I was lucky enough last week. It was a Tuesday, and there wasn’t a monsoon as is so typical out here on the We(s)t Coast. 9.5C at 7:45 am, and I was already half way through my commute to my office in downtown Vancouver.
I always joke that everyone around me is much happier when I get some helmet time. It is true, but that’s one of those things you have to say in a joking way because normal people (“normies”) just don’t get it. Just like when I joke about drinking coffee for other people’s protection. It had been a long time since I had been in the saddle. It was necessary, and good for my soul.
Given I live in a temperate rainforest, rideable days in January depend much more on precipitation than they do on temperature. The Pacific Southwest (I am in Canada, after all…) is out of our “deep freeze” of 3 days at -10C or so, and soon enough will have flowers poking through the soil in about 30 days. My riding days will increase from once every three weeks to one or two per week until I’m full time on the bike. Soon enough, but also not.
Still, sooner than my riding brethren in the rest of the cold and snowy cou try that we call home.