New Year's Day Non-Ride and a Look Back

It's currently a frigid 5° (windchill -6°) in Akron, and our roads (at least around my neighborhood) are covered with a layer of packed snow and ice because apparently the city is trying to conserve salt for when winter arrives. In other words, the closest I'm getting to a New Years Day bike ride is this:

The orange Mercian has been tuned up and waiting for a ride since before Christmas. Sorry, not today friend.

After a couple of unusually mild winters, I'd been expecting a harsh winter this year, and it looks like we may be getting it. And of course the climate change deniers are taking to Twitter and other media to tell us that, because it's really cold in parts of the country this week, that means that climate change is a total hoax. Some even go as far as to say that the "Arctic Blast" we're experiencing is a liberal conspiracy to kill the oil, gas, and auto industries.

Damned liberals and their weather controlling magic.

I'm not even sure how that's supposed to make sense, but . . .

I know that as soon as I say something like "it's too cold to ride," some overly smug bastard will humblebrag that he doesn't really start feeling the cold until it gets down to -20°, so he might have cut his ride short to "only" an hour.

"If your eyeballs aren't frozen solid in their sockets, you're just a fair-weather chicken-livered pantywaist creampuff."

I'll just have to try to live with myself.

In any case, when it gets like this, and I can't get out to ride, my next favorite thing to do is work on a bike project. For instance, last winter (and spring) I had this one:

And the previous year, I had this one:

A few years back, I refurbished this old Trek mixte for my wife:

Building wheels is a fun project, too:

Unfortunately, I don't currently have a bike project. I'll end up doing some maintenance on some of the bikes in my current fleet, but both of the retro-kids need braces, so I don't anticipate any new (old) bikes for me in 2018. Hell, I'd settle for building up a new (old) bike for someone else if they were paying the tab.

If you can't tell, it's January 1, and I've already got winter blahs.

I did recently pick up a copy of a new book on restoring vintage bikes, so I'll just have to hunker down and get some vicarious enjoyment out of someone else's old bike projects. I'll put up a post with more info about the book in the near future.

Wherever you are, I hope your new year gets off to a good beginning. If anyone has a bike-related new year's resolution to share, feel free to leave a comment. Who knows? You just might inspire someone.