Sunday, January 04, 2009

Picture Rock, Winter, and some kick ass winter shoes

Snow ride, take it easy - Snow ride, take it easy,
Snow ride, take it easy - Snow ride, take it easy.

I'm in the mood, the snow is just right,
The snow is perfect, we can roll into night.
Oooh, oooh, snow ride - oooh, oooh ...

Snow ride, take it easy
Snow ride, take it easy



Snow ride, take it easy - Snow ride, take it easy
Snow down, go down, got to get your ridin' one more time
Slide me, roll me, snow ridin' Heil Ranch you're so fine

Woo!



I'm in the mood, the snow is right,
The snow is perfect, we can roll into night.
Oooh, oooh ...

Snow ride, take it easy - Snow ride, take it easy
Snow down, go down, got to get your ridin' one more time
Ride me, slide me, snow ridin' hell yeah, it's so fine

(Snow ride, easy, snow ride, sleazy - Snow ride, easy, snow ride, sleazy)

Great ride at Picture Rock today with Dough, Chad, and Jen G. Man, trail conditions were absolutely perfect. The snow was light and fluffy. Crunchy and full of traction. Coming down, the snow was so good you could hear it squeaking the whole way down. Squeakey like cheese curds, it was. (like Han Solo piloting the Falcon thru a meteor field. It was rocky and we were playing pinball.)

It was freakin cold today, too. We didn't leave until 3:30 or so, too, so we got the dusk lap. I think it was 10 degrees or so. I was happy to have my Pearl Izumi Barrier GTX winter shoes. Seriously awesome shoes. I've been in these for a few weeks now. They've been great - beyond expectations. When I first picked them up, my first thought was that these shoes were way to light to make a good winter shoe. Not so. They fit great, have a Gore Tex waterproof and windproof liner, and they're slathered up with a whole bunch of insulation. The design is pretty sweet, too.
Hello ski boot technology, meet bike shoes. The inner shoe and Gore Tex liner is on the inside, with a pull tight lace up system, while an insulated and rubberized outershoe is on the outside. Remember, don't forget your rubbers. I've only 2 issues with the shoe, and both are negligible. First is the fact that, while riding in 10 degree weather, you still need to wear thick wool socks. Make sure to size up the shoes at least half a size. The other beef, I only noticed on the first ride. The inside of the shoe has a seam that seemed to catch on my cranks, but I haven't noticed it. Not sure if it was a break in thing or just my poor riding technique that night. The seam has seen zero damage so far so all is good. If you ride in the winter and it's remotely cold, you need a set of these shoes. That good.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Brrr, that looks like a cold ride. Glad I had my snowboard boots on yesterday!

redstone said...

It was chilly probably no matter what you were riding :) I got out again today it was so good.