171st ride of 2020 - Friday, 12/18/2020

2020 mileage: 4128.3

Chilly ride today! When I began (just past 11:00), it was 31° and very humid, making the air feel quite raw.. There is also a significant amount of snow remaining on the ground, so that I had to be quite careful with my riding lest I should have to stop suddenly and be unable to. 




Most of the time, this caused me no problem (other than slowing me down significantly), but on the final stretch, as I was coming up the hill on the sidewalk from the intersection of Lohr and Oak Valley towards our complex, I hit a patch that utterly stymied me, so that I had to get off and walk it 40 or 50 feet, cutting my speed from 8.5 mph (already slow) to an abysmal 8.1.

My new battery-powered heating socks arrived yesterday afternoon. By that point I had already decided to take the day off, so I had to wait till today to inaugurate them. They helped, though not as much as I had hoped they would ... they definitely take the edge off.



I solved the issue with my battery by putting a new cord on it ... the old one seemed to be dysfunctional. Given that it was working fine, I had hoped to do the Platt/Packard Square (13.7 miles). But, given the conditions, I reduced my goal to just doing a single round trip to Marsh Park (10.3 miles), and this was accomplished in a slow time of 1:15.

For my listening, i enjoyed a seasonal recording by my longtime friend and former teaching colleague at Olivet College, Dr. Michael Pagan. Mike is a highly accomplished jazz pianist, and his tasteful and festive stylings on traditional Christmas tunes ion his "Keyboard Christmas" CD buoyed my spirits today.

Link to (Relive) video of today's ride

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