If you thought your drive was snowy, consider Vic Colpert commute.
Around 10 am Monday (Feb. 2), as the cars inched past him on Oil Heritage Road near LaSalle Line, Colpert was pushing his bicycle up the hill on his way to help a friend in need on Gypsy Flats Road.
The Petrolia man, who moved here four years ago, uses his bicycle for a variety of reasons and saw no reason to stay home even though every school bus had been pulled off the road and many businesses didn’t open. When The Independent talked to the cyclist, Colpert wasn’t even aware of the snow day.
“I wondered why nobody was going to work this morning.”
Colpert doesn’t mind riding in the winter. “I don’t get sick,” he says adding it a healthy to get around. “Down to minus 15 is okay, after that, the wind chill, it’s too cold.”
Colpert has two sets of gloves, one for warmth and another to stop the wind. He says he curls his fingers into a fist while riding to keep them warm.
It doesn’t always work. During the recent cold snap he waited a little to long to protect his digits; they’re just now healing with the old dead skin breaking away from the newly formed skin.
And Colpert doesn’t mind the snow; the fluffy stuff is easier to ride instead of the hard-tire tracks.
Usually, Colpert makes good time on his bicycle, taking only a morning to make the round-trip Sarnia in good weather. But in the snow, he’s slower adding “It took me two hours to get home last night (from his friend’s house in between Petrolia and Wyoming) just because of the visibility.”
