Back in January, while we were getting a bunch of snow, I bought a used bike on eBay from some guy in Utah. It arrived a week later, all boxed up. For the next two months, I kept thinking “I need to put that bike together before the winter is over.” Meanwhile, I muddled through the rest of the ski season, which consisted of a few nasty thaws, followed by cold temperatures and no new snow. The skiing wasn’t great for the last half of the season, but spring still seemed a long way off. I kept thinking that I had another month, at least, before I’d want to use the bike.
When the first week of April arrived, and with it a few warm sunny days, I realized that I was never going to get around to building the bike myself, especially during crust season. The roads were getting dry and the snow in town was disappearing quickly. It was time to get ready for summer. So I dropped the bike off at a shop, they built it for me, and I picked it up a few days later.
Well, that night it snowed about a foot. A few days later it snowed again – eight inches. Then, this past Friday it snowed again – 20 inches at our house. That Friday storm produced the third-most snow Anchorage has ever received in one day. It is snowing again as I write this. This is now the snowiest April on record in Anchorage, and this winter, despite mediocre skiing from November to March, is now the 6th snowiest on record. Crazy.
Clearly this is because I prepared for spring by putting my bike together. Now I wish I had put my bike together when it first arrived. We really needed the snow back then, when it would have lasted two months, not two days. Oh well, now I know what to do on November 1st – buy a new bike!
