Spoiled

Despite a pretty dramatic start, the winter so far has been very nice for riding. This morning was the coldest ride in so far this winter (I think) at -14C. The thing is, -14 is great. Anything below -10 is fine with me. Getting a little more below freezing really makes everything less messy and wet, and I'll happily trade colder for dryer any day.

For me, -14 is cold enough that I consider covering my cheeks mouth and nose with my balaclava, but don't do it. My goggles and covering my head and ears remains enough. I went sliding (sledding, tobogganing, whatever) with the young Rantwicks yesterday and it was fun. I left my more serious gloves in the car however, and Mrs. Rantwick drove off with them this morning. My lighter (and brighter) gloves aren't great in truly cold weather. My fingers did hurt at first, but -14 is warm enough that if I make a conscious effort to ride hard it will take care of fingers and toes, which it did today.

So, thus far I have been spoiled this winter. If every winter ride could be done at -14 under clear skies, I would be a very happy winter bike commuter. Sadly, the "normals" for London Ontario in mid January are closer to -4 or so. I hope the abnormally cold weather holds up... it is way nicer to ride in. Who knows, maybe I could break my record of -23! That would be cool.

I sometimes wonder if other winter cyclists in London like it colder too. It doesn't seem that way because I see fewer riders out there with me. Maybe I'm just weird because I was born and raised in Thunder Bay and Kenora, where normals are quite a but lower.

How About You? What Kind of Cold Suits You Best?

R A N T W I C K

A Most Dubious Honour

Like several of my blogging pals, I recently got an email from somebody who claimed to Love RANTWICK so much that it had been selected for a Top 50 bike blogs list.

I did not link to their website as their snazzy image links urged me to, because frankly the whole thing seemed a little fishy to me. I got an email from somebody else warning me of their unethical practices and how linking to them would damage my google page ranking a couple days later. I had no idea if that was true, but I had one other reason not to link or promote that list, because here's what it said about my blog:

"A bit of humorous ranting does take center stage in this blog. Most of it is bike-oriented: How sad to see the bikes covered in snow! How annoying to share the road with vehicles!"

Holy crap! When I pasted that text snippet from their site a "source:" link got added to my editing window automatically! That site must have some pretty funky scripts running on it to do that! If I had let it stay, I could have suffered honest to goodness Google-anger! Oh, that site is scummy for sure.

Anyway, back to my other reason for not linking to them: If you want a one night stand, you at least have to buy me a few drinks, miss Cate Newton (if that is even your real name)! Put another, less cryptic way, if you are gonna use me and my blog to forward your own webby interests, at least read the blog enough to get somewhat close to what it is about.

"How sad to see the bikes covered in snow!"? What the hell? Any bike with snow pic found on my blog is likely accompanied by much celebration.

"How annoying to share the road with vehicles!"? Are you insane? I very rarely, if ever, complain about other vehicles. I understand very well that the roadways are for everybody, not just bicycles. I don't rant about motorists, in fact I actively invite discussion with them on my blog, discussions in which I have displayed a great deal of diplomacy, I think.

In summary, these idiots are being sneaky with their website and using unethical linking practices, but on top of that, they are making my blog look like it is written by some whiny moron. About that, I will rant, because I am not whiny.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K