The weather, drivers, fear, panic, starvation;not a bad day to ride.

   As you probably guessed from the title, a number of things influenced this photo absent post.  Today, we are bracing for what is promised as the "storm of the season."  'We have not had any of the usual heavy snows we get here in western Michigan and this promises to get us caught up.  It brought to mind the number of comments I have heard from people about cycling in the winter and I guess I really don't "get it" (the fear, that is).
   Over the past few weeks I have heard comments on forums and other blogs, that drivers are less considerate, more aggressive, the streets are terrible, nothing works right, we are all going to die...I just don't see it.  If anything, I think drivers this winter have proven to be more considerate and vigilant than what I experienced in the past.  I'm more aggressive riding my bike in this weather than I am in the summer; more likely to take over the lane for visibility and people just seem to respond, and politely.  I am even getting irritated with people yielding to me when they shouldn't.  It's a nice gesture but they shouldn't screw up the whole traffic pattern, after all, I only expect to be treated like another vehicle.
    The other day a cop stopped to talk at a coffee shop and told me I was really brave to ride in this weather, when I told him he was ten times more likely to be injured or killed in his car; he looked off into the distance, thought for a moment and said, "that is very true."  Hell, that's just in normal conditions, in the winter there are so few cyclists out that we stick out like a Mormon in a whorehouse and there aren't enough of us around to really piss off drivers.
   Well, anyway, I had to ride over to the post office to get some paperwork in the mail, stopped at the grocery on the way back and couldn't believe my eyes.  Here in Michigan where 8' is the average annual snowfall, people were packed in like it was South Carolina and possibility of flurries predicted (in SC they do think the world will end cause they "ain't never seen 't 'fore").   Glad I wasn't looking for milk, there wasn't much left.  My neighbor greeted me at the door of our building and said; " you are crazy to be out, there are idiots on the road, what are you thinking'...etc.etc.  Oh well, things  work out, I'd been wanting to meet her since I moved in....