Over the past few weeks I’ve heard a number of people–both cyclists and civilians–announce “today” as the final good day of the year. My call for the final good riding day of 2007 is going to be December 31. This will be followed the next day by the first good riding day of 2008. I guarantee it.
The reality is that every day is a good day to ride if you have on the right clothes. Unfortuanately, we’re talking about hundreds of dollars in clothing. This isn’t too bad if you simply substitute your civvie clothing budget for a bicycle clothing budget. After all, I can use all my pre-2002 clothing for many more years. Furthermore, I can’t get people to stop continually giving me T-shirts and polo shirts. This works great because I’m never short on a supply of bike maintenance rags. A few years ago I got tired of digging out cycling clothes while my closet was dormant, so I clean out my closet so that it now only allows cycling apparel. I knew it was getting bad today when I discovered a very nice thermal jersey that I hadn’t even worn yet. I couldn’t even remember when or where I bought it.
Aside from the clothing issue, it never seems to snow or rain during the day around here. Last year I started to notice a pattern of nightly rain that stops right when the sun comes up, which is when I’m usually headed into work on my bike. Most of the daylight hours stay dry. Of course there are some exception days but these are rare.
I’ve also learned that weather forecasts are only useful for determining temperature and wind. I live by the mantra “never let a forecast determine your ride.” I learned this the hard way from past experience sitting around during good weather bemoaning the decision to opt out of a ride. At best, you can check current conditions with naked-eye observations, webcams, or current airport weather readings to make a decisions about whether or not to delay a ride. I’ll concede that some of my attitude is based on necessity in order to get in a 5-6 day training schedule. In short, concern for weather is futile other than for deciding what clothes to wear.
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