At 1:54 I headed out. At 22F it wasn’t too cold; not wearing knee pads was ok, though leaving the glove liners wasn’t. I went west where only gets flatter as climbing means descending which means exceptionally cold hands.

Much colder in the valley’s basins. Like 15 to 20 degrees colder. For instance, projection tonight is a low of 14 here and -8 there. There are lower points which I’m told are generally yet another 10 degrees less. No thanks!

Going down the little hill right after the turnaround, I wondered if more wind chill over a shorter timespan was better or worse than descending slowly with maybe less consequences per time increment. No other complaints though; so if I can get more appropriate strategy towards keeping both hands as they are, riding would be no problem.

The part that matters is I really went on snow covered roads and the way back was on single track. Great fun simply more or less staying on the trail as best I could. Can’t coast at all. I have 2.4 tires and it quickly went from solid to sketch after 4 or 5 inches. Yes not much base. It was totally a blast frankly and I even scouted out and enjoyed an abandoned bit of concrete with a nice drop off to have fun going off of and up too.

In the post’s cover image, see the line of brown from the deleaved cottonwoods and aspens? That’s South Crestone Creek which runs close to our place and whose trails are so fun to walk and ride.