A flurry of snow

Glen at Riverside State Park

Yesterday it snowed all day: excellent light powdery snow. Glen, Joe, and I took a spin around RSP. My plan was to wake up early this morning and do some x-country skiing around Manito. But after gearing up and opening the door, it's clear the snow is now on the way out. It's like 40 degrees out there. The snow is mushy and wet and shitty. Shoulda taken the ski option last night.

Instead, I'll post some pics. There has been much Pugsley'ing over the last week or so.

Maddie was at Schweitzer with her cousin for a week of snowboarding. Liza and I went up and hung for a couple days. I brought the Pugs to try out the Nordic trails there. It was not rad. I think mainly this is because I rode the trail after a bunch of snow dumped on it and before it had been groomed. The views and scenery were beautiful, but I'm wishing I would've just skied.

Liza: bringing a gun to a gun fight.

I also broke a chain while out in the wild. It was a brand new SRAM chain. As I had in the past, I was carrying the trusty CT-5 chain tool. Which, again, saved my bacon and provided an opportunity to wallow in smugness... all for about $12. What a value!

The best part of the Schweitzer trip was riding down the 9-mile descent from the resort to the valley. I left at about 9 in the morning, so there was essentially no traffic going down the hill. There were approximately 1 million cars going up the mountain at that time though. There were patches of snow and gravel and ice and all sorts of funnery on the road down.

The road has a handful of serious switchbacks. I'd like to report that I railed into those turns at speed, but with the stream of traffic in the opposing lane, I figured it wouldn't be a good thing if I missed the line or drifted through the turn into (or under) a luxury SUV. So I played it cool.

And then there was yesterday's happy fun snow time with Glen and Joe. This was great because it was driving snow. Generally, I like the Pugs for dirt time more than snow time. But the conditions yesterday -- about 4-6 inches of freshly fallen snow -- were pretty much perfect for low-pressure, fat cruising.

Commuting again

I can't believe it's been a month since I commuted for real, but thems the facts. I think the longest ride I've been on in the last month was a 12 mile trail ride.

The combination of snow and routing has kept my daily commute restricted to the 5 or so mile-roundtrip between our house and the bus stop. Luckily, there's about 400 feet of climbing on the way home, so I've not completely atrophied, but I'm feeling pretty turdy.

My winter strategy in routing a way home from Cheney is to find the right balance between low-traffic roads and distance. If the Fish Lake Trail was plowed, I'd be on it, but it's under about 18" of snow at the moment, and even with a fat bike, it would be a sucky slog.

That would be the FLT down there. If I was super awesome, I'd x-country ski my way home.

Since the bus route from Cheney to Spokane is mostly on I-90, there's no reasonable route that allows the bus-bailout option. I guess a guy could take some back roads into Medical Lake then board from there, but that's a long way out of the way if you don't want to bail.

So my route favors wide, plowed, slow/low-traffic gravel roads. I do spend a bit of time on Washington Road and Gardner Road, which can have a bit of traffic, but since I'm able to leave Cheney at about 11 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays, there's not much traffic on these roads.

The Rawland is rocking it. Conditions today were packed snow with sections of non-packed, shifty snow. The fat knob tires on the Rawland were just perfect. Although there are ice patches mixed with snow, studs really don't provide enough benefit to warrant their sloggy weighty turdiness for this kind of riding. I figure my  winter route, which  plan on taking every Tues/Thurs this quarter, is about 25 miles. I'll track it on Thursday.

Going with platform pedals on the Rawland. I'm very happy with this set up. These are your basic Gortex lined leather  boots. All in all: a fantastic set up. No cold toes and I can wear these boots in my daily life. 

The effect that snow has on the audibility of car traffic is real. What we hear when we hear cars behind us are mostly the tires on the roadway. When the road is covered with snow, cars are mostly silent. So, I don't even listen to podcasts this time of year as I ride. And that is a wonderful thing that I need to remember all year round: having time to collect, sort, categorize, and formulate thoughts is one of the great gifts that a commute like this gives out for free.

I don't clean off my bike when I'm done with this kind of riding. It sits in the garage, which is about 45 F for Tiger the Killer Cat. So all this crud melts off. The extent of my maintenance is to check the the chain length once a month or so and to put some Boeshield on it when it starts to squeak or turn orange. 

Madde. Drinking hot chocolate under the Canon Hill Park bridge. 

