My ride home from work today was aided by a rare beast: the tailwind. It is about time, he seems to avoid me as much as he can when I am pedaling home after work.
The roads were clear and I was setting a good pace. I was excited about the possibility of arriving at my apartment earlier than normal.
As I crossed the river, with four miles left to go, I noticed something cool (as in actually cool) in the trees.
It was ice. Big slabs of ice.
The receding water had left ice shelves in the swamp area near the river. I had to check it out.
Leaving my bike leaning against the guard rail, I scrambled down the bank, approaching the frozen swamp with caution. Was it really as frozen as it appeared or would it crack under my weight?
Then I realized the water had already receded, the only thing underneath the ice was shallow pockets of air. Emboldened, I stepped onto the ice and found it to be as firm as a concrete floor. I walked around on the icy, snow covered surface; looking at the tiny footprints left by woodland creatures and snapping photos of the stunning ice shelves. Some looked like tiny caves and others looked like tables. It is in these moments that I wish I knew how to take better pictures and/or had invested in a better camera. I want to remember how wonderful these unique ice sculptures really were!
As I headed back up to the road, I saw a man striding from my bike back to his car. I suppose he stopped to see if the abandoned bicycle was a sign of a human in distress, but once he saw me returning from my swamp wandering, he figured I was okay.
By the time I reached town, the sun was beginning to set. I arrived at my apartment much later than I had originally anticipated with a huge smile on my face. That is the magic of biking in winter, it slows me down but in the process it gives me memories I hope I will never forget.
So cool! Thanks for sharing the pictures! You should do a post on the gear you use for winter and why you chose it. Perhaps you did. When I get home I’ll search your old entries.
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Well got my answer already. You have a whole page dedicated to it. HAHAHHA
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Thanks for saying that! It reminds me that I should really do an updated post of what gear I am using this winter…I have bought some new stuff since last year 😉
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Very cool, Bri.
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Is that a pun? Because the ice was very cool indeed, in case you were wondering 😀
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Yeah, no. I wish I’d have thought of that… 😉
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It’s okay Jim, you have other things on your mind, like a brand-spanking new looking Trek, I understand completely.
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I’m waiting for my studded tires to arrive. My route to town is iced up and without those I’m car bound. So I bought a new one yesterday.
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Yeah, studded tires make a huge difference on ice. What kind of tires did you order?
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Schwalbe. I had to order from two different companies who each had one 700×35 tire in stock.
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Nice, those are sweet tires, I hope you get them soon! That is too bad that you had to order from two companies to get a set, but at least they hadn’t run out completely.
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Yea? I ordered two from another company and would have had them by now. I guess a lot of other people did the same and they were out of stock with no restock this year.
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So cool! I do wish you’d embed larger pictures though. 😀
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I will have to figure out how to do that, it used to happen automatically but now that I resize my pictures before uploading them (so that I don’t run out of storage space) I can’t seem to make it work 😦
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Oh, yeah. If you are resizeing them to be smaller then that’s what’s getting embedded.
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That makes sense. Maybe I need to figure out a new plan…
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That is waaaay cool. Even though I couldn’t be like you and bike in cold.
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Well, I melt in extreme heat, so I’d say we are even 😉
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What a fabulously strange experience…that’s the great thing about cycling you see things car drivers miss
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I was telling my coworkers about it at work today and they wouldn’t believe me until I showed them pictures from my camera…and they drive past the same river
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