The Slippery Slope

Look Out Below!

I was feeling something funky late in the week last week, and that combined with New Year's Eve and my wedding anniversary on the 2nd seemed to just put me waaaay off my regular schedule. I felt drained by Friday night. So, I stayed away from the bike and slept late Saturday. However; I was once again called upon to go sledding by my son, so I could not refuse that!

We took our plastic toboggan to the dike in Hope Martin Park in Waterloo where most of the neighborhood kids go to slide down Black Hawk Creek's flood control dike on the North side. It's a short, but very steep pitch that gets you "up to speed" rather quickly! The transition from slope to flat is pretty severe as well. This tends to break a lot of the plastic sleds folks have theses days. Many chunks and shards of them are colorfully strewn near the trees where folks dispose of them to keep them out of the main sledding tracks.

Well, with the recent return to frigid air and a stiff Northwesterly, the snow was pummeled to sugar like consistency which made getting back up the steep pitch an amusing to watch- frustrating to do- activity. It took great skill to get up without slipping, falling, or doing some fancy acrobatic saves. The taller/bigger you were seemed to have a great effect on this as well. Small fry were simply flying back up the hill, and a lone old Yellow Labrador Retriever was blithely walking up and down the slope in "four legged drive" mode as if she were on a Sunday stroll. This only added to the adult male's frustrations on this day.

Crowd's were sparse on this frigid day

 I made it up without much issue, but with  great effort. I counted it as "pushing practice" for Triple D. I certainly will be pushing my fat bike at some point that weekend up a steep hill. So, I felt I got something out of the outing from that standpoint, but it was certainly a great day with my son, who loves to slide down the hill.

Sunday I didn't ride either. The first half of the day was at church and I got to play my '98 Les Paul Standard and try out my new stomp box, which worked really well. Then afterward  it was already below zero with a howling Northwesterly and they say the windchill makes it feel like -50 below today. Yeah......not gonna do that! Oh, and it is supposed to be 20-something below by the time many of you will be reading this. Not riding! No-sirree! Besides, the long term forecast is no where near that cold for Triple D weekend, so wasting time figuring out an ultra-cold temperature set up won't help me there, and would have fatigued me even more than I was.

More cycling is in store, but I will be waiting for this air mass to be saying "adios" and for the warmer air to come in behind it. Right now, Wednesday's projected high of 9°F sounds positively balmy.