Biking under IBR

If you are familiar with flying, you understand that there are rules for flying with instruments or without.  If the visibility is sufficient, the pilot flies under VFR or visual flight rules, while if the visibility isn't adequate, the pilot will fly under IFR or instrument flight rules.  Unlike the captains of the "friendly skies", my friends and I biked this morning using IBR, instinctual bike rules, well, because we encountered some low lying "clouds".

This morning was no different than any other Saturday has been for the last 10 years; my friends and I had plans to meet for some sort of morning exercise.  The predicted temperatures were favorable for a morning bike ride.  We have agreed that a wind chill temperature of 18 degrees is "survivable" with the proper clothing adjustments, like foot and hand warmers.  However, even  in the cold, there is nothing like a refreshing morning ride with friends and the anticipation of a hot cup of coffee when it's over.

Today was slightly different than most days though, in that we all wanted to attend a walk through of the city's new community center.  Consequently, we had to map out a route that we could finish easily enough and still get our cup o' joe and head to the site.  However, in addition to the usual weather elements, we encountered some rather heavy fog.  This wasn't the first time we rode in the fog, but the visibility this time was a mere 50-100 yards.  Of course, we still went through with our plan and rode for an hour or so.  What was so eerie though was this feeling that we weren't going anywhere, even though we knew we cruising along at 15 miles an hour.  Although the Sun was peeking through from above, at this time of year, it couldn't quite heat things up enough to clear the air.  Nonetheless, we finished up on time, enjoyed ourselves, and most importantly, there was no one "MIA".

So, the next time you go out for a bike ride with your friends, be sure that at least one person in the group has their autopilot set to "IBR", instinctual bike rules, because if the weather isn't cooperating, then you can still enjoy a ride and return to base camp safely.  In our case, we knew that we would be welcomed home and the coffee would be a lot warmer than we would be!