First Commute of the Year

I had choices to make.
What bike should I ride for my first commute of the year? What should I wear?
The morning leg would be about freezing, whereas the afternoon was predicted to be in the mid 50's*F!
With the snow-pack holding steady at 2', the ride home was going to be wet.
So my choices were:

• Karate Monkey with clip on fenders,28x700c tires geared 1x8

• my Swift with DT and seatpost mounted fenders, also 1x8 with 29x2.25 tires

• my CX bike with just a DT fender

• or my Cannondale with no fenders.

Usually I'd be on the Fun Machine, but it was cannibalized during CX season, and never restored to it's former glorious full fendered state. Plus the whole "Plan" of learning how to efficiently ride a multi-speed bicycle.
Not being a fan of getting soaking wet, I chose the bike with the best coverage; Mary Jane.


Seems odd the bike I once raced on is now a 27+ lbs fendered commuter, but so she sits.
Only having a 34x12 top gear I was fortunate to find a pair of 700x38c hybrid tires left over from my Cycle Therapy days (bigger tires make an effective bigger gear).
I never in a million years thought I'd ever be excited about hybrid tires!



Even so, I wanted a bigger gear.
That being said, I never completely spun out the 12.
the 38's sure came in handy too with the broken pavement on Tunxis Rd; you'd think a route to the hospital would be more of a priority.
I was a little surprised Strava didn't classify the three main climbs on my ride home; Mine Hollow Rd, and Metacomet both climb over 300' with double digit pitches, and Hatter's road approaches 20%.

As far as dressing, lets just say I really need to wash my Craft cycling jacket; smells so bad I offended myself, but it is light enough that I was able to roll it up and put it in my jersey pocket for the ride home.