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Setting out for a ride from Mt. Clemens at roughly 12:30pm today we headed out to Metro Beach and back along the pavement. The spring thaw has made the trails sloppy and unridable, so pavement is the only current option. The excellent weather that we’ve been having was perfect for riding a springtime paved weather bike ride, exactly the kind of shakedown the Titus needed so I could get a good feel for the bike geometry, shifting, new bar, etc. I logged roughly 22.2 miles over 1:34:04, making for a moving average of 14.2 MPH.

Such a nice day. :)

Here’s the view from my office as Winter Green II, our landscaping company, cleared the parking lot around my condo. There is now an 8′ pile of snow at the end of each parking spot, and a small strip next to Danielle’s car which I’ll have to shovel off. I believe that we’ve received 4″ – 5″ of snow thus far today.

Good thing my network connection is staying up solidly, as working from home is a much better option than a couple hours of driving through slushy, icy crap.

After an overly long delay my new handle bar was finally delivered. It’s really nice looking, and hopefully I’ll get it fitted tomorrow. I would have done it tonight, but my friend Bob came by and we took a quick ride up to River Bends.

With the icy trails we’d both fitted studded tires, and these worked out very well. The weather was about perfect for winter night-time riding, with the air sitting at freezing, and the ground in the trails maintaining a nice layer of soft snow and ice. With the tires clinging to the trail it was possible to ride fast on some of the flat/straight sections, and the 20 MPH+ bursts were a very nice treat. Hopefully winter will continue to smile on biking, and the spring mud / thaw season won’t last long.

Starting a bit after 11am a group of us headed out for some biking at Stony Creek. With temperatures bounding between single and double digits Fahrenheit it was definitely a cold day. With a double-layer of sweat pants and BDU pants, boots and toe warmers, thermal layer, fleece, and jacket I was almost a bit over-warm, but some armpit venting and selective undoing of layers made things rather nice. We ended up riding one course of the single track, visiting The Pines, The Snake, and The Roller Coaster before heading back to the car. This was a rather slow ride, with my middle of the pack average somewhere around 8.6 MPH.

Wanting to wear boots I also fitted my bike with platform pedals, which turned out to be an interesting experience. Since these pedals have a bunch of sharp pins to ensure good traction my foot had no float, meaning that whatever position my foot contacted the pedal in was the position I had to pedal in, unless I was able to lift up my foot and replace it. This doesn’t sound like a problem, but compared to a normal clipless setup where one can pivot a foot at will, it’s a bit uncomfortable. There were also times where I’d inadvertently come off of the pedal, not due to slipping but forgetting that I had to provide continuous, but ever so slight downward pressure while on the upstroke of the pedal. Thus, I’m really not sure I like platforms for riding single track. At one point I had to duck around a tree that I almost hit, and the familar motions that I’d make with my foot to move the bike sideways a bit didn’t work and I ended up clipping the tree.

All said, it was a very nice ride. Having studded tires I had no problem staying upright on icy patches, even if I did have to walk a couple glazed switchbacks in The Snake. With the frequent riding of others and the snow being as cold as it was, everything was packed into nicely gritty flat areas, as seen above.

Here’s a couple of the photos that I took today:

· Standing in the bathroom at the Stony Creek mountain bike trailhead getting ready for a cold winter ride.
· Regrouping at the end of The Pines.
· Heading towards The Snake on a cold single-digit Sunday morning.
· Bob’s icy mustache in the field after The Roller Coaster at Stony Creek on single-digit early-January ride.

Today I went for my first below-freezing ride of the season, ending up in River Bends (surprise!) poking around both single track trails that I already knew and some that I just came across for the first time. Some of these new (to me) trails resulted in a better mental picture of how the trails, disc golf course, and rivers fit together.

After riding a bit of the unmaintained single track I happened back up to the normal hiking trail, and ran across two women with dogs on leashes. Following them was a small beagle, and they told me that it just started following them and if I see someone looking for a dog that I should let them know it’s with them. After sniffing me (and allowing me to note the presence of a license and name tag with phone number) on its collar, it started heading back the way it’d come, and the direction I was going. After telling the ladies that I’d take care of the dog I followed it for a while hoping I’d hear someone calling for it.

Since no one was calling for the dog I eventually grabbed it by the collar and played with it while calling one of the numbers on the tag. The person on the other end of the phone seemed pretty excited that I’d found their dog, and in not much time her husband was on his way to meet me. It seems he jogs River Bends frequently, so we were able to establish a place to meet; one of the benches in a notably straight part of the path. No more than 10 minutes later he came jogging through the woods and I was able to get his dog back to him. I’m really glad this worked out well, as both seeing a lost dog looking around for someone familiar and knowing that someone has lost their dog is a pretty sad thing. Here’s a picture of the dog while we were waiting for its person.

