The weather outside is... No. I am not going to start quoting lines from Christmas songs.

It is cold out there. When I left the house this morning, it was about 18°. Still, no big deal once you're pedaling for a few minutes. I was a little surprised about all of the snow on the Southside and Eliza Furnace trails, and even more surprised by all of the ice.

I have some knobbier tires on my bike right now, and I was pretty much okay. At the same time, it was light out, and I could see exactly where I should be going. This evening I'm going to go home through Bloomfield/Shadyside, because I don't feel like wiping out on ice that I can't see.

I'll be a lot happier when my Nokian Hakkapeliitta W106s show up. I ordered them on Friday from Peter White, so I'm hoping they'll be here before the end of this week. I'm just excited to have a tire that's called Hakkapeliitta.

At this point I'm 232 miles away from 4,000. I'm still hopeful that I'll make it. If I'm able to ride Western Pennsylvania Wheelmen's Solstice Century on the 20th, that'll knock off 62 or more of those (that's a metric century, mind you). We'll see what happens.