It seemed like the studded tires weren't going to get many miles this year, but spring has brought a bunch of snowy/icy days. Miracle of all miracles, Tirpak got off his duff and went out for a ride with me today, in below freezing temps!
Seriously though, it was nice to have his company out there on a day that started out sunny and sloppy, but was cloudy and frozen by the time I got home. Winds were fairly high, with an average of about 19mph. We headed up Mt Herman Rd and turned around a bit before the trailhead. Not nearly as much snow as I had expected, considering we had about 8 inches the day/night before.
After Tirpak headed home, I dropped down to Dirty Woman Park to check out sledding conditions and then took the long dirt road home. Totalled a bit over 14 miles and 1700ft of climbing. My legs felt a bit spanked for the first half of the ride and then felt fine for the second half.
It was nasty enough out that I had some shifting issues with the Nexus hub. Not really the hub, but the cable was getting splashed by mud/slop, which would then freeze, causing big delays in downshifting. I realized after a bit that upshifting would break the cable free, so I could do that if the cable was really stuck during downshifting.
Saturday morning, I woke up w/ a tight left knee from the previous day's effort. So, I put did about 30 minutes of riding on the trainer, then spent a bunch of time stretching. Seemed to pay off, as my knee felt fine this morning.
My ankles, on the other hand, are not feeling so hot tonight. Two indoor soccer games put the hurt on them and I'm heavily dosed on Vitamin I right now. I imagine I'll be hobbling around a bit tomorrow.
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