Spider AT in the snow

I took my first snow ride on the Sun bike.

It's looking more and more like I picked a real boner here.

The bottom line, hard-to-fix failure of this bike is it's aluminum-ness. If it were steel, then the stupid 2-speed gearing, with 120 OLD spacing wouldn't matter for a second. Nor would the fact that it doesn't have canti-posts.

But you just can't run around spreading the rear forks 15mm on an aluminum bike.

And that geometry, where you're forced to set the bars way up there, sure makes standing and grinding difficult. And if you could stand and grind comfortably, it would be nice if the hub didn't make scary sounds when you did.

Click for big and dig those spider treads. Bad ass.

But in the end, I think the thing that is so hard about this bike is the damn tread. And I'm not talking about the Spiders the rubber leaves behind, cause that's about the coolest thing going here -- no, I'm talking Q: I'm talking about how stinking far this thing spreads out your feet. Talk about wide stance. It really gets to me after a couple miles. More than I thought it would.

It's not like I didn't know any of this when I bought it. But it was cheap! And I'm a (cheap) optimist! I'm going to hang on to it for a while longer. I'll try it on a couple commutes, but I'm not hopeful. Actually, if I commute on this sucker, I'll be dreading the climb home all day... but I feel like I must commute on it to give it a final fair shake before it goes away.

In other news. Bill, our buddy with a printing press in his basement, has found himself imposed upon once again. (Recall the MC cards). Dig those coasters. Coming soon at only the raddest boozers in town.

Ouch. Bar tape is messed up.
Note Rory-Style taping around lever. Looks good and saves time.

Finally, here's the worse, lasting damage from when I was Eberlized. Note the deep gouges in my bad-arse Campy carbon. Stuff is scratched up, but it works fine. And if it didn't, I'd still be ok because all that shit's serviceable. Bam!

Work horse

There's no glamour in being the "good enough" bike in the garage. Especially when your inner secrets have been revealed and ridiculed to a cold bike clan waiting to pounce on any weakness in your mythical narrative.

But, by gum, there's something to be said for a bike that just puts out. Today the ice is giving way to slush. The arterials are clean and in some cases actually dry. But there's no fun in riding arterials banked with snow.

So, I need to ride in slush, and on pavement, and on ice, and through snow. The ideal bike for today has the following attributes... in this order: fenders, knobbies, fattish rubber, and studs. The MB-2 comes through again. And it's got easy lights. And easy load hauling. As a single speed, it's just simple no fuss loving. What's not to love?

Who cares if the tubes are barely held together by poorly brazed lugs? This bike has proved itself. I've been abusing it for years. Snyder had a go at it for 2 years with the Xtracycle hooked up to it. That guy can abuse stuff!

So long live the MB2! It rules.

Slush

39F. Deep wet slush. I'm sidewalk riding.
I hope these conditions hold through tomorrow. I'm picking up a Pugs at 10am.

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First week of a snowy riding

The last week has been a great intro to snow riding. We've had super cold single digits to provide the ice-like experience and we've had good quantities of snow to provide a good range of road surface.

In terms of surface, it's full-on winter mode now. On my commute to the office today, I rode over ice, freshly scraped streets, accumulated/trodden-upon roads, and even some deep uncut snow. I also have a pedestrian over pass that is salted on the ends and provides a nice steep slippery climb and a sleddish descent.

I have three winter bikes going this year: a single speed mountain bike with 1.75" studs (the MB-2), a CX bike with 700x38 studs (the RB-T), and the Rawland with 2.3" fatties.

I like the MB-2 because it's got lights, racks, and fenders, which makes it a nice daily driver/grocery getter/bar bike. I can muscle it through most moderate snow. But once the snow piles up too deep I have a hard time floating the front wheel over the sandy stuff.


The CX bike with knobbies is just for ice. On our BF ride last week we had a couple guys show up with narrow-knobbied 700c bikes and they held up good. Both guys are in good shape aerobically, which I think is the primary reason they held up, but they also had good handling skills, and the snow was relatively fresh, which is easier to cut through with narrower tires.

Once the snow piles up and there are multiple layers which have been driven over, the surface can act weird and grab your front tire. You've really got to finesse the front end/steering in these conditions and narrower tires, I think, increase the finesse factor. Which, of course, makes you a better rider.

The Rawland is great. I think if I had to have just one bike this winter, I would go with the Rawland with the fat knobbies. I really fought the soft spots on the way home last night when I was riding the MB-2. The front tire just kept getting away from me.

