Woodchuck Wisdom

When that prognosticating marmot forebode six more weeks of winter, I was personally hoping that he was full of feculence. Unfortunately the last few weeks have shown that maybe the little woodchuck was wise to the weather coming our way. Because of the shit-tastic cycle of weather lately I had not been down to Lincoln for the Saturday Morning No Drop Fat Bike Ride in a month of Saturdays but yesterday looked to be the best weekend we've seen recently so once again the ride was on as scheduled.




Temps were supposed to be just below freezing for most of the morning with a chance of getting to freezing by later afternoon. All of that sounds fantastic unless you have several inches of snow still remaining on the ground from the deep freeze we've been in as of late. It normally would have felt pretty nice after the down right nasty cold temps of the past week and a half but what we did not foresee was the freezing fog that was caused by all the moisture in the air. The face, eyes and beard were not impressed with the chillness of this mist and it's tiny needles on the exposed skin.


It was thick as pea soup, cold pea soup. Anyone see where we put that nearly 400' tall capitol building, I swear it was right down there yesterday.



If you head down to Wilderness via the Jamaica North trail watch out for the redirected power lines, they'd leave a heck of a hickey on your neck if you rode through there fast in poor visibility or at night and missed the unmarked reroute.


This might be the first time I've ever seen anyone plow the levee trail also, so wouldn't you know when they do for the power lines they go and push all the snow right in front of the entrance to the trails. I mean it's not like they had a half a mile's worth of trail that they could have pushed the snow off the side of that wouldn't have impeded anyone at all.









The trails in the park were fantastic, there has been so much snow and it's remained cold which has enabled the path to really get worn in. Balance was key though because if you let your wheel drift off either side of the 6-8" ribbon of packed snow it got soft and deep really quick. Several snow angels were made on Saturday by the crew but for the most part it was really zippy in there and almost as fast flowing as it is in the height of summer.



Ran into, or nearly ran into, these hooligans coming the opposite direction. Reports were that the track was good all the way out to danger bridge.



Stopped at the un-danger bridge for a beverage refueling stop, the one good thing about colder weather is that you don't have to worry about the barley pop getting too warm on you. Freezing up and spontaneously exploding in your bag, perhaps, but too warm is not an issue.


Not even Charlotte and her web were safe from The Fog on Saturday morning.



I left our band of travelers in search of a place to write my name in the snow and came upon two trails that diverged near a yellowed snowman, not long I stood because I had to pee. I asked the attendant which way most had gone, north he pointed without uttering a word. I looked down the way he pointed to where the tracks disappeared, then took the one headed south. Two trails diverged near a yellowed snowman and I- I took the one less travel by and it made all the snow seem white and clean.



By the time we left Robert the yellowed snowman, the frost had burned off and the sun shown down upon us.




Further down the path more of Robert kind shepherded us toward the bridge of danger that we sought. And when we arrived at our destination, under it we hid like trolls and basked in the noon day sun.



Here under the bridge we crossed paths with a Craig-less Ed and Joel again, they were on their 3rd lap of the park.




Our group decided we had had enough of the snowy goodness for one day and headed toward higher ground and the paved paths back into the heart of the city.



Saro has kind of become our normal stopping spot since the closing of the coffee and beer portion of Method and so it was no surprise that we found ourselves there again on Saturday enjoying a hot or cold beverage. Thus bringing the ride to it's conclusion for another Saturday.


The Mo Java owned Filling Station was slated to open this month and progress has definitely been made but it didn't look like it was going to make it's projected date. I reached out to Mo Java and they confirmed that they don't plan on being opened now until mid to late April but in addition to coffee they are also bringing their food menu to the new spot as well with a few additional items not yet available at the original Mo Java cafe. Super excited for that and all the development along the N Street bike way. If you build it, we will come.






Silly me, I almost forgot to write anything about this weeks dish and it was a delicious one. Probably not the most healthy thing out there and you definitely don't want to eat it every week but once and awhile won't kill you. This week was Southern Baked Mac and Cheese, I substituted pepper jack for Monterey jack and added bacon and jalapenos but other than that it was to recipe. I think baking it in the cast iron skillet really added that extra something.

