easier to ride on, but there were also cars on those roads and with the real potential of me sliding underneath one, I tried to stay to the side streets. The snow plows had left huge mountains of snow in the intersections and I found the best way to get through these was to ride as them full speed and pedal through. About half the time I wiped out and had to do a running cyclocross mount to get back on the bike as the Pugsley is great at floating on the snow, but not as good getting traction in slush.

I didn’t have a balaclava and my cheeks got so numb that I was afraid I’d get frostbite, so I alternated warming patches on my face with the backs of my gloves. The headwind also meant a visibility of about one city block, which didn’t matter too much as about halfway home (after an hour of riding), I started riding with my head down so my cheeks wouldn’t hurt so bad.

So at a speed of about 5-7 MPH, I arrived home at 7:30pm, two and a half hours after I left. I prayed for a snow day from work the next morning, but without any more snow falling, there was no hope of a day off (plus I had to go back and get my car). Consequently, Friday morning I had to hop back on the bike and ride back into work.