Snow day?

Yes, here we are days after my "its warming up" post. And, yes, it is in fact snowing. It is warmer, so there is no fluffy powder on the ground. It either melts immediately or turns into slush. That's fine. It should clear up in a day or so. Then onto some more decent weather and continued warming trend.

Time flies...
How did it get to be March already? Weird. The older I get the more that the months seem to melt into each other.

I managed to get out for a nice group ride on Saturday morning. It was a bit nippy at the start. I think Gary mentioned 22 degrees on his thermometer at the trailhead. I was bundled up fairly good. My cold weather kit is something to this effect:
-Top: Hard shell windbreaker or thermal fleece with wind block, a long sleeve jersey, and a base layer (wool or other performance wicking material)
-Bottom: hard shell (shorts or pants depending), thermal tights, and a chamois short
-Shoes: wool socks, standard shoe, neoprene booty over that (next year I would like to invest in some real winter cycling shoes)
-Helmet: just the normal vented helmet with a thermal skull cap under it
With these items I am good for multiple hours down in the 20-30 degree range. Any colder than that and I don't consider it worth riding :-)

At any rate, riding was nice. We had 6 people in the group and were pretty well matched. It was a technical ride at the Land Trust, so despite near 4 hours on the bike we covered only 11-12mi total. There were lots of breaks and conversation. Whenever someone dropped back the group waited patiently and talked about biking. Honestly this is one of my favorite ways to ride. We went fast when we could and took a good steady pace the rest of the time. The Hutchinson Octopus tires proved to be a great tire for the conditions, which were frozen with muck under and thawing about mid-ride. The extra heft provided some good stability in the rocks and the sticky compound did great on the slick stuff. The tread pattern is nice and open, so it shed mud excellent. Wonder why Hutchinson stopped making this tire?

That's all I got for now. I'll check back later...