Snow, cold

Surprise, surprise! It's still friggin' cold here. Nonetheless, I decided to ride out to Glenn's in order to get the spokes for my accomplice's generator front wheel and some parts for Gunnar. As usual on Monday, Glenn had invited people for a snowshoe outing and I thought I'd give it a try. Usually it takes me about 30 minutes to ride out there, and I estimated that the bad weather would maybe slow me down by 10 minutes max. Well, not so much. While in downtown all roads were cleared, up on the hill the roads got more and more snowy. Mt. Pleasant Road, low traffic and very steep, was completely covered in fresh snow and I had to walk a good deal of it. Just not enough traction with my Ritchey 'cross tires. In the end it took me 50 minutes to ascend to the heights of Mt. Pleasant, and I arrived half an hour late for snowshoeing.

The ride back was a bit faster, but actually much less pleasant. On the way up, my body had produced copious amounts of heat but on the way back I was freezing. My new MEC lobster gloves did not really cut it, probably exacerbated by the fact that I had to brake hard constantly while going down Mt. Pleasant.

Purchased items:

• DT Champion 2.0 spokes and nipples
• 2 Velocity VeloCage bottle cages
• Shimano PD-M424 pedals (to allow both clipless and normal riding for the winter)
• 2 700cx23 tubes

Odo Wolfgang:2956 km