No pictures from last night considering all my attention was focused on staying upright. Cam's warning that Denman's was a sheet of ice under the snow was certainly true. It's not quite as bad yet as some of the crap we hit last year, but with today's forecast for ice and sleet, I'm sure it will get that way quick. The nice snow pack looked really inviting as I turned in to start the trail, but pretty quickly it was apparent that careful pedal strokes and a puckered ass were going to be required to keep things on the up and up.
I passed on pretty much all the logs, but did manage to make it up all the little ups that it looked like a few other people had spun out on. I did leave my impression in one snow bank as I hit a bit of off camber and both wheels took off in a separate direction from where I wanted to go. I think I could have just about ridden without a seat last night and set on the post I was so tensed up. Right about halfway through I ran into Conlon coming the other way and we made a collective decision to get out on the black label. We didn't even bother riding back out and just hiked straight over to the levee trail.
Funny, the black label was in way better shape than the offroad stuff. We road through WDM and out into Clive Greenbelt before turning back. Who else should we see crazy enough to be out, but Cam. Stopped and talked for a few minutes with him and then headed back to the truck. Just over an hour of riding in, but at least I'm still out there. I'm hoping the studded tires show up before the weekend and I can get out and test them.
I quickly succumbed to the debate on studded tires yesterday after remembering the number of times I went down and how I was pretty lucky to not have seriously damaged myself in the process. Figuring the cost of regular tires, studs aren't that much more and I'll probably get at least 2-3 seasons out of the higher end set that I went with. Pretty cheap in comparison to breaking or spraining pretty much anything. I'll let you all know how it goes.
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3 comments:
I was out in Denman's last night too, agree with you on how the idea of riding Denman’s seemed amazing, but actually riding it was a different story. I saw your wipeout and made a few body marks of my own...couldn't let you be the only one!
Will the rest of the off road trails in DSM be similar the rest of the winter?? This is my first year mtb so I'm not super familiar w/ riding during the winter and all the different trails. Where else can someone get some snow riding w/out having to deal w/ a layer of ice underneath?
Unfortunately it's probably going to stay this way for at least a bit. Really what will get them back in shape is snow packable snow on top of this and getting people out on it. We rode pretty much all winter last year and only had a few weeks where we really needed to seek alternate plans.
I tried to ride on sunday afternoon but the glass surface in denmans sucked.
PS. Studded tires are cool on the ice but the tread pattern makes the loose snow packed snow on the road very slippery.
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