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Thursday, December 30, 2010

A good day for a lot of miles.

Took my  last vacation day for the year today. Was messing around with my three bottle rack placement on the FatBack. Got that in order, and decided to head out from my house ride out through town and take the back paths to the Snow Mobile trails and Heritage trails Had to lower my tires PSI as soon as I hit the unploughed trails out of town. 
It was supposed to rain and be 40 degrees, it was 40 all day, but only and occasional mist. Thinking rain, I wore plastic, yeap plastic, cheap stuff but does keep me dry, when it rains. The expensive 'rain gear' I own sooner or later if I stay out long enough, gets me soaked. I ditched the 'plastic rain jacket early, I was overheating.
Snow was a foot deep, and I plowed along at 5 mph, and a lot of pedal work, and sliding around. The ride got a lot better once I hit the snow mobile traveled area. Saw a skier coming my way. It was my friend and owner of my LBS, Parrish. I first bought a bike there shortly after high school more then 35 years ago, it was a Jeunet, a French Road bike.

Parrish rides a bike hard three seasons out of the year. Then he does the cross country thing for his off season. He does both quite well and can compete well at either one.

I had plans to ride for 6 hours, and when I reached for my first drink I realized I forgot to put any fluids in my bottles DUH!!!!!

So I can wander all the way back home, or find a Mart out here. I saw a sign that pointed down a Snow Mobile path that said Eichman's So I followed. Was a GREAT ride, amazing path through the woods, along creeks, across creeks, up and down hills. Was totally amazing ride. Plus I found some drink. The clerk was amazed at my bike and someone riding like this in the winter.


I back tracked on the Snow Mobile trail hooked back on Heritage trail and rode further out. Turned around and headed home, daylight was leaving, and I didn't have a head light. The snow was melting and turning sloppy and slippery. My tires were spinning out, I was sliding out and dumping the bike. I started to push my bike through the snow.  As a last ditch effort I thought I would try to let almost all the air out of my tires and see if I could pedal. It WORKED!!! These 4 inch big balloon tires are amazing. I traveled along at only 4 mph, but I was back on my bike. Made it home as it was getting dark. Loved the ride. Is what I do.

So back to work for one day and then "hey hey it's the weekend"

RideON
DAVe

3 comments:

Harry Legge's Cycling Blog said...

See a friend, find a new trail, ride hard....perfection, bro, perfection!

tainterturtles said...

Sounds like you had an awesome snow ride. It's always nice seeing another humane out on the trail.

Should be a COLD weekend for riding. Bundle up!

Dan O said...

Wet snow is torture to ride though - nice work. Looks like you're getting plenty of use out of the snow bike.

Good luck to you and your family in 2011. Keep on blogging, I always enjoy checking out your posts.

Happy New Year.