Let it snow

(cross-post from ohsaycanyousee)

It had been a few days since my last ride and I was beginning to get a bit antsy. Various things had conspired against me including the weather. It seems that something closely resembling winter has arrived to my sunny California. There were various reports of rain (3rd time in 2 months, yeh!) so I'd done some prep at the local REI, no rain was going to stop me. And it turns out it was also quite cold... mid-week, raining and cold, the perfect conditions to bag some forbidden trails.

So I rugged up and headed out into the drizzle - 6 layers including 2 jackets, fancy gloves, gimpy under-helmet cap, etc. As I rode the rain stopped and things started to clear. There were some fuzzy clouds shrouding the hills that looked a bit dubious. I climbed Alpine Rd and the cloud cleared enough to reveal a dusting of snow, fun! I started near sea level and at about 400m I hit the dirt and the first snow, still very wet dripping from the trees etc. I was horrified to see two bike tracks ahead of me! They looked quite fresh so I upped the pace a bit and caught them just as the snow started to become thick on the trail. Yeah now I was bagging fresh snow. There were heaps of bobcat tracks and eventually I spotted one making a hasty exit into the forest.

At the top (about 700m) there are no trees so there was plenty of snow, I guess about 6 inches via my primitive measuring stick. Conditions were primo with the snow squeaking and plenty of traction, straight line climbing and descending was good although any speedy turn sharper than about 90 degrees seemed to require falling off...

I started the main descent back to home which is about 10km downhill. The beginning is sweet single track but I had to do lots of crashing through low hanging foliage loaded with snow. This filled me up with snow in every possible place and I had to stop before the really fast section to clear out helmet vents, gloves, collar etc.

A fun ride but took a while to thaw out. Yay for a hot shower and coffee.