A Day On A Bike

Left at 9:30 this morning. After about 5 miles my finger tips were froze. Thought about turning around and going back home and putting on my lobster gloves to replace my full finger biking gloves. Instead I opened a pack of chemical warmers and slipped them inside my gloves. After a hour or so they warmed up, and I warmed up, chemical warmers were removed. I put them in a zip lock back, hoping they would be good again for tomorrow's start.


Riding was going ok, snow was froze enough most the time I could ride on top. There was a lot of hard ice, weaving in and out of ruts, trying stay in a good line, I was averaging about 8 mph. After 3 hours and 25 miles I thought I should turn around, to make it a 6 hour ride. WRONG!! The trail was now thawing, and sloppy, pedaling got considerably harder. I did something on a bike I have never done before. I was riding down the center of the trail and my tire was breaking through the crust and spinning and weaving all over. So I thought I would ride up on the edge of the trail, it was like a curb of snow and I turned into to side of the trail to hop up on the edge, and hopefully it would be a firmer ride. Well my front tire kicked out against the snow bank and the bike went one way, and I flew the other way. In those circumstances you get about a 1/4 of a second to think about what your going to break. The funny part of it was I never landed on my b(_!_)TT. I landed on my feet and slid and hopped across the ice and remained standing. I'd love to see a clip of that episode.

There are people across this creek, snow boarders and skiers at Sundown Ski resort. Finally made it home with 7 hours of riding time. A good work out the snow on the return trip was soft and slushy and whipped my butt, it was all mule work. Was a starv'n Marvin when I got home, went on a feeding frenzy. Now it's brewski time. :-) I think tomorrow I will ride the paved streets of Dubuque.

Thanks for stopping in.

Dave