 

I'm Stuck In Colder Weather... Maybe Tomorrow Will Be Better

We just keep getting more snow and the bottom just keeps dropping out of the temps lately, this of course has made for some difficult riding or even finding days to ride on. This weekend was super nipply and the next few days look to be bringing even colder temps, some of them could maybe crack the top 10 coldest days in Omaha history. While it's not likely it is possible but it'll need to get to at least -25° to do that and the forecast only has us dropping to -21° overnight tonight. Close but no frozen cigar.


Sunday was cold but not unbearably cold, the wind chills were up there... or down there depending on how you want to look at it... for sure but wind chill is all about how the air feels on bare skin. That being said caution should definitely be exercised when dealing with wind chill but there is a world of difference between actual temperatures in the -28° range versus the wind chill making it feel that cold on exposed skin. The actual temp on Sunday when I ventured out was a balmy -7° for actual temperature. There is a saying that there is no bad weather, only bad clothes. I'm not sure I totally subscribe to that philosophy because there is a limit to how good your clothes can possibly be but if you have good gear and cover any exposed skin -7° is completely ridable. A few years back I participated in the Fat Bike Frozen Forty in Minnesota and the actual temps a the beginning of that ride were right around - 15° and gradually rose to around 5-10° above zero but it climbed really slowly over the seven and a half hours and 47 something miles on the bike. To date that's probably the coldest ride I've done but even then, once I got going I felt fine. If you're so inclined you can read about that experience HERE. Back to Sunday, I decided to bundle up and venture out and see about getting in a lap around the nursery and see how I felt. While the ride was a mere 4 miles it was a tough 4 miles with the recent snow so that 4 miles took me a little under an hour and a half total time. I did try to putter around a little bit after the nursery loop but you could tell that traffic had been almost non existent beyond that and it wasn't a ton of fun trying to break trail in those drifts so I called it a day and headed for the car. Even in the cold of Sunday I ended up needing to open the vents on the Cobrafists and had to pull the Lung Cookie down to keep from over heating. It might be hard to believe but I feel like I was maybe a little bit over dressed for the ride. This is how I remember winter as a kid, 4-5 months out of the year where I'm from in Montana the average temperature is near or below freezing and we always had snow on the ground. Always, shoot I remember some winters I swear you didn't see a bare street in front of the house from November through February. I'm beginning to not be a big fan of the constant snow this year but it doesn't happen all that often around these parts so I suppose we were due. Still it'll be nice near the end of the week when temps finally get above freezing, we probably won't get any new snow fall this weekend but everything is going to be super sloppy.




With the weather being so cold I've been doing a lot more cooking and that leads to a lot more eating. I'm going to have to start knocking out centuries as soon as the weather turns just to burn off half those calories. Saturday I whipped up my take on Noodles and Company's Pesto Cavatappi only with Mostaccioli since it's almost impossible to find Cavatappi noodles. I added "mid-west fresh" shrimp, fresh minced garlic, fresh chopped onion and fresh diced roma tomatoes and did a nice jalapeno, cheddar bread with butter and fresh minced garlic. No vampires were coming over for dinner that night.


Dessert was this minuscule Key Lime Pie, which I did not make but bought instead. I'd like to get into baking more also but I'm a little anemic on baking equipment at the moment. Plus I am a sucker for sweets so the more I make the more I eat, it's sort of not a bad problem to have until you lose a toe or two to the die-a-beatus.

Hoping to get out for a little bit longer ride this weekend than the usual 3-7 mile rides from the last few weekends but we will see how things pan out. Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day and got to do something fun over the chilly weekend.

 

Simmering Through Winter

While we likely aren't going to break any records in Nebraska for total snow fall or coldest winter on record, we have certainly had our fair share of both recently. More so than the amount of snow it's been the timing of the snow and cold that has been cumbersome. It seems like the last 3-4 storms have rolled in right around Thursday or Friday and continued into Saturday afternoon and sometimes even into Sunday making for a less than enjoyable weekend for getting out of the house even to go the store, let alone riding a bicycle. Now if you're one of those conspiracy types I suppose all this could be explained away as the gubmint geoengineering the weather to keep us isolated in our homes but I personally just think it's been a crappy winter. We were due and I personally have my doubts that our government could pull off geoengineering the weather, lately they can't seem to be able to agree on much of anything. I think we'd need to out source something like that.... wait, it does feel like Siberia.... hmmmmmmmm. Nuting to see here, comrade. 


