A Day Late

Things were mushy and wet back in the Green Belt

Saturday was the "Global Fat Bike Day", an unofficial, social date for owners of fat bikes to have an excuse to ride. Like we actually need an excuse to ride, or something. Yeah..........right......

Well, anyway, I ended up going to get a hair cut, then head over to help a friend install a huge picture window in his house. Afterward I had a few odds and ends to work on at my own house. So much for the big holiday for fat bikes. I figured I would go do a fat bike ride a day late, just because. 

Sunday was dreary, with showers, and it was about 40-ish degrees, which was the best thing about the whole day. Well, that and I actually had time to ride my bicycle. I didn't need any other excuse. So, I grabbed the Blackborow DS with the drive train in the "high" range and I headed out to the Green Belt. I slapped some lights on just in case I stayed out late enough to get in the dark. It was about 3:00pm before I left, so that was a very real possibility.

The Green Belt was wet, but not super greasy. It had rained a light amount earlier in the day, so everything was still sopping wet, even the grass. The tires made that tell-tale sound when the dirt is saturated with water. The good thing was that the base of the single track was firm, so I was barely pressing in the tread blocks and I wasn't compacting the mud in most places at all.

I stopped for a pic by this pond on Marky-Mark.

I found this pond still iced over despite all the warm weather of late. 

Next time I'm out, this tree will have fallen into Black Hawk Creek

There were some big puddles to cross in the usual spots. Deeper than is typical too. The biggest one I didn't clear the second time through and I had to dab. Wet foot! That's why you wear wool socks. My foot stayed warm even though it was soaked.

Besides that, I didn't see a hardly a soul out on the trail yesterday. Maybe one pedestrian. I only saw one set of human tracks and one set of fresher mtb tracks. Maybe a cyclo cross bike near the lake. Hmm......not sure.

I did see a tree root ball pulling up out of the ground. I went by it the first time and did not notice the big fissures in the ground like I did the second time. I would not be surprised that the tree was just beginning to pull up, but I could be wrong. I find it hard to believe that I missed this the first time. Of course, I've seen the results of the process hundreds of times out there, but this might be the first time I've caught this in process. Oh yeah, and this will force a reroute to avoid going into the river once this does fall over.

At any rate, it was a good late afternoon spin to get out of the house for a bit.