Ice, ice baby

I got the chance to take a little ride around the pond down the street this morning, good times. Ice riding is always fun.

Road ride

I really enjoy road riding, but its even more fun when you can get a group together (or even just another person). Today I took a bit of a comp day for all the time I spent traveling this week. I actually had planned on taking the whole day off, but while I was on my plane journey home from the UK I got five conference call requests that I had to join. I ended up working until 1:30, not much of a day off.

My friend John had put out a call for a road ride today, he came up to my house this afternoon and we did 22 miles at a good clip. John and I are pretty well matched on a road bike, it was really cool to draft - its really amazing how much effort you save with drafting, John is pedaling and I'm behing him braking to keep from running into him. At the post ride beer session it was funny to hear him say that he thought I did too many pulls, it sure seemed like I wasn't doing enough when we were out there.

Its really motivating to have someone else along - I still have a lot to learn about turning with a road bike apparently. I almost crashed into a snow bank today when I didn't quite make it around a corner at speed. It was good to watch John crank through those same corners. Grabbed a KOM today and moved my times up on a few sections.

Great ride, now I am completely spent, its approaching midnight in the UK and I'm feeling it big time.

Ski today

I had very limited time to do anything today, we got 3" of new snow last night so I figured a ski would be a good idea. The air was warm and the snow sticky, it made for a long slog. I got a good work out in, but it was kind of like having two very long snowshoes, very little glide. I was able to clear the skis off for the descents so there was a bit of fun. Off to the UK, I hate red-eye flights, but that's about all you can get to Europe. I'll be a zombie by the time I get to sleep tomorrow night.
The view from about 3/4's of the way up Soapstone mountain - nice view, though a bit gray today!

Afternoon bug out

There's still a lot of snow on the ground, but I owed myself a little outside/exercise time and it was relatively warm out. I grabbed the road bike and did a 25 mile loop around Tolland. Nothing spectacular and it was another "I'll ride as fast as I want to" ride. I don't think I pushed the pace once the whole ride. It felt great to get out there and pedal though. Bright blue skies, sun, warmish temps, it was an excellent use of two hours. Going to try and ski tomorrow, then its off to the UK for 3 days of exciting process meetings yeah!

One more from the weekend

Dawn and I went for a snow shoe (can I use that as a verb?) at Crandalls today. It was a mix of walking over a packed path, which was pretty uneven and fresh tracks. The fresh tracks were tough, it was like walking on a stair climber the whole way. I guess either I'm fat or these snow shoes are made for less deep snow than we have today. We only were out for an hour or so, but it was fun to get out there and enjoy the snow.

My phone slipped before the self timer went off, actually came out pretty cool anyway.

Blizzard of '13

Probably going to be a long entry, so strap in...

I went to Florida for a conference last week, it was sunny and 80's the whole time I was down there. Of course I was inside 95% of the time, though I did get to attend one meeting outside. Just knowing it was that warm out made it nice. When I checked in on line there was an offer to sell my seat for $200 or something, yeah, I'm going to sell my seat on the last flight out. With the impending weather I knew that was the last chance to get home before Sunday, earliest.

Anyway, I seemed to have picked up a stomach bug at the conference. I hear about people getting sick at these things all the time, but this is the first time I can remember getting something. I washed my hands like I had OCD, but you never know. Given how quickly it came on and left, I suspect it might have been food poisoning too - who knows. All I know is I spent my birthday laying on a couch hardly able to get to the sink for a drink of water.

Then the storm came.

We certainly have had more snow on the ground than this before, but I can't recall getting this much in one storm. I usually like watching the storm unfold on the radar and watching outside, but due to my aching gut, I didn't get to enjoy that part of the storm. It stopped snowing around noon time on Saturday, it really was amazing just how deep the snow had gotten over night.

I took some sleeping pills on Friday night so I really didn't hear much of the wind, but its obvious from the drifts it was blowing!

Dawn was stuck inside working all day (man her job is tough!) so I manned the snowblower by myself. I was out there for almost 5 hours, thankfully my '79 5HP Craftsman held up (really quite surprising).

I could only take 3" cuts with the snowblower and even then it would only throw the snow about a third of the way across the driveway, that means 1/3rd of the snow was moved twice and a third was moved 3 times, it made for slow going. I gave up on the snowblower for a very short time, but shoveling was so much harder. It was quite a workout for the upper body, my arms and stomach muscles were sore this morning! Dawn came out and helped me for the last half hour or so. I was so happy to see her. I was really close to giving up. Jackie actually enjoyed being outside with us too. The finished product:

They came down our street with a pay loader (first time I've seen that!), the mounds at the end of the street are about 15' tall, huge considering this is one storm's worth of snow.

 Despite all that you have to admit it is beautiful:

Today I took my mountain bike with the studded tires on it for a tour of the town, I did maybe 10 miles. Those studded mountain biking tires are the antithesis of road tires, slow and sticky! It was quite a workout, but the studs proved to be a good option, there were a lot of icy spots and snow covered roads. My cell battery died pretty quickly in the cold, but I got one shot of the Tolland Marsh: I spent another hour digging out the wood pile and straightening up the driveway a bit more. Now I have to dig some potty paths for the dog. Luckily not much snow on our roof so I think we'll be ok with the impeding rain.

Salmon River

I joined a group ride in Salmon River today, 11 hearty souls braved the somewhat cold temps - it really wasn't that bad once you got going - luckily (?) there's enough hill there to keep you warm. We tried out a supposed new trail that ended up going nowhere, but then got to the good stuff - a solid 3 hour ride at a good pace - a few mechanicals, but nothing too bad considering there were so many people.

Off to Orlando for a week of yay-rah-rah sales stuff - I can't really say I'm looking forward to it, but it will be great to see all the people I work with all year in person - one of the negatives of working from home.

Frozen goodness and a little trail work

I got out this morning for a quick spin around Crandalls. The trails were frozen solid and very fast, it was a great morning for a ride, I only wish I had more time. I found a bunch of downed trees and branches and cleared what I could along the way. Somehow even with getting off my bike a bunch of times I still nailed two KOMs. Weird, I really didn't think I was going that fast. It makes me want to get out there tomorrow and really lay down some fast times.

This afternoon Dawn and I headed out with the chainsaw and we cut out five or six fallen trees. There are a few trails I didn't ride on this morning or hike this afternoon, so I bet there is still some stuff out there to be dealt with.

Can't wait for tomorrow's ride!