Short Friday Snow Ride

This Ride: 25.9 miles
Month: 128.9 miles
2011: 128.9 miles
Cumulative Total: 6,248.6 miles

This was a great ride!  At 5:00 am the deck was clear.  The forecast snow had not yet arrived.  By 5:30 it had snowed enough to cover untreated surfaces and completely covered my car.  I pushed off anyway, got to the trail, and by then it was snowing hard enough that every half mile I had to wipe the snow off my glasses.  My lenses kept fogging up, and snow was building up on my brakes, in my fenders, and on parts of my frame.  I wondered if anyone else would come ride.  Soon Bryan was there, then Dan, Mike, & Clint arrived.  We had fun taking photos in the snow and telling stories about how each of us thought we might be the only ones out … until we saw tire tracks in the snow.  We pushed off and were joined quickly by Chip.

This was a slow ride.  We were riding on new snow most of the time on the trail.  By the time we got to Old County Road, my cassette was completely snow covered/packed except for the gear the chain ran through.  I had 4 inches of snow sticking out like the prow of a ship on my head tube.  I stopped for photos by Bryan and dumped snow out of my front fender.  Once back on the trail, I stopped, removed my front fender, attached it to my handlebars and continued on.  That helped a good deal.  With the fenders on I had to push through the built up snow and it felt as though I was riding up hill.  The snow shower had been tapering off since we left the Rusty Bridge, and by the time we were at the end of the trail, it was no longer snowing.

Every few miles, we would examine one another’s bikes and marvel at the build up of snow on the various components.  For a while, I had no rear brakes, ice had formed on the brake pads.  Not that we used the brakes much anyway.

We arrived in Annapolis without incident.  We had a good breakfast at the Hard Bean, made obligatory calls to those who should have been out riding with us, and pushed off late to return home.  On our way back, we went up Francis street, past the government building where the incendiary device had gone off in the mail room yesterday.  News trucks lined the street, and there were at least half a dozen television cameras across the street from the entrance to the building.

The ride back home was at a comfortable pace.  My tires and bike remained mostly snow free on the return trip, but Chip was accumulating snow like crazy.  We figured tire composition combined with changing temperatures contributed to the differences in snow accumulation at different times on different bikes.

I chose to end the ride near home this morning rather than extend it as I usually do on Fridays.  I have plenty of work to do catching up after being on vacation after Christmas.  I’ll post photos later, once I get access to Bryan’s photos.