Since my commute home last night, it's snowed more and the Rawland just eats it up. As long as you hit deep stuff with decent speed and your weight back, you can power through just about anything on the Rawland. I really enjoyed the ride to work this morning.


I would love to try a Pugsley for a week or two for this kind of commuting. I wonder how long I can put off buying a Pugsley? Especially now that Surly has a built Pugsley that retails for about $1550. And Salsa has the Mukluk, which I can't find a retail price for. But as I've noted before, the more the better -- we want a rich used market for these ultra-fat-tired bikes.

If I could find a way to use the Pugsley in non-snow, I might swing the justification. Maybe if I ratcheted up the Nat'l Forest camping a bit to go more trail than road? What's it like to ride 40+ miles a day on a Pugsley? How does it like moderate loads? It probably likes loading over the back wheel. How about as mountain bike? I think my SOS Sunday ride would not be ideal for a Pugsley. How about a generator hub? Is it possible to swap out the axle on a generator hub and add spacers so it can span the 135 mm OLD of the Pugsley fork?

Black Friday ride update and general carrying on about snowy cold riding on Thanksgiving morn

I can't get around on the trails. I tried just riding through the snow of Cannon Hill Park last night and it was not rad.

And there's more snow a-fallin, so it won't get easier. But it's going to be warm!



So, ride has been downgraded from a trail ride to a ride-whatever-we-can-get-through-ride.

And we'll leave at Scoop at 8:00-ish.

I made a store run yesterday on the Hakkapeliita-shod CX bike. The streets are basically compact snow that acts like ice. With studs, it's like normal riding. Except yesterday it was about 3F.
My thinking was that it would be lovely to have gears -- since my proper winter bike is a single speed. But, I never really cleaned up the CX bike after the last cross race I did, which was rainy wet lame sandy. So in about 3 blocks of riding yesterday in the freezing temps, my CX also became a single speed. I wanted to blame the brifter, but my guess is that there's water in the cables under the bottom bracket and water in the housing by the rear derailleur. And probably water in the brifter. And any water anywhere certainly froze solid.


Last night was a Benniditos/Park Inn run on the winter bike. That was lovely.

I'm trying to talk Liza into hooking up the kicksled to the winter bike today before we get the turkey on the grill. In any case everyone who is able aught to do a pre-Thanksgiving meal ride.

Rocking the kicksled

Great day today. The first good snow commute was fun. It's days like this, where it's nice and cold and the snow is light and powdery where I love riding a bike like the Rawland. The deep snow likes to engulf the wheels, so disc brakes are nice. I have the big honking 2.3" Neo Moto super turd knobbies on there -- they do great in the snow.


I concede the disc brake superiority now in 2.5 scenarios: deep snow (and that weird icy, wet, 'tweener stage of freaky rim-encrusting-slushiness that happens here about once every two years but happens at least once a winter in Portland) and fast trail riding.

But whatever. I fell once on the way to work today. Re-opened a scab from last summer on my knee. Dang. Other than that, the commute was fun.


I love wintery snowy nights. This is the second night in a row that Liza and I have been able to get out and enjoy the snow. We've made two trips to the grocery store. With one more trip, we'll have all we need for Thanksgiving.

Fresh fallen snow, even with some nice packed stuff under it, is not the best kicksled scenario. We really need a little warmer temperature to melt the snow a tad, then a good cold blast to harden it. That's perfect kicksleding. But we had a good workout tonight. And it was beautiful, and cold, and quiet.


With the snow still falling and the temps nice and low tonight, cross-country skiing looks promising tomorrow. I suck hugely at cross country skiing, but I plan on working on my form. I have the day off and a few hours to hit the park. I shall get better!

About this whole Black Friday thing. Every time I look at the weather prediction it changes. I've seen predictions for a bunch more snow. I've seen predictions for really low temps.



As it looks now, if the snow doesn't get too deep, we may be able to get a few miles in without blowing up. But if it's deep snow, we'll transition to something else. Either skiing, sledding, or just going to the boozer and talking about what we could do.

Winter bike 2010

Here's the winter bike this year. In the past, I've rolled with an ice bike and a snow bike. For crazy deep snow, I'll still run the Rawland with Neomotos, but for daily driving, the MB-2 is the plan this winter.