Saturday we got dumped on again with a few inches to go along with the snow we still have lingering around from the last snow that dropped several inches on us. I shoveled the drive and hoped we were done but it wasn't to be and we got a dusting Saturday into Sunday morning as the cherry on top of cruddy weekend snow. As a bonus we got bone chilling temps to go along with the white stuff this time around. I skipped leaving the house much on Saturday but got a bit of cabin fever on Sunday so ventured over to the local single track for a decent 6 mile ride, in 2° weather. What's worse is that those frigid temps are planning on sticking around for a week or so, like an unwanted aunt who suddenly pops over uninvited.


2° is nothing to balk about as far as being cold but with the right gear it is definitely a temperature you can ride in if you ride smart and use a fair amount of caution. I would probably make sure you're not going out for hours at a time, don't get too far from someplace warm if things start going sideways and by all means let someone knows where you'll be and about how long you plan to be gone. I know that sounds a lot like checking in with ma and pa like you had to do in your youth, but things get iffy real quick in that temperature range and it's a good idea to at least have someone out there that would get concerned if they didn't hear from you and know where to go to find you. 

I bought this Giro Discord helmet a few years back for winter riding but I guess I tend to run a bit warmer than your average bear. (Is it just me or does it look a bit like the Emu on the Liberty Mutual insurance commercials sitting on the saddle?) Every time I wear the helmet I have ended up sweating, profusely. Saturday was no exception, I had sweat dripping off the font of it even with the vents fully opened, I had to stop and take it off multiple times to wring the sweat out of the brow band. With all that sweat dripping everywhere it started to fall on the top of my Cobrafists leaving ice to buildup on the pogies. That did not seem ideal so I actually secured the helmet to my Osprey pack on the second lap and just used a smart wool thin beanie... yes, I know that not wearing a helmet will get you the wrath of the helmet police and in general I agree that having a helmet will help in most cases buuuuuuttttt sweat and cold weather is maybe a little bit more of an immediate threat to your well being in below freezing temps. Sweating is a sure fire way to get cold, I know that might not make much since to most people but that sweat forms ice as it moves away from your core and ice on the outside of your clothes will eventually rob you of all your warmth. Anyway I did the second lap with a beanie and called it a day, even though it was cold the sun came out and I swear that the track I'd worn in on the first lap started getting soft and squirmy by the end of the second lap.


The water didn't fare as well, nothing like sucking water out of an icy bunghole on the side of a snowy trail.


So if it's been cold, snowy and miserable... what have you been doing? Well, I am glad you asked.

Not at all bike related but I did pick this bad boy up recently and while it's not exactly like new bike day, I am pretty psyched. A little over a year ago I started getting more into cooking at home, mostly it was simple things that I'd made before or things that didn't seem to complicated. The idea was to try to pick up a skill that wasn't related to cycling and one that I could share with my non cycling friends, yes I do have some of those if you can believe it. As time has gone on and the pandemic made going out almost impossible, I started experimenting a bit more and moving out of my comfort zone and started cooking things that I liked to order when going out but had never cooked myself. I am a huge fan of cast iron and with this new addition I might not have to use anything else for most things I cook since I already have multiple cast iron skillets/frying pans to compliment this enameled cast iron Dutch oven. One of the first things I worked on was perfecting a Sloppy Joe that wasn't from a can and that didn't have that oddly sweet taste to it like you'll usually get from a Sloppy Joe "mix". I prefer my Sloppies to be less sweet and more savory, while there might be need for further testing and tweaking I think I might have this one almost right where I want it. Sorry no pictures of the Joe since I initially wasn't planning on blogging about cooking when I started this whole thing.


Pork Chop with a white wine, garlic cream sauce was delicious.

 


Craw-fish Etouffee was probably one of the things that was the most out of my comfort zone but I think it turned out pretty good. Room for improvement for sure but it was tasty and that's part of what this journey is all about, making tasty dishes, learning new skills and having fun.

 


Stuffed Peppers have been fun to make also and a pretty big hit with those I've cooked them for, so that is a bonus. I've cooked a few other things, some of them multiple times but I won't unload all of those here at this time. With that said, I might from time to time share a few of the things that I make that I feel turned out really well and maybe even a few of the things that failed just to equal things out. If you enjoy that kind of thing then you're in luck, if you don't, well you're going to have to gloss over them when they happen.