Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Riding White Dirt

I am such an idiot! Why hadn't I done this before?!




I ended up taking my own advice that I gave to fellow KHS rider Matt, and ventured out my door onto the school's nordic ski and snowshoe trails. Since the school is on break and the trails aren't being maintained, I figured it was a good opportunity to put tire to snow without pissing too many people off. Plus, I deduced conditions were probably perfect since the overnight was well below freezing and the start of the day was below 40.
Fortunately I was right and soon found myself gleefully coasting down the trail with a huge grin!
The snow was hardpacked thanks to the season-long grooming snowmobile and the top layer has gone through enough melt/freeze cycles to leave a very grippy top layer. It really was as good as dirt, just noisy as hell!


Only open water, drainage sections could stop me. The few transitions from snow to ground were plain fun!



I followed the trails right down to the lake and checked it out, albeit with some trepidation. The conditions were perfect on top there as well. Plenty of traction. I would have loved to taken a spin around it, but i have no idea whether it's safe or not at this point. Sure seemed it though.


Conditions deteriorated pretty quickly as noon approached, especially sections in the sun. But I could still ride the snowshoe singletrack.
The saddest part is based on the week's weather, this was probably the last opportunity to get a ride in like this. Figures! Bring on the dirt then, well, mud first I guess.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm happy one of us got out there. Great pictures! I wish I could have made it. March '2010?