I scored the 7-speed Nexus hub wheel on the iBOB list about 6 months ago. Glen horizontalified the MB2 last spring.


I'll put the basic Hakkapaliita studs on it come ice/snow time. For now it's rolling my favorite 26" tires: the 1.75 (non-tourgaurd) Pasalas.

Once the tandem season is officially over (which coincides exactly with the snow/ice season), I'll pull the generator wheel and light off the tandem and put it on this beauty.

I also have some different bars pending. More city style. And if I can wedge the Softride stem on there with the new bars, I must have it.

This frame has put out like there's no tomorrow. It xtracycled for about 4 years (2 or so years of that it survived the Snyder treatment -- no small feat), and before that, it was a Hummer.


This picture does not even come close to capturing the rad sunset we had for about 15 minutes last night. This is Maddie on the front of the cycle truck.

Sunday Fun

We did the Sunday morning DeLeon's ride. I think we had 8. If you're interested in joining us for casual rides, check out the forum for updates. We'll try using the forum again.

That's Pat and his white basket. He gets the best winter bike award: Karate Monkey with stupid fat knobbies at 25PSI; internal-gear hub with disc brakes (Alfine... bling!). If you have to do one bike for winter this would be it.

This is the hill that won Pat the best winter bike award. This is the second hill that goes from 5th to 7th Ave next to the Ronald McDonald house. He popped it down to 1st gear and just cruised up both hills. Of course, as Lance would be quick to remind us: it's not all about the bike. Pat is in that picture by the way. Top of the hill on the left. The little dark dot. Craig and I were walking.

Ice bike. Good for cruising. The gear is a bit tall for climbing steep stuff and hauling Liza around on the sled.


We ended up having a beer on the way home from DeLeon's. That's Joe.

On Illinois Ave. Illinois is a great street on a clear day. Looking south-west you can see downtown and and the south hill.  It was a beautiful amazing day this morning. Bright, clear, blue, cold. Lovely ride.

After the morning DeLeon's run, Maddie, Liza and I went sledding. We dropped Maddie off at a friends and then Liza and I tooled around the south hill. 

We've decided that we like this winter and if they keep coming like this, we're going to embrace it and enjoy it. According to the news, we'll have up to 9 inches of fresh powder tomorrow morning. If so, I'll be trying the new x-country skis on my commute. 

Turd revival

This is the bike that just won't go away. I originally bought the frame for $5 at a garage sale. I wrote about its history on 63xc.com a couple years ago. It's primarily been my snow SUV do anything bike. It's a fixed gear super simple tough turd of a bike. I couldn't even give the frame away, let alone sell it.

So I was thrilled today when my buddy Jon at OTM was lamenting how his freehub froze up and how he just wanted a simple snow bike. I jumped at the chance to build up the Turd for him. It took me about an hour to put back together. Hopefully, he'll take delivery tomorrow.




There's some nice little treats on this bike for the careful observing bike nerd. The Softride stem, the PJW-built Surly/Mavic rear wheel, the Ritchey cranks, the lugs. Under the saddle cover is a NOS Ideal leather saddle: it's the only saddle I had here at home with the old collar-style connector that this seat post wants. I think some Nokian Extreme studded tires would round it out and make it really a full-fledged winter bike.



I hate having useful bikes and frames sitting around, so this will be another loaner for life. Although I'll probably swap out the crank set with some old turdy Deore's once I find a chain ring and some BMX chain ring bolts. In any case, everyone wins.

The snow is nuts here. We're at around a foot or more and it's supposed to go until 4 AM tomorrow morning. It's really cold too, so it's great powdery snow. But it's hard to ride in, especially on the south hill where there's a layer of ice under it. Good times. Geez winter came fast this year.

Icy observations

I took a quick ride over to the hardware store today. That's about 3 miles away. The temperature is reading 11 F right now. There were some strong winds, so I'm thinking with the wind we're in the zero neighborhood.

I stay off the arterial in these conditions. With the plowed up ice chunks on the shoulder, there's just no where to bail out. On the back streets I can go slow and and I can take big, slow, large-radius corners. Turning sharply doesn't work on ice.

So, the observations:

• Low trail on ice is much easier to control when the front rack is loaded. On the way to the hardware store I just had my U-lock up front. On the way back, I had an addition 10 pounds or so on the rack. Having a bit more weight over the front wheel seemed to stabilize the steering a bit. This makes sense. The thing I love about low trail bikes is how cornering feels, it's very light and requires very little input compared to high trail bikes. On ice, I want a bit more deliberate steering, so by weighting down the front wheel, I have to work the steering a bit more. I wonder if having weight over the front wheel just helps generally? That makes some sense too. Anyway, the difference in perceived stability and handling was marked. And now duly noted.

