A little cool

Being the last weekend I'll be in CT for about a month, I was itching to hit the trails today.  I met up with Stitch from the Crankfire boards and headed out into the West Hartford Reservoir.  At 9am, it was 3°F.  We tentatively headed out for a ride 'round the outer loop; The cold was close to putting a kibosh on the ride at a few points.  Once we had reached the top of the main climb that starts out near the main parking lot that goes up onto the top of the ridge, we had finally warmed up along with the air enough to keep on going and commit to the full outer loop.

With very little melting having taken place, the trails were coated with about 2" of light fluffy powder.  The cold had convinced me to switch to platform pedals for the day along with regular winter boots.  This was a good opportunity to try out my Crank Bros 50/50 XX pedals that haven't seen much action yet.  A couple weeks ago, I added all of the extra traction pins they came with in addition to raising up all the pins that were already in place.  This made an amazing difference.  They moved over from being pretty parts to being functional pretty parts.  I still haven't gotten fully used to riding with free feet, I definitely like being clipped in for hoisting the rear end up and over logs, but these pedals are great.  They were extra convenient during an extremely quick endo... Other gear for the day confirmed for me that the combo of a Panaracer Rampage 2.3 out back and a WTB Stout 2.3 up front is the perfect combo for my riding style.  I'm glad I have an extra Stout in reserve since WTB isn't making them anymore.

It looked like there were at least a couple other fools out riding, we followed a pair of tracks most of the way around.  About a third of the way around I actually had to ditch my softshell jacket in favor of a fleece vest over my wool longsleeve jersey.  It never got close to being above freezing, but we were able to at least stop for a few chat breaks and remain comfortable.  Here's me, post ride with major beardcicles:

Next time I ride here, I suspect there may not be any snow left.  I'm headed to Maine, Texas, and maybe London for about a month (or more) where I'll be hopefully snowboarding and doing some riding too aside from work.  Some good shop time is coming my way though.  I'm taking the parts to build up my cruiser into an Xtracycle cargo bike.  Big time looking forward to the build, I picked up a FreeRadical kit after Xmas that's been patiently waiting for me.  Hopefully I'll be able to get in some time in road riding it and my fixed gears that still live up there too.  Sadly, I will be tearing my BB-1 down to the frame to steal it's components for the build, it won't be the first time I've done that though.  It's going to be a frankenbike like no other;  Curvy cruiser frame, cyclocross fork, Titec Jones H-bar, 700c tour bike front wheel w/32mm tire, 26" atb rear w/ 2.3" balloon tire, and 1x7 drivetrain.  She gonna be purty, oh baby.  Long term it'll get more normal as I pick up some new parts but till summer, it'll stay freaky.  If anyone is still following my progress on the BikeGen, progress has stalled but have been making 3.2 amps (38.4w) steadily while riding each night.