ADCWF Ride.

First, I will preface this by saying that to my friends and teamates in Canada and the midwest will most likely laugh at me. It's ok. It's all relative. We don't have the harsh winters here that they typically have further north. It's no secret I hate cold. What I hate more than cold is being wet while I am cold. I seem to end up riding a lot in the cold and wet, hence the Another Damn Cold Wet Freezing Ride.

It all started with a email and text message campaign (doesn't anyone use phones anymore to talk on?) to get people involved in riding today. I couldn't get ahold of many of the usual suspects and the ones that did show interest only David and Ginger agreed to show up. I wanted a couple of hours of relatively easy pace and with the cold ( no wet yet), Buffalo Mtn seemed perfect. I planned to do muscle tension intervals and Buffalo is perfect for that.

David has been sick and decided (after seeing the wet move in plus cold) that riding outside today wasn't in his best interest. Luckily Ginger still went otherwise I'd have rode alone and had all the fun to myself. Ginger is a roadie by heart, a transplant from Alabama with her boyfriend Nick (who's a strong rider too but unable to come out today). The fact that she still went with the rain just starting to fall at ride time proves that there's a little mountain biker inside begging to come out. I was hoping that the pattern I have seen before would repeat itself and that is rain in Johnson City but quickly turning to snow on the slopes of Buffalo. It's simple, rain = you get wet, snow = you get wet only slower.

Sure enough, within a couple of miles from the start (all uphill in glorious warmth-building incline ) the rain turned to snow and we were golden - for awhile anyway. By the time we got to the top of the ridge and heading towards the fire tower, this is what the situation looked like:

The snow was coming down good (along with the temperature) and it got cold quick. We only went to the base of the final pitch up to the firetower and turned back. By the time we got back to the bottom, we were pretty cold but had a nice 1:38 of our lives not spent being sedentary.

Yeah winter here sucks but I guess it vould be worse. I'll be riding in shorts again by the end of the week while my pals in the Great White North and places that get real men's winters won't see dirt for another 3 weeks.

I love the South after all...