November Rides

[north woods gal]

Thanks, folks. I'm fine, just bump and bruise sort of falls, nothing serious. Fortunately, both spills took place at the very top of the descents before I had gathered any speed. On a good day, have clocked myself up to 18 mph on both by the time I hit the bottom. With all the trees, brush, rocks and debris along the trails, a crash at that speed could be fatal.

Yeah, I really did enjoy the road work. It included a mile of tricky gravel/sand, but even that wasn't as intense as trail riding, and, of course, the Krampus is completely at home on the gravel. As you say, Sheila, nice to be able to go anywhere you want with such a bike. As a matter of fact, when I got home with the Krampus, just added another mile of trail work to make it a combination pavement, gravel/sand road and trail ride. The only time the Krampus or other plus bikes can't keep up with fat bikes is on the roughest trails or when conditions go really extreme - deep mud, snow, sand or when things get really icy. I dream about a cross continent adventure trip and doubt it'll ever happen for me, now, but if I did attempt such a ride, the Krampus or ECR would be my bike of choice.

[Crankin]

Your ride sounded perfect and glad you are not hurt, north woods!
So, I woke up around 6:45, which is late for me. Sometimes, when I sleep later, I wake up feeling horrible. Not sure why, or if it's that when this happens, my body is telling me to rest. We've had crazy temperature fluctuations, and of course I was away in a place that was fairly cold at night (35) and in the AM, but warming up to 60-ish during the day. Perfect, in my mind, but it plays with my allergies. I waited to have my coffee, to see how I felt, downloaded the group ride on my GPS, but I kind of knew I wouldn't be going. DH is working from home today, and since it is unbelievably warm (57 right now) for this time of year, he planned to ride. So, we set out to do a pretty flat route, I always enjoy. Planning what to wear was tough. It was breezy, with a couple of good gusts, too. I had to stop at mile 8 or 9, to take my head cover off, and, I unzipped a lot more. Shoud have worn knickers instead of light tights and a vest instead of my jacket. After we stopped, we were heading into a stiff cross breeze and I felt like crap. Up to this point, my average was over 15, but I couldn't maintain it, and I asked DH to slow. I did fine going up the one small hill, but every other little false flat felt like torture to me. DH and I got separated near home, as we had a series of traffic things, a huge wide load truck pulling a boat, a truck stopped, a guy who almost right hooked me (I was on guard at this point though and stopped to let the jerk turn, with no signal. I knew he was going to do it). I let him get ahead on the last 2 miles as I crawled home at 12 mph. We did about 19 miles and my average was still ok.
Even though I suffered through some of it, I am really glad I went, since it's almost December and it was above 55 when we were out there. The temperature is already starting to go down and it is really windy out there. I don't think I am going to get to ride this weekend. Our friends are coming to stay over for our theatre weekend, and though it's going to be in the 40s, which we are fine with, they don't really ride in the cold, below 50. So, I guess we will hike.

[north woods gal]

Glad you got out, Crankin. Yeah, in-betweener kind of weather can be tough to guess as to what to wear. Our weather, up here, seems less prone to radical changes than in other places I've lived.

Almost forgot about sharing the road with jerks in vehicles. Don't see much of that, up here, and that's just fine with me. I'm very fortunate in that regard. Chicago was really nasty that way. Could never let down my guard for a second.

Hard overnight freezes have solidified the mud on the trails, so no spills, yesterday. Plus, being frozen hard, the trail was very fast. Yes, trails can vary in how "fast" they are, one day to the next. On my long downhill runs, I have trees at the bottom which I use as markers to see how far I can get without having to pedal. Super hard trails are tooth rattlers, though. That's the other side of the coin. All part of the fun, though.

[Crankin]

You were brave for riding in Chicago. This is just a small congested area in the little village center of west Concord. It is busy at rush hours, lunchtime (which it was), or when the commuter rail stops. We can avoid it, but it is the most direct way home. A mile or so, you are in rural suburbia!

[ny biker]

I rode last night, for the first time since before Thanksgiving. Didn't get started until 10 pm(!). Before leaving work I posted a club ride for Sunday and created the cue sheet in Excel, but when I tried to save it I discovered that all the directories on my pc had been set to "Read only." WTF? As near as I can tell this was due to an update to Windows 10 that occurred while I was out of town. In all I wasted about an hour dealing with it -- figuring out what settings to change and having to reboot which meant I lost the Excel file that I was unable to save. So I repeat, WTF, Microsoft? Then when I finally got out of the office and to the community center where I start the ride, I was a bit disorganized after two weeks off the bike, and the tires needed air, and I was hungry so I needed a snack, etc etc.

Anyway. On all my recent night rides, I was overdressed. Yesterday we almost hit 70 for the high temp so I figured it wouldn't be cold for a night ride. Ha ha. It turned out that last night was the weather I was dressing for on those other rides -- in the 40s, dry and cold. But of course I was wearing fewer layers because high temp of 70. Fortunately I warmed up eventually, but not until after I decided to shortcut the route a bit. In all I rode 16 miles. I finished around 11:30.

Next week we are due for "wintry weather." I don't know yet if that means winter precip or just colder temps. Seriously hoping for the latter. So it might be too cold to ride at night. I have more layers that I can put on, but after a while it is just so hard to move with all those layers, I feel like kid brother Randy in "A Christmas Story" when he can't put his arms down.

[north woods gal]

NY, if you ever want any winter weather, I'm there for you. Just holler.

Actually, can't complain about our weather this week. Highs have been just above freezing all week and it's been dry, too. Very windy, today, though. Had to dodge a lot of downed limbs. Looks like tomorrow is going to be a trail cleanup day.

Put up our bird feeders, today. We only feed birds in the winter as a way to keep bears from becoming a nuisance. Will take them down next March. Sometimes takes a day or two for the birds to get out the word that our feeders are up. Now the wait begins ...

[north woods gal]

Whoo hoo! Great month for me. Despite rain, snow, ice, mud and cold, I managed to ride every day in November. Never missed a single day. Also broke 200 miles of riding trails/singletrack on the MTBs and fat bikes. That's a first for me. Did some road miles, too.

On to December.