I look forward to winter. I keep saying the funnest riding I do all year is the riding I do on snow with my Surly Pugsley in snow. I get giddy when the forecast calls for a snow storm. This year we had a very warm November. A very late frost, perhaps a record late frost. The wait for snow has been much longer than normal. But when the weather did change, it was abrupt. The two pictures above were taken from the same spot one week apart. Open water in one, snow covered ice in the other. I’ve been giddy. Saturday we had just enough snow to make it feel like snowbiking. I hit the MTB trails in my neighborhood. The temperature was 10F/12C degrees. That definitely made it feel like winter, finally.
There were other fatbikers out on the trails on Saturday as well. I remember when I bought my Pugsley, I rode all winter for 6 years before I saw another fatbike on the local trails I was using. What a change.
Sunday we had fresh snow when I woke up and light snow all day. By time I got out on the trails in the afternoon there was a powdery 2″ layer of the fresh stuff. I decided to avoid the MTB specific trails and ride some of the neighborhood multi-use trails. Mostly for a change of scenery from the Saturday ride. Some of these trails are snowmobile trails once there is enough snow. Right now there’s not enough for the snowmobiles to use the trails. To keep this short the rest of this post will be a picture post from my Sunday ride.
So good to have the winter season underway. If this would turn out to be a cold winter we could have snow on the ground until April. That’s a lot of snow bike rides to look forward to.
four season cycling 