brr

I love Tuesdays. They're one of my favorite days of the week. Especially on days like this one. It was cold, but it was also time to ride. Tuesday Night Ride was on point!

Paul was bundled up for the .1 degree weather.

Some of the riding was good snow.
Some was packed and snowed upon foot prints and tough to ride thru.
And I had no idea that some would be 6"+ deep. But it was fun. And it made you work hard enough to stay warm. Sort of.

Speaking of warm, beards are good.
Kind of like a sweater for your face. But insulated with an igloo. A form fitting face beard sweater igloo. Cozy. We managed to actually get in about an hour and a half. Some folks were freezing by then and some weren't. I was toasty warm with my Pearl Izumi Amfib gloves and my GTX Barrier boots. There's a lot of great apparel companies out there, but it's tough to beat Pearl for winter gear. Even though Chris and I were still good, we caved to the demands of our frozen brothers, called the ride, and headed back to the shop.

But wait! The fun didn't end there. Bstiff met up with the crew (cause he's smart enough to not ride in sub zero temps) and we headed to Oskars. Everything was fine and dandy until the manager started bringing out dishes of ice cream. First was Mama's Yella Pils caramel. Pretty good but not enough pils and too much carme. Then there was Old Chub, Velvet Elvis, and Ten Fidy ice cream. Last was some vanilla/oreo ice cream with wort from Dale's mixed in.

Yummy. We decided that our favorite was the Fidy ice cream. Vanilla with overtones of coffee and chocolate with a touch of beer taste. Yummy.

But wait, that's not all. Eat the ice cream now and you get a plate full of caramel apples. Oh yeah! We'll be back!

Brr, it's actually getting more seasonable

Rockin and I made it out for a post shop closing ride today. Shop close at 3 means that any long ride will be half day/half night. That's ok, just an excuse to use my Niterider lights, which is always good.

It was dry. Really dry. The dirt is really crumbly and following another rider means choking on lots of dust. We went in search of moisture but didn't make it all the way. Not one puddle was to be found, let alone 2. Maybe another ride. Sure was good to be able to still get up into the forest at those elevations in late November. My fingers and toesies were sure chilly when we were done. In fact, my fingers and toes still have the chill in them despite the fact that our ride was done hours ago. It's getting cold, too. We started our ride with waning daylight and 39 degrees. By the time we made it back to the car, temps had fallen to 28. Yeah, good stuff.

Tuesday ride? 6pm at the bike shop. We've got a couple things up our sleeves. Bring enough lights to get you a few hours, this could be a good one. Be ready for some steep steeps and cold temps, too. Maybe they'll serve us turkey at Oskars afterwards. :)

perimeter report

Man, it's been a while since I've been out in the forest. I think the week of BFR kinda did me in. (2) 7+ hour single rides in one week visiting all of the finest in the forest had me quite sated. Sated enough, in fact, that outside of Tuesday rides, I've been keeping 'er local. Not getting in the car to ride, as it were. Today was different. Out of the shop at 3pm, but not wanting to ride Hall Ranch again and not wanting to deal with crowds on Picture Rock, had me piloting my craft to the outer reaches of the five forty. Today's mission - perimeter patrol of the outer sectors as it might just be the last for the year.

It was good. I saw way more activity than I would've expected for deep forest exploration this time of year. By the way, what's up with all the skidmarks? I thought the backcountry was a place to get away from the Hall Ranch front range antics, no? Keep er under control fellas (and ladies). If you're skidding, you're not in control.
Rant off. At least the sunset was great. The fire in the sky was amazing.

November cloud formations were top notch.

And just like that, pffft! the light was gone. The trail was good. I turned on the light and made my way out alive.

I think I may have rectified my wiring connections issues as well. Anyone up for another round of night riding? Meetup Tues at the shop for Tuesday night ride and Oskar's open bluegrass pic.

Tomorrow is an exploration mission. Stay tuned!

nightriding on County land is bad

Just wanted to let all you blog readers know that fellow mountain biker, BMA member, and POSAC member, Jason Vogel just called from the County Commissioners board meeting on the Heil North Trailhead. Apparantly our good buddy Rudy called in to the county to complain about folks night riding at Heil so Jason called in to complain to me.

Night riding bad. Got it?

:)