70s in February were too good to be true and Winter reminded us that it's not quite done yet with Saturday's snow and cold. It does look like the two week forecast is more toward 50s and 60s but who knows if we are in the clear or not from the cold.
Before the ride we had a little company this week, a reporter and photographer from the Lincoln Journal Star stopped in to talk to a few of the regulars about fat bikes and fat biking. Supposedly there will be an article in the paper sometime soon but so far all that has made it to the website are a few pictures, which can be found here. Perhaps we aren't as entertaining as we think we are and the whole thing got scrapped and is laying on the cutting room floor. It was still a pretty cool experience getting to talk to the guys from the LJS no matter how it ends up.
Once our 15 seconds of fame was done, we did have a ride to get to and with the new snow and cold temperatures our destination for Saturday was Wilderness Park.
Conditions early on were near perfect, snow was slightly crusty in some spots but everything was frozen solid. Even had time to stop and take a few senior pictures for Russ while we were regrouping. Kids going to be the envy of the school no doubt, swagger for days!
Not to be outdone the old folk got in on the senior picture theme, although when they start talking about senior pictures it's more Medicare ID card and less graduating High School but they just looked so darn cute.
Bridges always seem to be a good place for regroups while in the Park, we did have a little concern about the durability of the bridge at the top but I assure you that it's good to go. We've had more bikes on it on past rides and as long as you're not with a gaggle of camp kids working on their synchronized jumping badge, the bridge will hold.
It's amazing what a few degrees and a little sun will do to the ground, thus on the way back we opted to play it safe and take the Jamaica North trail back. While we might have playing it safe as far as not tearing up the trails in the park, the limestone trail isn't without it's own hazards. What is normally a fine dust in dryer conditions turns into a fine mist of limestone droplets that coat everything when it's wet.
Both bikes and riders looked a little bit like this by the time we got back to dry pavement, I had fenders and probably should have put them on but as I stood at the car on that chilly Saturday I said to myself, "self, you won't need these". Shows what I know, not sure why I listen to me sometimes.
Once back on drier trails, we headed to Leadbelly for a quick bite, they took one look at us and promptly stuck us waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy in the back away from all the regular folk. Probably a good call on their part.
Not to fear though, we had a great view of the bikes through this rusty, dusty, dirty-looking thing that was covering the window so it was like we were there with the bikes the whole time. After lunch we headed back to the shop and called and end to another great SMNDFBR. Next week we might have to break out a bit of a longer gravel route if the 67 degrees that is in the forecast holds true as it should be great biking weather.
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