Snow!

[Crankin]

Friday afternoon and now the whole weekend looking OK, now. Yay, we can ride with our friends when they come. Jury still out on Wed. morning.The forecast I saw when I got home tonight said freezing rain, but it was just west of here. But, if it's dicey, or even wet, the group may cancel.

[shootingstar]

Wow, more snow for us along the way. Our area received so much snow, now the municipality has run out of rm. to dump the excess snow..

While thankfully the prairie air is dry to suck up snow water, we're still left with crap in the suburbs. I don't live in the suburbs.

[emily_in_nc]

Springtime in full bloom here, but with that comes WIND. This morning the Weather Channel said 10-15 mph NNE, which I could tolerate, but it was actually much windier, and during the ride, the wind shifted to the SSE, so we ended up with head or cross winds (mostly head winds! ) in both directions, since our "out" is generally north and east and our "back" is generally south and west.

I turned on the Weather Channel right when I walked in the door, and they said winds were now in the 20-30 range (20 sustained with gusts to 30 mph). D'oh! No wonder the ride was super hard. We did the same ride the previous day with winds 10-15 mph NNE the entire time, and I averaged a full mph faster. My legs are feeling it now! Glad Wed. is our usual day off to do laundry and gym workouts. I need that break.

[Crankin]

Emily, every spring I say something like, "I forgot how windy it is in the spring."
Now, you think that since this will be my 17th spring riding, I would have learned! It doesn't even matter if it is sunny and warmer, I hate wind. Although, the clouds and slightly raw feeling of a typical New England early spring does not help.
I just allow myself to to feel permission to go as slowly as I need to if riding in the wind, and remind myself that whatever wind is around me, it's worse, just 10 miles east, closer to the coast.

[rebeccaC]

Springtime in full bloom here, but with that comes WIND.

Think of it as improving your fitness!!!

I can embrace headwinds and see them as resistance training and use it as a good challenge….when I can’t I’ll draft Alex cuz she embraces it even more than I do. One good tip she has given me was on wind buffering descents shifting to a higher gear and the pedaling helps a lot in stability.

[emily_in_nc]

Yes, I forget about it every year too, Crankin. I don't remember it being this windy here last year -- March was a lot warmer, and that usually puts a little damper on the wind, but who knows. I am probably just forgetting. And you're right, it would be even worse if we were on the coast of Florida instead of the center of the state!

NWG, I definitely have to look at it that way: "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger". Since there aren't too many real hills (just gradual inclines) on the trails/roads we ride most frequently here, the wind provides for natural intervals. My DH doesn't mind it at all as he is such a strong rider, and on a light wind day doesn't get as good a workout as he'd like since we are not in hilly territory here. So he embraces it more than I. I don't think I'll ever learn to love it, but I can endure it.

Fortunately, looks like yesterday was the windiest day we should see in the next week+, based on the forecast.

Sorry to hijack the thread -- I was thinking that I was posting on the March Rides thread, not on Catrin's Snow thread. Hope your snow has faded away, Catrin!

[Crankin]

Well, this isn't really about the rides we are doing, or not doing! It's about weather and the conditions we are all facing.
The group ride was far away and was listed as, "not really pretty, on busy roads, and the draw is the lunch." Not for me! So, with that off my plate, I got up early, made my matzah kugel for Passover, and then I will head to get my nails done (I will walk there, 1/3 a mile). Then, I'll go for a short ride, as the wet ground should be dry and the sun will be coming out. Meeting a friend for coffee at 3, then haircut at 4. A busy day, but I don't feel stressed. Pretty much all of my holiday prep is done, except for setting the table, and I can't do that until after breakfast on Saturday, since we only have one eating space now. Oh, and preparing some balsamic glazed strawberries. DH is in charge of the main dish, roast chicken, so all I have to do is heat up and put the stuff on the table.

[north woods gal]

Yeah the wind. If you don't mind an old gal reminiscing a bit, I'll tell you about the wind in my life.

I grew up on the prairies of the Dakotas and Nebraska. Wind, out there, is a constant companion. You can go weeks at a time with no letup in the wind. We didn't even consider anything under 20 mph as wind. Not kidding when I say, that when we would get a calm day, it took us awhile to figure out what was missing. The wind nearly killed me, more than once.

One summer day as a teenager, a friend and I decided to go for paddle in the canoe out on a large prairie reservoir. Nice and calm, so we decided to cross the lake. Got out in the middle and we got hit with 40 mph winds. Calm one second and raging wind storm the next. It actually blew my life vest right out of the canoe before I could grab it, because I hadn't bothered to strap it on (have never made the mistake, again). I was paddling stern and just managed to keep us afloat as the wind hit. Fortunately, I saw the wind coming across the water so we weren't broadside when it hit, but now all I could do is the let the wind and waves carry us along, because there was no way to turn the canoe with risking having the wind flip us. If you've ever been in a canoe with that kind of wind, you know what I mean.

I'm not at all exaggerating when I say we were traveling as far up and down those huge waves as we were going forward. I had to crest each mountainous wave and drop down in those troughs just right to keep from being washed under those huge waves. Fortunately, I had learned to paddle at an early age, so I had the skill for it, but it was still very close. One wrong move would have been the end for us. A mile later the wind beached us on a mud flat, far from our car. My friend and I crawled out of the canoe and sat down in the mud and hugged each other, both of us in tears.

Winter winds were the worst, though, and equally deadly. One January day in high school, my ride couldn't make it to pick me up and take me home. Foolish me decided towel the 3 and a half miles home, out in the country. Temps were single digits, but the wind was a solid 30 mph blowing against the left side of my face. Woke up the next morning with a black and blue cauliflower left ear. I was very lucky it didn't go gangrene or I would have lost it. To this day, though, I carry a reminder of that day because the outer lobe of my left ear is still as hard as a rock, even after all these years. Lived through my share of prairie blizzards, too. Not being able to see three feet in front of your face was no Hollywood exaggeration. Really happens. True killer storms.

Was never in a tornado, but was close enough to actually see a couple of them and was also witness to the aftermath of one. That was as much as I wanted to see. Had cousins who lived though a whole night of several tornadoes in succession. They escaped without a direct hit, but they told us that it really did sound like a freight train on top of them, just as people say.

As for bicycling, the most dangerous part of those winds was getting blown out of control and being thrown into traffic or an oncoming vehicle. Of course, we've probably all been there at one time or another, regardless of where we live.

Do I miss those prairie winds? No, not at all, but years of living with those winds have marked me. They're still a part of me, even though I no longer live in that open country with those relentless winds.