Crazy NE weather and riding on messy trails.

As predicted the temperature went way up over the weekend. Consider that we had a low of below zero on Monday and on Sunday we went up over 60, that's a pretty big swing!

I considered riding the fat bike on Saturday morning, but even by then it seemed like things would be too wet and mushy (even though there was snow cover still left). I opted for a road ride spinning out about 38 miles. It felt great to get out on the road bike - that's a different kind of workout than the fat bike or regular mountain bike, you sit and spin as hard as you want to go for as long as you want to go. I thought I had a 45 mile loop in hand, but it topped out at 38 or so. I got home and saw the Strava feed with a few people who hit the trails and all had the same report - good to go. Darn, I would have liked to have gone on the fatty.

You can pretty much repeat that for Sunday, except I wasn't even contemplating a trail ride. We had a bit of rain overnight and the snow was completely gone. My yard was a mess of 1/2" of slime on top of frozen ground. I figured the trails would be complete slop. I got a few reports of people who went out and it seems some trails were ok. I think it was prudent to stay off the trails on Sunday. I convinced myself I had a good 45-50 mile loop and was disappointed again when I got home and Strava told me I had only ridden 38 miles again. There are certain roads I just don't like riding, the ones with short sight lines and narrow shoulders, that limits me to some degree, but the bigger limiter is probably my avoidance of major roads. I think I need to get to the point where I'm cranking out miles on Route 30 or 83 or something to get some distance. I have some ideas for the next ride. Sunday was overcast all day, but the temperatures got up to 60 degrees, I was riding in t-shirt and shorts and was 100% comfortable. Good ride and for whatever reason I was able to crank harder than on Saturday.

I hear people complain about that new ice melter the towns use (the green stuff) saying that it rusts cars. First I don't see that at all, our 2007 Fit has zero rust on it. Second from a biking perspective its a lot better than all the sand they used to drop on roads. Even after four storms in a row the roads were pretty clean. Although even that is relative, I got a nice spray tan from Sunday's ride.

Hopefully we get a solid freeze tonight and we can ride in the woods tomorrow. I have no idea how far down things have melted - I would have thought it was still pretty cold, but that snow melted fast.