Night Rides and Gravel Doctors

Been a decent week for bicycles and bicycle related happenings and a week with bikes is always a good week.






Tuesday was a night ride with the WestEZ crew on local paved trails, Papillion still had their lights up so that was kind of cool. Was supposed to be "ladies night" but as you can see it was a bit testosterone heavy. Good times none the less, I need to incorporate some of these night time shenanigan into the summer months when it's not so cold. Although we have had a fairly mild winter thus far so at least it wasn't freezing, literally.



Then last night was an Intro to Gravel Clinic held at the shop. While I have been riding gravel in earnest for a little over 5 years now, it's always good to see what others are doing, eating, wearing and what gear they carry. The minute you think you know everything that there is to know about anything is the minute you stop learning. Some good info was shared by Corey and Janna.



If the info didn't do it for you then the cute puppy was certainly worth the stop. Maybe that's the key to not getting chased, introduce the dogs to gravel early as well.



Post clinic a few of us swung over to Moran's for some adult beverages and conversation before calling it a night. Plus Scott really likes pictures of people drinking alcohol, not really pictures of people drinking though; people and beer separately will just have to do for now.

Do You Wanna Build A Snowman

There wasn't a whole lot in the way of snow last night but what it lacked in white stuff, it more than made up for in temperature. With the actual temps being in the lower 20° range and the feels like temps hovering around 11° it certainly was frozen even if not perfect for building an Olaf.



Why in the world would anyone go ride in that you might ask? Well, the cold really isn't all that bad once you get moving if you dress properly and it's not often that I get to ride with a group a mere two miles from my front door since most of my group rides anymore are down in Lincoln. So, I bundled up and high tailed it down to the meetup spot just outside of Tranquility Park to meet up with the WestEZ fellas.




Despite the stiff winds, once we got into the trees it wasn't too bad at all and the trail was in prime frozen shape. Nobody was breaking any land speed records for sure but we did manage a fairly respectable 9 miles in just a tad over an hour of moving time and just a tad under 2 hours of total time.


Pictures don't do it justice but the full moon was putting on quite a show last night as well, even thought that if there was more snow on the trail we probably could have ridden without lights on and just followed the white ribbon through the woods.


In places that the moon didn't reach, like under a bridge out of the wind, it was pretty dark. Ever try to figure out why your cleat won't clip in by handlebar lights? That was a fun time.


Since I rode down and my light had already been flashing an angry red at me for a half hour, I opted to skip Boondocker's bar on the way back and just head home. Someone else had some flashing red lights, accompanied by blue flashing lights, as well. Not sure what was going on here but it didn't look like a disabled vehicle but it was odd that they would sit in the middle of a high traffic lane like that and risk and accident. Oh well, none of my concern and I had places to be. Great night for a ride all in all and a good test of the cold weather resolve and gear for the upcoming winter that is coming sooner rather than later this year it seems.