Arctic white

Pilot & Alien peace pow-wow

Golden brown to arctic white in a day. We awoke to 5 degrees this morning and 3-4" of squeaky new snow on the ground. Beautiful outside, but a bit colder than was forecasted but I decided to ride anyway. My usual cut-off temp to ride down has been 10, but they forecasted a low of 15 last night so I got all psyched to go. I am in the zone these days, I am loving the rhythm of the bike commute. Although I keep having to relearn the obvious lessons i've been taught by Mother Nature many times before like don't change your tried and true setup at the last minute. (I wore too much and sweated too much.) But other than that, I was golden. the Hunter with the Nokian studs stuck to the ground like glue. Without studs, it would've been treacherous, or at least stupidly treacherous instead of totally do-able.

The 'drop' into the canyon was relatively nice even though the temperature never really warmed up from Siberian Valley Ranch's 5. A documented rare occurrence - there was a place colder than my house! The Redneck had zero temps at his house (down the road a few miles). Even with the Moosemits and my favorite Ibex Climawool gloves with liners, my fingers started to get a little cold; my big toes were already gone. Wish they made Moosemitts for the feet! I want to try out the Lake MXZ302's instead of the packed out 10 year old Northwave's but we'll see what Santa says. The word on the dirt road is that they wear out fast. Anyone else have experience with them?

KingNIMBY and fam passed me mid-downhill but I caught up with them towards the bottom. Per their suggestion, I hopped in the car for the middle section of the commute (along a high speed narrow canyon with many cars that wasn't plowed very completely) so I wasn't an hour late to my 8:30am meeting. (Studded tires are SLOW! This was an upslope storm too, so there was an abnormal headwind on the way down.) Good thing I nabbed a ride, as the road was a mess and it seems like nobody remembers how to drive in the snow anymore.

More cold on the way. This wasn't supposed to be the coldest day of this week. As i write this it's -10 and the dogs can't go outside without almost immediately laying down and holding up their cold paws with looks of sheer horror. Then they limp and crawl back inside and sit next to the fire.

(Note to self: allow 2 hour commute time with snow on the ground and using studded tires).