When we awoke this morning it was clear blue and sunny skies. Methought, "A Perfect Day for a Bike Ride!" Silly me.
By about 10:00 AM the skies had covered the sun with low clouds and snow clouds were creeping eastward across the mountains between us and Albuquerque. The weather-guesser forcasters had warned about possible snow showers sometime today but I had fallen for the old "It's Beautiful Now" thing.
I was determined to get in a ride today anyway. Yes, it was starting to snow, but it was very light specks of snow and the wind wasn't terrible and it wasn't sticking to anything so I hoped I could get in a decent ride BEFORE the weather closed in with more seriousness.
With the weather so dicey I decided to leave Tinkerbell and Jazzy, the World's Most Wonderful Dogs, home alone. They were not impressed with being left behind, and they watched me don my cycling duds and followed me at my heels all the time I was getting ready in hopes I would not forget them. I left them behind anyway. I let them out to potty before I left in hopes they would not vent their frustrations by venting their bowels while I was gone.
I was planning to get in at least 10 miles today and hopefully 15 or so before the weather got too nasty.
I decided to first ride west to the Post Office and then back east for the longer section of the trek.
Here's a short clip from my new GoPro video camera, riding on the deteriorating bicycle path just before arrival at the Post Office, with a little ice to dodge. I was disappointed the video does not show the snowflakes blowing in my face.....
I was staying fairly warm enough..... except for my face. I was not wearing my ski mask, which would have certainly helped, and the snow particles stung a bit as they continued to lace the face. I decided to cut the trip short at about the halfway mark, and opted for getting home and back to the warmth of the wood stove.
The snow and cold were not the biggest problem today. My biggest problem was MUD, the sticky gooey kind. Saturday's ride was marred with mud problems too: The wheels on the recumbent were glommed with caked mud just from being carried up the one-mile goat-path road to our house from the pavement of Frost Road. The wheels on the Ford Exploder threw up enough mud to make the bike impossible to ride or even roll across the yard once I got it home. The bike is so wide the front and back wheels extend beyond the protection of the car body and the mud flying up from the wheels coats whatever is exposed. So, today, I determined to carry the bike out to the pavement in our trash-hauler trailer, since the bike would be inside the sides of the trailer box and hopefully avoid so much mud.
It worked, partially. Even though I largely protected the bike from mud, my BOOTS were caked with the nasty stuff even though I was treading lightly and trying to step on gravel and grass instead of the wet sticky stuff.
I actually had to use one of my vehicle's ice scrapers to scrape most of the mud off my soles so I could stand to get my icky feet up inside the cab of the vehicle.
While I was riding I noticed clumps of mud and weeds radiating out from my boots as I rolled along; a truly redneck fashion statement.
I have no data from the GPS or the Ham Radio APRS tracker today since for some reason I forgot the electronics cluster at home, and the icky muddy road was too much for me to make the trip back home just to retrieve the electronics. No sun peeked out during the ride so the solar panel was less than superfluous.
Ride Started: 2:02 PM Ride Ended: 3:12 PM
Temperature: 32 to 34 degrees F
Total Miles: About 7
Total Trip time: About an hour
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