Black (and white) Friday Ride

It is Black Friday and I decided to employ some good judgment and stay the heck out of the stores today. I'll do my Christmas shopping later, most likely at the last minute, thank you very much.

6" of fresh snow and sunshine. Had a brief window of opportunity while Little wRider was down for a nap so I went for a ride.

Here's a bit of what it looked like.

Trails were soft, but ridable.









A small dose of winter sunshine


That wasn't there yesterday.

Problem solved.

Thanksing Giving Day Ride

We had a bunch of friends over for a little Thanksgiving brunch/ quasi-competitive rally in the woods. After a week of sketchy, and downright dangerous, icy conditions we got some much needed snow. Came down heavy and wet for the better part of the day.


The race began with a mass start from the garage, and descended into further ridiculousness from there. Good times were had by all.

This is what Thanksgiving looked like outside my house.

Fat jug of juice on a fat bike.

When the start of a race looks like this you can pretty

much guarantee a good time.

And they're off!

This race was kind of an adventure race, alleycat, poker run, scavenger hunt, brevet, event.

Just doing what it takes to win.

It snowed almost all day. This is what it looked like
on Allman's ride home.
(photo by GSC)

Danny MacAskill: Way Back Home

Saw some sneak peak clips for this a while back. What can I say? It is like he has super powers. . .

thanks EB

Ready

I think I'm finally ready for winter. Which is good, because it has been here for a couple of weeks already. I'd done enough to deal with winter, but I wasn't all the way ready.


Today I got three sets of tires swapped out for studs. Two bikes worth and the truck.
Just in time too, apparently. When I took the studded crosscheck out for a ride I was doing some swerving and weaving to test the old studs out. I didn't bite it, but I was getting more sliping than I would like. Then I watched my neighbor slide right past the intersection to our 'hood in his diesel dualie. I put a boot down to test the road conditions, and sure enough, the little bit of freezing rain that was coming down had turned everything into glare ice. GUess I have to give the cheap old studs on the cross check more credit than I wanted to.

Got studs on Mrs.'s single speed, the cross check and the truck. Thought that was going to be the end of it. Then Cousin RyeN mentioned that he had some cheap 26" studs lying around, if I was interested. Looks like the Dummy won't be getting much time off this winter. That's fine by me.

-Bike Wrider

Need a Fix

I need a fix.

And I don't mean a fixed gear, although that wouldn't be bad either.

I haven't ridden in a couple of days. I threw the studded tires on last week and had a couple of sloppy, snowy rides before the weekend. Since then I've gotten out for a little skiing with the little dude, so I've managed enough exercise to keep myself sane, but I haven't ridden.

I'm finding myself a little extra stressed and edgy today, not usually my style. Sure there are all the usual stressors going on, and the days are getting short and dark, but I'm pretty sure that what I really need is just a few minutes on a bike and I would feel a whole lot better.

Looking forward to this afternoon's commute.

Madsen

So before we bought our Dummy these guys really had our attention.

Fair price for an urban hauling machine. I could get into a lot of trouble if I had a giant bucket with me at all times when I rode.

Ultimately we got a good deal on the Dummy and were more keen on having a cargo bike that was very offroad worthy. Otherwise we'd likely own a madsen.