Yesterday the weatherman was predicting 4 to 6 inches of snow starting around noon. My hopes turned to school being canceled for the afternoon so I didn't have to go to any of my "real" classes. So like usual I got to campus around 7am to do my swim workout. I'm trying to ease back into it and get back in shape for the upcoming races this summer. After swimming I lifted weights and then went to cycling class. Once off the bike the anticipated email arrived on my phone. School was closing at 12:30. All I had left was karate class and then I was done for the day.
Heading home before the snow started, I stopped by Outdoors Inc on Germantown parkway to have my friend Matt McCulley fit me for ordering a tri bike. (We decided on the 56cm Cannondale Slice 3) By the time I left the shop the snow had started coming down and the bike shop employees had decided to do a group snow, night ride after work. Thankfully, Outdoors closed an hour early so we got to start our ride around 5:30. I road from my house to Andrea's figuring I would be safer going and coming home on a bike than in a car. I quickly realized this was the right decision. I flew past the traffic on Walnut Grove and got a few fist pumps from stand still drivers. By the time I got to Hope Church, about half way, I was already getting chain suck. I knew this was going to be a problem. I switched to the big ring in the front and an easy gear in the rear so a good bit of cross chaining. By the time I got to Andrea's my bike was completely iced over. My rear derailleur cage was a solid block of ice and I was forming some ice around my rear tire. When I would stop the slush would freeze up and lock my rear wheel. This was going to be fun. My mountain bike had picked up some aero qualities with a rear wheel cut-out now. I was also limited to essentially riding a single speed since all my cables and the drivetrain were completely frozen. Who needs gears though. A little rewarming at Andrea's while I waited for Kenny to get dressed was nice and then it was back out in the snow. Kenny, Andrea, and I started riding from Andrea's house towards shelby farms. Shredding through 6 inches of fresh powder over frozen packed trails was a new kind of riding. The good thing was that when we slid out and crashed we got to land in soft fluffy snow. Surprisingly we had pretty good traction on the roads even though they were pretty iced over. The trails were a little harder to ride since they hadn't been packed from cars driving over them. We were going faster than traffic on Walnut Grove and Germantown Parkway when we got there. After crossing over the Wolf River we rode back towards Germantown via the shoulder of Humpphreys until we got back to the Germantown Greenway which so graciously took our picture for us. From the Greenway, we made our way back to Parkway Liquors for a brief respite mid-ride. Starting back up again on Walnut Bend, Kenny started sliding out. Holding the slide for a bit, he eventually went down and slide on the road for at least 25 feet. Laughing and staring at the situation, I grabbed some brake and went down just the same. Sliding across the road on ice is a lot better than hitting it dry and leaving all your skin behind. Climbing the short hills on Walnut bend, we saw two men walking that we had previously seen on Germantown Parkway. Guess they had to abandon their cars and were walking home. All in all the snow ride was awesome. An epic time. A very fun ride that won't be forgotten.
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