crosspost, actually cross-rant, with bikejournal today, I'm miffed today.
Came into work in a great mood after a brilliant commute (well, everything is relative, right?) driving right through all the wet snow instead of skating around on top, and finally maintaining some semblance of speed. Whee!
In to a meeting, glowing and with wet hair, where the conversation rapidly turns to how winter biking is dangerous, difficult, and downright irresponsible putting oneself and other drivers at risk...
I hate that! Why do I always have to jump at the bait, and end up defending winter biking as though it were no problem at all? It's just impossible to explain to the ones who really don't want to understand.
"No, it's not dangerous!" (Yes, it is, it's just not anywhere as dangerous as you think)
"I ride on bare asphalt almost all winter!" (Not quite true, but those totally snow-covered roads you all moan about only occur about 5 mornings in the course of a winter)
"Riding in traffic is not irresponsible, I'm in full control" (Which means - because I have studded tires, bike fast, watch the traffic at all times and am, if I say so myself, pretty darn good at this, I'm no less responsible than those of you sitting in metal boxes spewing out fumes into our common air)
"No, I'm not just going to fall over in the middle of the road" (Just because you might, if you tried.)
And the hardest thing of all to explain is how, just because they saw some cyclist having trouble down an impossibly snowed-down and slippery road one morning, winter bikers aren't irresponsible idiots. Sometimes we make bad choices too. Every now and then we get stuck on a road thinking "Right. Today I should have taken the bus. Too late to turn around, better just make the best of it." Cars get stuck in snow all the time, nobody mutters at them for having the gall to try driving in winter? Then it's the fault of the snow plow, because DRIVING is a human right!
Sorry, just one of those mornings...