While riding around other parts of the park I came across lots of ice, all of which was fun to ride across even without studded tires. As these were mostly narrow and mostly snow covered puddles it was quite solid and not slippery and in places where I did break through there was just a bit of mud beneath. However, at one point I came across a larger flooded area, part of which is seen above, and while it was tempting to try riding through this bit of floodplane on smooth/hard surface it’s possible that this area could have been a few feet deep, and with the ice being an inch or so thick, I didn’t want to risk falling in. Not to mention that unlike the aforementioned puddles it had a slick glare which caused me a great deal of difficulty when setting my bike down, resulting in a controlled slide / almost-fall as seen above.

Towards the end of my ride I was heading along one of the single track-bearing ridges when I veered a little bit off the trail. Normally this isn’t a problem as I can hop up the edge of worn (into a U) single track and continue on like normal, but in this case with the snow kept my front wheel in the groove while my body and bike continued on off the trail. This resulted in a rather amusing tumble into the brush and down the ridge, with me looking back up at my bike (as seen here) after I stopped. I’d previously been afraid to fall here, as the hill is fairly steep and covered in a bunch of woody brush. However, with it being winter-time and my wearing multiple layers of clothes, the fall was mostly something to laugh at. This was actually my first decent tumbling-fall since the crash at Addison Oaks resulting in the skinplug, and thankfully the outcome was much different.

Here is a dead raccoon which was occupying 2/3 of the single track mountain bike trail at Addison Oaks. Thanks to a conveniently located rake I had no problems moving it off the trail, leaving only a moist spot on the trail. This ride through Addison Oaks was part of a trip from Rochester Mills to Lake Orion, over to Bald Mountain, through to Addison Oaks, back through Bald Mountain, then town the Paint Creek Trail back to Rochester Mills.

Knowing that some other friends were riding the Macomb Orchard Trail to Richmond and back, after getting back to Rochester I headed out the MOT to meet up with them, and did so seven or eight miles later. After finishing up the ride with them and being sure that Danielle wouldn’t mind driving me back to my car, I then rode home for a total of 61.83 miles. Seeing as this included quite a bit of single track, I’d say that this is one of the longest rides I’ve done. Last year had some similar length rides, but none of those included as many segments of proper mountain biking.

For another odd photo, please see this one which shows some latex gloves and a rather oddly stained cylinder that appeared to be made out of wood. This was found along a section of the Roller Coaster in Stony Creek while having a brief hike there yesterday.

It seems that today’s storm has damaged my lettuce. It is torn, perforated, and generally broken down. The storm also downed a tree at the entrance to my condo complex, and caused me to have a 1:30 drive home. Most of the time was spent within the last four miles of my house.

I was in a windowless conference room having a meeting while the storm rolled through, so I only heard the rain on the building’s roof, but I guess it was pretty bad out this way. Hail, 75 MPH winds, and lots of things falling over.

UPDATE: A portion of my basement floor was wet, and it appears as if the wind was also strong enough to either blow water in that basement window, or back water up against the window so that it could flow in. I wish I had been here to see this storm.

After work I headed over to Stony Creek to ride a bit, but when I got to the parking lot it appeared that a storm was getting close. Still, I headed off into the trails, periodically reloading the DTX National Weather Service radar. It turns out that the storm was moving in faster than I’d expected, so I had to take a shortcut out of the Roller Coaster only 10 or 15 minutes after starting and hurry back to the car.

A ~20MPH ride along the two track back to the car was filled with blowing dust, leaves coming off of trees, a freshly downed branch in the path, and people who were (for some reason) heading outbound into the trails. Thankfully I made it back to the car just as the large drops started falling and was in the car and leaving the parking lot as the rain really started to come down. All thanks to having a smartphone.

Of course, now that I’m back home and typing this, all the rain has passed and the trails are likely perfectly damp. Ah well.

After this morning’s commute by bicycle I had to ride home. This was a relatively uneventful, and only a couple of people got directly in my way, and no one almost hit me. I also stopped behind my Dad’s plant, which is along the Clinton River Trail, and he was able to come out and say hi for a few minutes. He warned me that the rain was coming a bit quicker than I’d expected, so after that I hurried home. It’s a good thing too, because light rain started about a mile and a half away from home, and within five minutes of getting in the garage an actual downpour began.

Now, time for dinner.

After last night’s ride around Stony Creek and today’s jaunt through River Bends, my bike is nicely muddy. Interestingly, all of the mud on there came from two track flooded paved trails and not any of the single track.

Now that I’m home I just have to sit around a while longer until I stop sweating, shower, and shave. Two bike rides in my legs are a bit filthy, and I’m sure there’s quite a stink coming from my various regions.

Later today should be interesting, because there are straight line wind / tornado-type weather coming. Looks like it’ll be here in about two hours. This could get exciting. Good thing I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do in the house.