Snow-bike!

The snow persisted today and, after a short trip to Oskaloosa, I got the MTB out for something that started as a joyride and ended as training punishment. It was similar to riding on rollers or a trainer the whole time but still a lot of fun. 

Just about ready to head home, it's warm enough that snow won't stay on the car. 

Picked up a little ice from the highway.

Geared-up and heading out. The flakes coming down were massive and soaked anything they came in contact with. I was pretty good on waterproof/windproof clothes except that I was wearing regular jeans. 

I'm really the only person who had this idea?

This gives you an idea of how much the snow stuck to everything. What you see on my helmet there collected in just a couple miles. My jacket is beading it off for the most part.

Found a small section of trail where the Army Corps had started plowing it. 

Most of the way, there was about 1" of slush with 2" of snow on top. Out in the foresty areas, there was a little more - it would go over my shoes when I stopped. This type of snow had some nice bonuses v/s super-cold weather snow. Mainly in that the front wheel doesn't throw a continuous stream of it at my legs and shoes while turning.

The above bridge is where I turned around. I could feel the wind now and then on the way out but it was brutal on the way back, leaving me spinning on the big end of the cassette while thinking about dropping the crank to its small ring, and that was on the flat. Wind plus snow-resistance also meant pedaling hard down hill. Good ride.

Weather data courtesy of Weather Underground

Is this guy getting kicked by a giant winged boot?

More snow-biking soon hopefully, we're seeing Colorado's multi-foot blizzard today. It's a little worse for wear after travelling so far, but it's still producing snow. We'll see what happens.
Weather data courtesy of Weather Underground

It was a little foggy today.....

.....in the frosty forest.

Rolling through the black.

This

Weather data courtesy of Weather Underground

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The weather has been so warm that I've started riding outside again. This means going at night, which is fine, because 10w of LED light will fix that. I hadn't used this light for a while so Monday was a bit of a let down, not remembering how dim it really was. I could see well enough to not crash but certainly not great. By the time I got back, I could barely see at all and wondered if the battery was perhaps getting low. After charging it overnight, the light was now a retina-destroyer of a machine. Much better. About half-way out to my turnaround point on the next ride, I had one car flashing their brights at me from the road, and another honking as they went by. Perfect.

Helicopter cloud. That is all.

Crushing The Pow

Yep, I should have worn gloves. The extra core heat left after I stepped off the rollers made me feel like it's not really all that cold out. I put on a hat, coat, and rolled out on the studded MTB. I made it about a third of a mile before noticing that the wind was blowing quite briskly at my back as I'd been moseying along, taking pictures and hitting small drifts. Turning around to head back, I thought "Oh there it is" as my face and hands started to burn. Long story short, I could still use a doorknob when I got back but not well. 

Weather data image courtesy of wunderground.com

Shoeing the steed and slacking the day away.

In an effort to ensure that it never snows or freezes again, I decided to make use of my New Year's work holiday on Monday by switching my mountain-bike tires over to studded type for the season. I mean, it's January - about time right? Never mind the fact that we've yet to have snow stick around for more than 8hours in this whole winter season so far. Even more impressive, as I sit here and type this, we just broke the all-time high temp. record for today by five degrees. Spring must be right around the corner?

Wheels off, Ridgelines waiting to be removed. I think I might replace these with some more aggressive tread in the spring. They've been to Moab twice and work great on the hardpack/slickrock out there but are far from happy in the loose stuff here.  -Not shown: the oil reservoir on my rear brake handle started leaking while upside-down. Yay. 

Continental Spike-Claws back for another season. At the usage rate these are seeing, they'll certainly die from age before they wear out. 

Conti's installed and ready to roll. A quick test-ride in the house confirmed what my memory said when it reminded me that these are a death-trap on hard surfaces, almost like riding on ice with regular tires. 

Later that day, Cody informed me that he recently bought a slackline. "WTF Awesome!" I said to myself. I've been thinking of doing the same for quite a while. Some trees were found and a test-setup was made.  After about 30-45-minutes at this, we'd gone from: difficult to get one step on to walking/stumbling about half of it repeatably. Not too bad I think, half a day when it's warm enough to stay out would make easy work of walking the whole thing. 

Cody giving it a whirl. 

Me walking out. I think this was one of my later attempts after I had to put my shoes and socks back on. I had minor issues with my toes being completely numb when going barefoot for a while. The temp. was something like 19°F and the wind was blowing like crazy. Barefoot is definitely easier though.

I had a picture on my phone that I almost forgot about. Corrine and I checked out a new liquor store (Saturday I think?) which looks like some combination of a gas-station and a warehouse inside but has a really impressive selection of stuff. I had to photograph this huge Grey-Goose bottle. The small brown bottle to the right of it is a regular size 750ml of rum.