Dodge, dip, duck, dive, dodge

I used to think of biking the streets of Boston as the world's deadliest video game (with obvious lack of extra lives).

Having spent a few weeks here during the year's harshest season, I must amend that notion. Biking the streets of Boston IN THE WINTER ups the ante considerably. Every time I hit the streets on my olive-green road warrior I am thrust into a combination of Frogger and the Sherbet Land course on the N64 Mariokart.

*Note: I usually "exercise bike" on the exercise-friendly path that runs along the Charles River, but the snow and ice as of late have rendered that impossible. My long bike rides on the streets are not a frequent occurrence.

Firstly, we must consider those with whom I'm sharing the road. They don't call the drivers in Boston "Massholes" for nothin'. Rude, inconsiderate, and offensive, all Bostonian drivers think they own the road. So many alpha drivers create a dangerous landscape for those on a less powerful mode of transportation (bikers). They jerk out of their metered parking spots with fervor and resolution. They seem to think it's acceptable to speed through intersections 2 full seconds after their signal changes to red. They switch lanes with reckless abandon (and often without looking).

But the drivers are only part of the problem. So far this winter, Boston has gotten 60.3 inches of snow (near the height of Shaq's nipples), and the thing about the northeast is it never really gets warm enough to melt substantially. So snow upon snow upon snow piles up until there's nowhere to really put it. The snowplows push it to the side of the road, blocking parking spots. So what do the cars that want to park do? They do so in the bike lane. Not only do I have to concentrate on swerving around huge chunks of ice/snow in my path, I no longer have that nice little 3-foot safety cushion.

On a note totally unrelated to safety, days when it's warm enough to actually bike outside are usually juuuust warm enough to melt the snow a tiny amount, leaving puddles of dirty slush on the side of the road (my path, of course). I just felt that as long as I was ranting on how unsafe it is to bike in Boston I may as well complain about how dirty I get while riding. My tires fling everything they come across in an upward direction. The cold, dirty slush inundates my buttcrack and makes a filthy, wet line all the way up to my ponytail. Crusty, dirty ponytails make me uncomfortable.

So as you can see, winter road biking in the city of Boston is neither for the oblivious nor the high-maintenance. After every bike workout on the street I am usually just as or more mentally exhausted than physically exhausted.

I just want my foot to finally heal so I can start RUNNING again. Until then, maybe I'll just stick to the painfully boring drudgery of stationary biking in the gym. I hate exercising indoors. Yikes.