Showing posts with label polar bears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label polar bears. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Sorry, Guys

Image courtesy of http://www.ec.gc.ca/EnviroZine/images/Issue57/BeaufortSea_l.jpg

I started to get dressed this morning fully intending to ride my bike to work. Jon asked what the temperature was and I repeated what I heard on our local NPR station this morning. "Nine degrees, with a wind chill of -10." He told me I should drive my truck to work, that I had to set some limits. Perhaps.

When I think about whether I can ride my bike in frigid temperatures, I think about Jill Homer, the Alaska journalist who is training for the human-powered Iditarod race, a multi-day event in which she will bike across the Alaska wilderness in sub-zero temperatures. She chronicles her training in her blog Arctic Glass. Her reasons for riding are different than mine, but an inspiration nonetheless. When I fret about my 1.5 mile commute, I check Jill's blog to see that she rode 22 miles yesterday in 28 degree temperatures.

I console myself with the reminder that driving to work will give me the opportunity to sherpa home the large garbage bag full of empty plastic bottles I have collected at work so they can be recycled.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

How to Help Slow Global Warming

Riding your bike to work or school, even when it is only 20 degrees F outside and the streets and sidewalks are covered with snow pack and ice is one way.

I wrote in this post about Boise bicycle commuters and my own limitations. Since then, I have taken to the streets on my bike, weather be damned! Unfortunately, the two days on which I have ridden my bike to work so far have been 1) during a snowstorm and 2) immediately after a series of snow days when the temperature was forecasted at 14 but fortunately climbed to 20.

I just kept telling myself to think of the polar bears and their melting ice sheets!

Honestly, it's not too terrible. Here is what I was wearing today:

winter biking tights
jeans
wool socks
cotton short-sleeved t-shirt
polypropylene long-sleeved shirt
cashmere scarf
my very toasty North Face jacket with quilted liner
polypropylene skull cap
wool took hat
bicycle helmet
biking gloves

By the time I arrived at work, my core body was overly warm, but my finger, toes, and face were very cold. I could have used my face mask (couldn't find it this morning) and some additional protection for my hands and feet.