Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Snow, snow, snow.

As most of you know, it really snowed on Friday here in North Texas. We got about 6 inches at my house, and of course I had to ride in it. It has taken me a few days to get around to posting my report, and I'm sorry. I know that all of you were waiting to see what I had to say about the storm, and to keep you all hanging is unconscionable.



I took my phone screenshot a little later in the day but aside from the time not much changed, display wise. 
We took a vote in the house and decided that pancakes were again the order of the day, so I got bundled up, took off for the store, and fell about six times in the fresh powder. Not just because there was ice hidden under the six inches of snow, but because the snow itself was pretty unstable under two wheels. My first fall was in my driveway, the second in the street at the foot of my driveway, and then about every hundred yards or so. The falls didn't hurt (and I was wearing a helmet, yes) and I learned between falls. By the time I made it to the store I was an old pro at the extreme countersteer and had figured out how to stay up. Mostly. 

I got my groceries (including wine for the wife - crucial supplies) and made my way home without falling once. All of this was happening at about seven thirty in the morning, so there were really no cars around, and it was really cool riding on all of the fresh powder and making the first tracks on my street.


I took this photo after I got home without falling - I put my foot down a few times, but didn't fall. If you look closely at my tires, you will see that they are fairly smooth, and they really didn't treat me very well when I took a little afternoon ride. If I hit deep snow, I ended up falling because my rear tire couldn't get any grip due to the snow in the little bit of tread that was there. I rode around in the afternoon snow for about half an hour until my dog came outside and pulled me over. As I said before she doesn't like bikes (or anything with two wheels) and was very pleased to have caught me. She pulled me over so hard that my saddle got knocked loose from my seatpost, so I took that as a sign that my snow riding day was over. 

It's supposed to snow again on Wednesday of this week, and I have a set of knobby tires mounted to the wheels that originally came on my High Sierra up in the attic. I'm going to get those out and get them put on tomorrow night. If I could count on DART to run when the weather gets bad I'd tell you that I was going to commute on the snow day, but I'm not going to get your hopes up. 

1 comment:

  1. Even if you decide not to ride, I'd be fascinated with how the knobbies do compared to the slicks.

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