Nomad Dave Finds A Place

Here in Nebraska we seem to be stuck in this pattern where it gets cold near midweek, snows right around or during the weekend, gets warm at the beginning of the week and then repeats itself on and endless spin cycle. That has made for some interesting riding, not to mention driving. Thursday into Friday we had ourselves an honest to goodness, humdinger of a blizzard roll through that didn't drop a ton of snow but the 60 mile an hour gusts caused a fair bit of issues for those who didn't heed the advice and decided to travel anyway. The road to Lincoln on Saturday might have been paved with good intentions but it was littered with vehicles.



When I had initially planned the ride for Saturday it was supposed to be near 50 degrees and we were supposed to ride gravel out to Malcolm to visit the new coffee shop out there. Unfortunately that didn't pan out as the weather changed faster than a flying toupee in a hurricane or blizzard as the case may be here. So, instead of slip sliding to Malcolm we dropped it low, low, low and decided to head out to see what conditions were like in Wilderness Park.



The winds blew themselves out and the sun came out but it didn't do a whole lot to warm things up very much in the early morning hours. Thankfully there wasn't a lot of snow that came with the weather so the streets were mostly in great shape with an occasional icy alley or side street.



Since we had been in a freeze/thaw pattern for a few weeks now it was very fortuitous that we did get a little bit of snow as it covered up the ice and provided just enough traction to prevent one from ending up on our collective buttocks.


Mostly, the trail under Pioneers Blvd. was an ice rink and several of us slipped a little trying to navigate the dip under and then back up on the other side.



I thought that the rest of the single track was in near perfect conditions all things considered and we rode it all the way out to the 14th Street parking lot and ran into at least another half dozen cyclist who were also zipping through. Some not even on a fat bike, I would say that anything above 2" would have been more than adequate on Saturday, if you had the skills for when you hit the occasional ice patch you surely could have dipped below that girth and been alright. To be honest this little skiff of snow might have made for the best riding in Wilderness all year so far, once the inches creep up over the five to six inch mark it makes for a lot more work. The one to two inch range gives just enough to cover the ground yet still makes laying down new tracks easy and fast. 




By the time we made it down to the southern edge of Wilderness that sun was doing it's thing and you could hear a lot more groaning and crunching of the ice beneath the snow. We popped out of the single track, hopped on the new connector bridge and high tailed it down the Rock Island and ended the ride with a hot adult cider at Saro. The perfect end to a perfect winter's day ride.









After the ride, Honeycutt and I, gained access to the shipping container houses and did a little touring. Turns out Honeycutt is going to be returning to Lincoln this spring and after touring the place has secured the one bedroom for his return. They are pretty nice places and for a person without a family and a ton of worldly possessions who also rides a bike, you can't ask for a better location.