Monday, February 14, 2011

Snowy Trail Ride

I went over to Lake Orion High School on Saturday to ride the trails. The school has been trying to keep them clear to help promote some races being held there. The trails are a mix of paths through the fields around the school and trails through the woods.

As of Friday night, someone had posted that the trails were 95% rideable. So, Saturday morning, I prepped my singlespeed for the ride. I oiled the brake cables so that they wouldn't freeze (a tip from Icebike ), and I decided to put my clipless pedals on the bike, since the trail was supposed to be almost all rideable.

As it turned out, it was a pretty windy morning, and most of the trails in the fields were drifted over with about 6 inches of snow. Unrideable by me; so they required lots of pushing. The trails in the woods were clear and awesome though! I had a great time being back out on my mountain bike.


Even though a snowmobile had gone over here, the snow was still deep enough I couldn't ride it...

I learned a couple things though... since I was off the bike pushing so much, the clipless pedals and shoes were basically worthless. It didn't take too long before the pedals were packed with snow and ice and I couldn't clip in any more. Also, the velcro on my shoes got packed up with snow, and so it was also pretty worthless.

Cornering in the snow made me use all of my Gene skills. If I didn't look through the corner, lean the bike, and really weight my outside pedal, I'd feel like I was going to blow right through the corner. So, it was good skills practice.

It looks like we're going to have a little bit of a warmup this week. Probably not so good for more trail riding, but maybe it will mean I can get out on the roads a little. We'll see...


In the woods, the snow on the "groomed" trail wasn't even an inch deep. It was fast and fun!

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