Two Wheel Blogs

I went and SSed Binder today. I did all of Lakeside.

When I say I rode most of it the reader should keep 2 things in mind:
1. "Most" means any percentage greater than 50%
2. I am totally lying like a dog.

Someone once told me that a single speed actually has three speeds (spinning, grinding, and pushing) they were right...though sometimes is seems more like (grinding, pushing, and standing trailside barfing). Anyway, today definitely counts as SSing...even though the spinning was never employed, and the pushing was over used.

Some really neat notables:

Tire sounds
Knobby tires such as my new Nevegals make a really interesting sound in this deep snow. It is something like a stick being run down a picket fence. I can tell that these tires are going to be a force on loose soil and hard pack, but in the deep snow they drifted easily. On a few occasions I was able to ride some distance and get a decent amount of speed, but when the trail diverged from a straight line, things got really interesting. These tires simply could not hold on, but they were very predictable which is much more than I can say for many other tires I have tried. They drifted rather than lost traction in an explosive instant.

Snow Shoes
Someone had taken on a portion of the trail prior to my attempt. They left a trail of snow shoe foot prints. As deep as the snow was, this makes sense (to use snow shoes). I am impressed that anyone in this part of the country owns snow shoes though. When I lived in Michigan, many people had them...but Missouri? Whoever they were, they only traversed a portion of the trail....I was determined to do the whole thing.

Fish
The snow is really great for preserving a record of activity. You can really easily go a long time with out realizing all the on goings in the woods, but when it snows you see a nice record of all the travels of the animals. There were deer tracks that showed where urine sprays had occurred on trees. I saw squirrel trails between the holes that were dug in effort to either retrieve or hide nuts. There was a bunch of trails leading to and from the water...some had tail tracks (like a beaver) others not. Something evidently caught this catfish and drug a few feet from the water and consumed all the good parts...leaving the head for me to dodge. If you go into the woods only one time this year, make it a day or two after a big snow and see what you can learn from the tracks.

Drifts/Logs
Do you know how to tell the difference between a snow drift and a newly fallen tree that is covered with snow? You can't. I knew some were trees from memory, but many new ones fell and the looked just like the snow drifts. You simply treat them all like a fallen tree and play it safe. This was one of the many challenges I faced today.

Trail Condition
This one is sort of a joke, but here goes. There was no damage done to the trails today (by me at least). The snow is so deep still that they are still 80% un-ridable. The sections that are ridable require a great deal of balance, and power. Any time the trail turns up, you can not deliver the power to the ground in any snow deeper than about 4 inches. A few times I spun but still kept a bit of momentum...in these cases, I still got off and pushed because I was sure that the next spin would bring up mud.

The really bad news is when the snow melts enough that the trail is ridable, damage will result...so we are going to have to find another place to ride for a while.

As for today? It was really fun to experience riding in such odd conditions. Two wheel drifting was interesting and really not as scary as it sounds. The momentum sapping snow is also a factor. I was really amazed at times how hard it was to ride a typically easy section. The handling skills were definitely with me today...several times I impressed myself by stalling out on a rocky/snowy climb, and rather than clip out, I kept pushing and made it. I certainly looked like a boob though....so there was no glory.

Statistics
Today I set a record! No doubt about it, one hour and 20 minutes is the longest it has ever taken me to complete Lakeside. I did it backward (which seems to take longer), but normally, it takes far less than half that much time to complete.

I could type for hours about todays efforts. Lets keep is simple an just say, it was one of the hardest workouts I have had in a long time, and the woods were about as beautiful as ever. Nature seems to impress me more every time I allow myself to experience a little more of it. I wish everyone the good fortune to see and appreciate as much of it as possible.

Dabs? I lost count. As much walking/pushing as I did, I am not sure its even worth talking about...but I did not crash once, and that my friends is a decisive victory!