• Fixed gear on ice makes so much sense. I've sort of drifted away from riding fixed over the last year or so, but on ice, with studs, it rules. Especially when it's this dang cold. My fingers tips were freezing (even in my fancy lobster claw gloves), so I pulled my fingers out of the mittens and curled them up into fists in the gloves. On a bike that relies on hand brakes, this would not be a wise way to warm your fingers, but on a fixed gear, where you can brake by back pedaling, it works out great. Warm fingers and reasonable control. Descending steepish hills on ice is also fun. You can kind of play with locking up the rear wheel or just grinding really deliberately to slow the bike. 

• A wind breaking shell layer is absolutely required in this kind of cold. I forgot my rainlegs and even with poly long underwear and reasonably sensible pants, my legs were too cold. It would be interesting to try a longer ride at this temp. I wonder if I could ride for a couple hours in reasonable comfort in single digits?

• Stuff. There's always stuff. I need to be packing chap stick. I want goggles -- the cool old timey ones. I never been able to figure out how to cover my face w/out fogging up my glasses. When it's around zero, fogging up your glasses means they get a film of ice on them. I really should have foot/hand warmers packed somewhere on the bike. Just in case.
  

Winter with a fury

Beth. Ruling. At the FBC Festivus last night.

Yowsa. Three days ago we were riding around in clear streets and it was 40 F. Last night it was snowy slushy for the Festivus. Tonight, it's 18 F and will drop below zero before we wake tomorrow. With the wind gusting as it is, it's probably already under zero. 

Winter has descended upon Spokane like a wolf on a fold. As old William Claude would proclaim, "It's not a fit night out for man or beast." 

I took a short ride today when it was about 20 F. The slush from yesterday has turned the streets into knarly ice-covered obstacle courses on the south hill. The streets don't look two days into winter here. They look like streets look about a month into winter.


Hank won "Best Lights" at Festivus, as voted by his peers.

I took the Rawland out on the high drive trails. I'm running the 2.3" Neomotos at about 30 psi, which make for a nice float over the snow. But on the icy-rutty streets I want my studs. For icy rutted streets, I think the Nokian Extremes, with the studded knobbies in all directions would be ideal. The Hakkapeliittas that I run on my ice bike just have studs down the center, which work great for compact snow and sheer ice.

So far the disc brakes on the Rawland are nice. But not yet required. I think there are pretty specific conditions that push icy snow up onto your rims where disc brakes really shine. We've not had those conditions yet.

Last year, Liza gave me some Pearl Izumi lobster claw gloves for x-mass. I was thankful, but I considered them overkill. On days like today, I really appreciate them. 

For cold like this, I put my rain legs over my pants to cut the wind, and I wear poly long johns. Up top, I have thin wool base layer, a bit thicker wool turtleneck, Ibex wool/Dash Hybrid vest, and the O2 rain jacket as the outer shell: many thin layers. I have a smartwool gaiter and a smartwool beanie. I wear clear glasses to keep the icy wind out of my eyes.


Joe and Jon (and Jon's soul as it leaves his earthly body) discuss the finer points of lighting up a mobile nativity scene, loud-ass sound system, and various xmass lights with marine batteries

So far I'm neutral on the Lake Boots. They are warm and they clip in, so they perform their essential job, but I really don't like the lacing device. I'll go into more specifics with a full report in a few weeks after I get more time with the boots. I wear two pair of ultra thin (liner) wool socks in my boots.

This kind of cold freaks me out. It's easy -- especially in our day, where we're at once so disconnected from real nature and so confident in our technology to avoid it -- to forget that intense cold can mess you up and even kill you. It's not "gonna kill ya" cold yet, but it's still good to keep a healthy respect at the forefront of your mind as you go off and enjoy winter pursuits when the temperature dips below the single digits.

If you haven't, a great short read is Jack London's To Build a Fire. I read this at least once a year, not just for a reminder of its simple lesson, but because I like that it gets into the mind of a dog and tells a bit of the story from the dog's point of view. And he does it in a way that is not corny. If you're not a reader, the Orson Wells-narrated short film version is really good too.