Our Next Weather Event?

Monday promises to bring a dry, mild day with temperatures in the mid-40s...okay, this is mild only in a relative sense. It might be a perfect day to hit the road on a bike to knock-off one of those February challenge rides, if you have any to check off the ole list (sadly, I don't). It might also be the calm before the storm. Looks like our next low pressure visitor will be whistling Dixie AND meaning a little business. Look at those wound up isobars!

This storm will be coming up the coast from the deep south and laden with moisture. Currently it looks like mostly rain for these parts and a fast mover...starting Monday night and lasting through Tuesday night. BUT, and you know there's always a "but" when it comes to New England weather forecasting, the numerical weather models keep tracking this storm further east with each successive run. So you've heard this a hundred times before and you'll read it here again now, depending upon the track this could be yet another major snow storm for southern New England. Interestingly, the models had the last storm tracking more and more northwest as the forecast period narrowed down and the outcome was snow to rain. What will this storm bring??

I'll update over the weekend.

Sorry about all the weather postings...unfortunately, I've been obsessed with winter storms all my life and since my butt hasn't touched a saddle in 3 weeks...well, you know, gotta write about something!

January Thaw

I've recently mentioned the January Thaw in several posts. Being the fanatical weather weenie some think I am, and realizing that I have a worldwide audience (well, the potential for a worldwide audience I suppose...although I do know a couple of kind folks from across the pond have ventured onto my blog a few times), makes me feel compelled to provide an explanation of this regional weather phenomenon.

I'll let Keith C. Heidorn, PhD, (THE WEATHER DOCTOR) provide the technical details.

A January Thaw is expected to fall within the third week of January, usually following a strong cold snap, but need not occur every year. In fact, during the very cold winters of the late 1970s, there were no January Thaws in the New England region during 1978 and 1979. (And they could have used a thaw!) There have also been recent mild winters when the Thaw was absent or hardly noticeable...

In prime January Thaw country, the ideal weather pattern characteristic of the Thaw period unfolds in this manner. It begins after a cold air mass from northern or
western regions has slid over the region (A), eventually moving out over the Atlantic Ocean. As that air mass leaves, the Bermuda High strengthens (B,C,D) and becomes positioned over the southern Atlantic Coast or southeastern US
states while a broad low pressure trough moves slowly across northern Ontario and Quebec (B-E). The juxtaposition of the isobar patterns of these two map features (E) places the northeastern US and southeastern Canada border region into a south-southwesterly flow of warm air from the Gulf of Mexico. This air advects over the northern snow and ice fields and begins a thawing.

Often during this time, the upper air wind patterns are in a period of readjustment, and thus surface weather systems stall or creep slowly across the eastern continent's mid-latitude belt. After several days of warmth, the regional weather again comes under the influence of a strengthened polar high (F,G), and cold weather returns.

Technically,the January Thaw is what is known as a weather singularity, which is a weather phenomenon likely to occur with reasonable regularity around a specific approximate calendar date. That date is typically January 23-25...and those of us living in these parts know that we have not observed any type of thaw over the past several days nor do we have any type of thaw in store over the next few days.

If I had known there would be no January Thaw this year, I would have made a greater effort to get on the bike trainer. Yeah, right!!

Enough Already!!

After my last ride a couple of weeks ago (sole ride in 2009 so far) I took a guess that my next ride would occur during the January Thaw. What luck...it appears there will be no January Thaw this year and now we're on the verge of another major winter storm.

This just out from the NWS:

***WINTER STORM WATCH***

...SEVERAL INCHES OF SNOW EXPECTED IN SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND WEDNESDAY...

LOW PRESSURE WILL RACE OUT OF TEXAS ON TUESDAY...SPREADING SNOW ACROSS SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING.

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN TAUNTON HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM LATE TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

THIS WATCH INCLUDES ALL OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND EXCEPT FOR CAPE COD ...NANTUCKET ...MARTHAS VINEYARD ...AND BLOCK ISLAND.

SNOW WILL DEVELOP BETWEEN 3 AND 6 AM WEDNESDAY. THE HEAVIEST SNOW WILL OCCUR BETWEEN 10 AM AND 4 PM. SNOW WILL THEN DIMINISH WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

THE SNOW MAY MIX WITH SLEET OR RAIN IN PARTS OF RHODE ISLAND AND SOUTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS...AND MAY COMPLETELY CHANGE TO RAIN FOR A TIME ALONG THE SOUTH COAST. WHERE THIS OCCURS...IT WILL CAUSE LOWER SNOW ACCUMULATIONS.

