Snow

There was an inch of snow on the ground when I woke up this morning. It stuck around all day, and more is going to be coming down throughout the week. Let winter begin.

How did I respond to this snow? First with a lot of impolite words, mostly under my breath, and then by turning my singlespeed bike into a fixed gear. See, I'm not going to ride my race bike in the snow because not only would it be dangerous on skinny slick tires, but I'd end up ruining the bike once they start putting down salt and I start crashing because of ice. So, in order to continue riding as often as possible this winter, I need to ride my steel-framed clunky commuter bike. But that's no fun. At least until now.

A fixed gear bike does not let you coast. Any time the wheels are turning the pedals turn too. It's how all bikes used to be before the invention of the freewheel. The benefits of riding a fixed gear bike are that you get stronger (zero rest = strength + endurance), pedaling technique improves, and you learn how to pedal at a really high cadence, because that's just what happens when you going to go downhill. And, it's a whole lot of fun, mostly because it's a new challenge. The challenge is simple, if you attempt to stop pedaling while the bike is moving forward you do one of two things: If you're in control you skid to a stop and feel lucky, if you're out of control the bike flips you over the handlebars. I rode it around the block a couple times today, but it was getting dark fast, so I'll need to do a real test ride as soon as I get the chance. With luck I won't be doing any flips.

In other news, school is still insane, but I'm still enjoying it. I will be observing in the operating room all day tomorrow, which I'm really looking forward to. I have no idea what kind of surgery I'll be able to see, or if I'll see multiple, that will be decided when I show up.

My housemate, Jess, and I spent an entire day baking this weekend. We're coming up with winter survival plans and a lot of them involve food. This plan was specifically to get a weird food at the public market every week and make something with it. This weekend was persimmons. I'd never had one before, but it turns out they're really delicious. We made persimmon tarts and persimmon cookies. And then just for fun we made some hummus. Next week I think we're going to try making bread, and something with our mystery market food. This is a fun game.