Back in the saddle

Tonight's bike ride won't win any Strava king of the mountain points.

I rode 1.6 miles with about an 8-mph-average, a slogging loop through the neighborhood on a single-speed mountain bike.

This was my first bike ride of the year. It was 10 degrees out. I nearly wiped out riding through a three-inch rut made in one of the city streets, where car tires wore grooves into the hard-packed snow that covers the pavement. It was dark.

I'm not sure if it was fun or not.

I had planned to go nine miles, or three loops around my Southeast Wausau neighborhood. 

I wanted to stay close to home. It's dangerous riding at night, and especially so on a night in this winter. No driver is expecting to see a cyclist at 8:30 p.m. in conditions like this, so they're apt to run me down, thinking I was no more than an illusion, a snow mirage.

That is, if the driver saw me at all. Riding through these streets, with their four-foot high snowbanks, is like riding through frozen canyons or a winter maze, and nobody in a car can see anything coming off from side streets. So they -- and I, if I'm honest -- just plow ahead and hope for the best.

Traffic was quiet, though. 

But I turned around halfway through my first loop, or about 1/6th of the way through my journey, because my headlight went dim.

I bought this light last year, and it cost about half what my first car did. I love it. It's a shining beacon that helps lead me through the darkness, and it lasts and lasts and lasts. But even it, as good as it is, needs to be recharged once in a while. I think the last time I had used it was last July.

So really, I'm lucky that it lasted the 12 minutes it did. It goes dim when it runs low on power, giving me a chance to turn around, or worry or get another light for a while longer. I'm not sure how much longer it will last when it goes into the power-saving dim mode, and I'm hoping never to find out.

It's saying much about this particular winter in that I haven't ridden at all, and here it is March 4.

Usually I can ride through most of it, with January the only month I have to take completely off, and even then I can get out for a jaunt or two.

Last year I rode six miles in a temperature of 9 degrees below zero. This year I vowed not to ride if it was below 20.

But it's been so cold, the 10 degrees tonight felt downright balmy, and I was half tempted to wear shorts.

Last year by this time, I had ridden 70 miles. Not much by many standards, but not bad either.

It's going to be tough to catch up. I need a recharge, too.