A WINTER STORM WATCH IS ISSUED FOR THE POTENTIAL OF ACCUMULATING SNOW OF 6 OR MORE INCHES IN A 12 HOUR PERIOD...OR 8 OR MORE INCHES IN A 24 HOUR PERIOD. ANYONE TRAVELING IN THE NEXT 24 TO36 HOURS SHOULD MONITOR LATER FORECASTS AND BE PREPARED TO MODIFY TRAVEL PLANS SHOULD WINTER WEATHER
DEVELOP.

ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!!!!

I still have a good foot of ice encrusted snow in my backyard and the roads are still too shaky for riding (IMHO based on my survey of local roads as I drove around town last Thur/Fri). How much will we have on the ground after Wednesday and how long will it be staying around?? This is really bumming me out after the last few mild winters sandwiched between seasons of sporadic riding! Oh well.

I'll end this sad (pathetic?) post on a positive note...because there is reason for a bit of optimism. The current extended outlook for temperature presented below is showing above average temperatures across the Northeast starting in the first week of February. This would mean temperatures in the mid to upper 40s. Could it be a February Thaw? Could be, but I don't plan on holding my breath!

Harpoon B2B Ride 2009

Got an email notice over the weekend for the start of the open registration for the 2009 version of the Harpoon Brewery to Brewery bike ride. This is a 148 mile 1-day ride from Harpoon's brewery in Boston, MA to their brewery in Windsor, VT...with beer and food at the end. Now that's my type of ride!

Open registration starts at 7:00 AM on this Thursday, 1/15/09 (2008 alumni registration started last week). Here is the registration link:

2009 Harpoon B2B

Apparently this is another very popular New England area event ride (like the NBW's TFCE). To be honest, I had never heard of this ride until I was told about it during the TFCE last September. The next day I looked it up on the web and immediately signed up for email notices pertaining to the event. This year's B2B ride will be held on Saturday, June 20.

As far as 1-day rides go, the B2B is obviously much more difficult than the TFCE. It's approx 50% longer (148 vs 102 miles) and makes NO claim to be flat...after all, most of the ride is in New Hampshire! They also request that you do not register if you can't maintain a 16 mph average pace over the duration of the route...and they specify a 10 hour time limit for finishing the ride.

This ride is awfully, awfully appealing to me because it obviously would be a lot of fun and most definitely would be a challenge with the 10 hour completion target. I've been thinking about doing it ever since I learned about it...but I think I'm going to pass on it this year. There are a lot of other event rides in the New England area during the upcoming season and if I can prove to myself that I can handle a hilly century ride with ease, then my award for 2010 will be the Harpoon B2B. Of course, as with all challenges, I could be talked into it!!

Images courtesy of The Harpoon Brewery.

First Ride of 2009

Yes! Finally got in the first ride of 2009. Took the 1:50 train out of Boston...got home by 3:00...and on the bike at 3:30 (I needed to do some stretching after not riding for 3 weeks). Anyway, I'm just glad I was able to get it in during the first full week of the month...not as exciting as riding on New Years Day, but it will have to do and it's now on the tracking sheet!! Who knows, with the weather forecast looking as it does this could be my only ride this month...unless the January Thaw comes on schedule.

It was a nice, relaxing, and reasonably warm ride as I decided to go slow for ice-dodging reasons. Overall, the roads were not too bad today.

Ride Stats

Bike: Fixie
Distance: 16.5 miles
Time: about 70 minutes
Average Speed: approx. 14.0 mph
Next scheduled ride: during the January Thaw
Temperature at start: 27.7 F
Temperature at end: 24.8 F
Gear: Polartec midweight base/Summit jersey/InsulaTour jacket/Zephrr vest on top...Polartec silk weight base/Bell Weather winter tights (circa 1988) on the bottom

Bad Winter?

NOTE: Weather maps updated to most current at 8:00 pm on 1-9-09

With this forecast of snowfall for this weekend....

...and this 8 to 14 day outlook for temperatures...

...it seems like we might be looking at snow on the ground for several more weeks.

