cold, bumpy ride

Tom H emailed about doing a trail ride for yesterday, as the weather was going to be cold for a road ride... but I was working, and Laura OLPH had scheduled glass-blowing, so we weren't going to show up. Tom indicated, in his usual endearing fashion, that we both sucked, of course. But Laura decided to post a trail ride along the D&R today, as well.

It was 27°F when I got to the start. I rolled around a bit when I got the bike together...

Those white flecks on the tire are frost. Yeah, it was cold.

But Ricky G, Chris C, and Andrew A joined us.

Above: Chris's bike is named "Winnie the Pooh, and Tigger too", because it has a spring in the tail. (This is evidently a reference to the Disney Pooh; there's no such reference in the book...)

Off we went. As we were riding along the towpath, with the canal to our side, I had frightening thoughts of falling over into the canal, and how I'd probably freeze solid right in place. I decided I'd not ride two abreast in the narrow bits.

But as long as the path was frozen, riding was easy; the frost kept the to layer in place. Chris showed off his considerable mountain-bike skills by picking lines that broke the most ice and went through the worst mud, where there was mud. I tried to pick lines that would allow me to maintain my balance. It didn't help that the spillway looked like this...

... or that some portions of the towpath below Rocky Hill, no doubt washed away in the recent floods, looked like this:

(It may be that some of that is fill, and reconstruction efforts are underway.)

It was a beautiful winter day.

All we did was ride up to Griggstown and turn around and come back. We decided against a break (the scale is complaining about my intake of holiday junk...)

We were about four miles from the end when I caught a frozen ridge in the path with my tire and went over. I wasn't hurt, but I got muddy... and it's too cold to clean the bike. It's making me nuts.

Dumb ride page; just up and back.