Winter Wonderland

So the day started out lazy enough. It was below zero when I woke up at my usual 5:45 AM. I hate this, because I get up at that time during the week out of necessity and on the weekends, especially when it's sub-zero outdoors, I'd like to be able to sleep in a little. My metabolism hits the ground running wheather I do or not. So today I was determined. I got out of bed and after the usual pit stops, I made some light breakfast. Then while it was still pitch black out, I went back to bed hoping for more rest/sleep. It wasn't working, so I turned on Sportscenter and that did the trick. A little background noise to ignore, but also to help me not think about 12 different things. It worked! I actually fell back asleep for 2 more hours, and I needed it. Kev had called while I was out and was trying to get someone to ride with him in the afternoon. I called him back and we agreed that his place would be best for a mountain bike ride since they got less snow on Thursday than the Cape. It was a beautiful, crisp, cold New England winter day with bright sunshine and blue, blue sky. At the 1:30 ride time it was about 20 degrees, so no problem at all on the mountain bikes. We hit some of the usual trails, but they looked and felt different in the snow. It had rained one night on top of 2" of snow that was on the ground, and then it went below freezing and hasn't been above it yet. So we had crunchy, crusty, icy conditions. Most of the time we broke through the crust and fought to make the climbs. The woops, of which there are thousands all had little ice pads at the bottoms. So it made for interesting line selection. Kev had a pair of studded tires on his bike and I just went with regular treads. It was a blast. We rode for 2 hours and did a nice loop on one of the cranberry bogs as well as miles and miles of single track. Much of it was like riding soft sand since you sunk into the snow so much. So we didn't ride a lot of miles, but we sure got a good workout. It's easy to stay indoors or do other things in this kind of weather, but it's so rewarding to ride in these conditions, because so many don't. You don't know what you're missing! Anyone can ride when it's nice out, but with a little attitude adjustment we can convince ourselves that it IS nice out!
Thats all for today, JB