Think I'll try to get a ride in this pm

Looking Back on 2008

Looking back at last year, I'm pretty happy with my level of cycling activity in 2008. Although my annual stats pale in comparison to those posted by many of the bike bloggers I follow, to me they represent a decent achievement and something solid to build upon for 2009. When I started this blog I stated that I had lofty goals for the future and that continues to be the case. However, my past riding history is spotty at best with little to show subsequent to the few good years I've had like this one (Note: I plan to post on my riding history soon...just in case any of you want to be bored silly!). We'll see if I can keep the momentum going in 2009.

With this in mind, the one huge positive development I see going forward is being able to follow the adventures and challenges of other fellow cyclists as they strive to achieve their goals. This has proven to be a tremendous source of inspiration to me. Whether the bike bloggers I read are new to the sport or veterans of the road, whether they are younger or older, female or male, ride to stay fit or train to win the local crit, or whether they prefer hills over flats or singletrack over the pavement, the blog posts they string together allow amazing stories to be told of challenges, achievement, and the love of the sport...along of course with countless tips, ideas, and other bits of useful information. It's nice to feel connected to a community of folks with a common interest and I know it will help motivate me to achieve my goals.

Okay, here are the stats and graphs. First, a table of riding days and miles by month.

I rode 1,641 miles in 2008. Good considering the miles I racked up over the past 5 years or so, but not a PR I'm happy to say (being happy about this IS a relative thing I guess). That mileage was accumulated over a total of 78 rides for an average ride distance of 21 miles. Makes sense as I ride a lot of loops after work in the 18 to 25 mile range. What might not make sense in the table are the percent scheduled and missed day values. Unless you see the spreadsheet I use to track my rides, it might seem like the percent values are a bit high and missing days too low. What I try to do is plan the rides for a season well in advance starting out with 4 rides a week (Tues, Thur, Sat & Sun) for the first month or so and then increasing to 5 and perhaps 6 if I've been at it long enough. I never ride every day as my knees generally need at least one rest day per week (my knees will be the topic of a future post as I'm determined to bore you!). Anyway, the whole schedule is fluid and it certainly gets tweaked from week to week as things come up, but I always designate riding days versus rest days. So in computing the annual summary stats, only scheduled "ride" days get considered. To me, missing 31 scheduled ride days is not a stat to be proud of, even if many of them are due to factors beyond my control...like heavy rain and lightning (a common occurrence in these parts last summer).

The next two graphs show my cycling mileage by month...

Oops, line missing...then by week

Some additional stats are as follows:

First ride of season: May 18
Longest ride: 102 miles (NBW-TFCE)
Shortest ride: 6 miles (1st ride on my fixie)
Fastest ride: 17.7 mph (23 miler loop)
Most miles in a week: 166 miles
Fastest weekly avg speed: 17.0 mph over 145 miles

Days biked: 78 (62 on the Roubaix, 16 on the fixie)
Lazy-ass days: 4 (these were 4 of the 31 missed days with absolutely no good reason for not riding...as noted in my riding log!)
Solo rides: 75
Rides with Mark: 2 (Mark is my longtime friend who got me into riding years ago)
Event/Group rides: 1 (NBW-TFCE)

Again, I'm mostly happy with my 2008 accomplishments, but more importantly I certainly know what my shortcomings are that need to be addressed this year. Without going into a lot of detail (like above), in 2009 I'll strive to achieve the following:

• Continue fixie rides this winter as weather permits
• Start routine "training" rides BEFORE daylight savings time begins on March 8
• Increase the length of my rides in general
• Establish and stick to a routine of riding early in the morning on weekends (a chronic problem with me)
• Plan on at least one long ride per month (metric century or longer)*
• Plan on at least 3 event rides in addition to the TFCE
• Join the Narragansett Bay Wheelmen (NBW) and participate in a few group rides
• Double the number of ride days
• Double my yearly mileage (I'm setting a target of 3,500 miles)
• Eliminate lazy-ass days
• Ride with Mark at least once per month during the season
• Drop 30 pounds (I'm setting a target of 180)

*Note: I don't consider the one long ride per month goal to be Trio's Century a Month Challenge because I honestly have no hope of accomplishing that over the rest of this winter. I can say I will try, but I'm just being realistic.

Wow...what a post! Sorry