Leaving a friends house after midnight last night, M and I got to ride home through an inch of snow on the ground, and it still falling thick. We woke up (not early, and little fuzzy) to six inches this morning. Our truck’s hubs (the springs and bearings that enable the shift-on-the-fly 4×4, specifically) started making bad noises Thursday night. We couldn’t diagnose the problem, just tell that it sounded bad. So we killed the truck just south of the busiest intersection in town right after 1700 and got ourselves towed. The dealer with have things rebuilt and back in order Monday.
Windchill near 0, choppy snow on the roads, no easy way to access skiing (Snowbowl opened for this afternoon, at a discounted rate), and lots of energy.
What would Jill do?
Swap platforms onto the singlespeed and go riding, of course. Balaclava, goggles, helmet hood, iPod, and a bunch of extra layers. What would have been less than a 1.5 hour ride in dry conditions at a brisk pace was 3 today, with plenty of uphill pushing. What Jill wouldn’t have done is forget to put the camera in her coat, thus killing the batteries and coming back with no pictures.
The wind was going strong, gusting to 40+ on the ridgetops out in the woods. I almost got blown off the road a few times, which made riding near cars more exciting than usual. It was a wild, gorgeous day, and much vaguely controlled fun was had flying down powdery singletrack. My front BB7 caliper had mostly frozen up after the last long push/carry up, and howled madly as it warmer up, two toned and resonating through the frame.
Gore tex trail runners and one very light and one medium pair of socks was just adequate. I had a badass ice beard when I made it back into town.
Snowbowl is open for it’s first full day tomorrow, and it’s tempting. I also envision windchills down near -20 or worse up high tomorrow. Sitting on a chairlift in that is really not fun at all. I might have to drag Kelly, whose Fairbanks blood knows no fear, up to Lolo Pass and make it four visits inside a week. Monday and Tuesday promise to be very good days, too.
Snow!
Bedrock & Paradox 
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