A Tale of Two Weeks

For the most part, this January has very much looked like January.  In fact, it's been downright brutal at times.  It was so cold earlier this week that my pipes in my kitchen froze, which isn't an irregular occurrence in Winter, but nonetheless...

It's been pretty cool (pun intended) to see just how many people are still willing to brave the cold and ride every day, myself included.  OK, I'm not gonna lie.  I took this weekend off.  I literally had no reason to ride other than for pleasure, and when it's 20 degrees outside with 3 inches of snow on the ground, there's very little pleasure to be had, even for a cycling enthusiast.

One awesome thing about this though, when I was forced (yes, forced) to ride to work on Friday, I finally popped my baby's snow cherry:

Hard to believe since we've logged well over 2,500 miles together in less than a year, but last Winter, I kept her in the stable until we had some more palatable weather.  Now, she's been around the block more than enough that I'm not so paranoid about her getting a little dirty.  I gotta say, she did very well.  Wouldn't recommend doing it every day tho...

In any case, the weather broke sometime between last night and today, and we were greeted with beautiful sunshine for most of the day, with temps near the 50s.  Hard to believe, really.  At times, I'm totally alright with global warming (not literally of course).

It was perfect riding weather, so I made the most of it.  Besides commuting and other less-than-exciting errands, I had to make a detour to a friend's house in West Philly and took a few extra detours on the way home.  Most notably I paused at Drexel Park, which was the launch point for the Naked Bike Ride 2 years ago, and also features a gorgeous view of the Philly skyline:

My crappy phone camera really doesn't do it justice.  What a town, I tell ya.  Without a doubt my most enjoyable ride of 2017 thus far.  Not like it has much competition, but you get the point.  All good things must come to an end, and as I re-entered South Philly, it started to rain.  I made it home just in time to avoid getting soaked.  There's another positive though.  With a forecast in the 60's tomorrow, I'm anticipating a lot of riding...and if nothing crazy happens, the full moon bike ride.