JAN 15, 2010 – 12:00AM

First of all, before I’m accused of never being happy with any riding conditions, let me say this: I’m thrilled — absolutely ecstatic — to be back in the saddle.

After the Great Winter Layoff, it feels so good to get out and spin again.

But I do have one minor little nitpick about recent rides: slush.

I know that when you get five fathoms of flakes, as we did over the past two months, and the temperature hovers around absolute zero, as it has almost as long, when the mercury finally climbs to a balmy 40-plus, all that precip has to go somewhere. And when that precip is piled up as high as an elephant’s eye on every street corner, curb, end of driveway and even a few scofflaws’ sidewalks, the nature of urban design dictates that snow will melt, flow over all those asphalt surfaces and pick up every speck of dirt, dust, mud, sand and salt in its path.

And then deposit it on any vehicle that drives over it.

In the car, of course, it results in a constant gray glaze on the windshield, which can be remedied if you’re lucky enough not to have forgotten to use freeze-proof wiper fluid. If you forgot, however, I hear April’s a good month to be able to see out your windshield.

The other result: car boogers, those gray collections of sludge, ice and slime that collect behind the wheel wells before falling off, inevitably, in the garage. (Unless you’re my OCD wife — and chances are good you’re not — who attacks the slurds at every parking lot and intersection with a passion and intensity that, I have to admit, I find a little frightening).

On the bike, however, all that gunk ends up on, well, the bike. And the cyclist.

I return from rides this time of year feeling like I’m wearing a layer of film. It coats bikes and glasses and clothes and eyes and teeth.

Worse, it seems to drain the world of all its color, like somebody fired up a copy of Photoshop Earth and cranked the saturation slider down to -50.

A couple of days ago, the city was treated to a bit of beautiful freezing fog. I thought I had awakened in an Ansel Adams print.

Two days later, the temperature was in the 40s, and I thought I woke up in an old gym sock.

The film and the monochromatic theme make the world seem like “1984” or “Children of Men” or any other futuristic/apocalyptic feature film.

The shades-of-gray color scheme tends to disguise ice patches and camouflage potholes, too. Throw in the lack of adhesion brought about by the Big Melt, roads still narrowed a bit by lingering drifts and decreased visibility all around, and rides these days tend to be additionally challenging.

But at least I’m riding.

Now if you’ll pardon me, I have this irresistible urge to go brush my teeth.