First Snow

Many Thresholders and New England riders may not have realized, but today brought the first flakes of snow. At the very least, it was snowing in Dover and it was some gritty stuff!

Met up with Randall in Waban and rode out to Fabio’s in Wellesley center. If you haven’t riden with Randall before, it only takes a few rides to realize that he has only one speed – fast. I would think that this time of year his PowerTap would be yelling at him to slow down (my HR monitor certainly was), but no – he was out in front on the first hill going up to Wellesley. For a 30 degree day, this didn’t bode well.

Thankfully, when we met up with Fabio, he informed us that he didn’t want to go over 300 watts. Not having a power meter, meant that this measurement of effort offered little for me. Though, some quick math (Leo weighs 40lbs more than me, he can hold 300 watts for 90 min, he’s Jensian …) gave a me a good idea about what he was shooting for.

Now, it was a cold day. Being the Sunday after Thanksgiving, this was no surprise. I had on my warmest AmFib tights, warmish Capo socks, thermal (but not my thickest) booties, Craft Zero LS baselayer, short sleeve jersey (for extra pockets), Castelli thermal jacket/vest thing, Warm hat, early winter/late fall PI gloves.Hi temp was supposed to be 40, but not until well into the ride. Rain was in the forecast for later in the day, but I packed a seriously yellow PI wind jacket.

Sure enough, once we hit the heart of Dover, it starts to Snow. Not fluffy, Christmas globe snow. Sleet, sting your eyes and face, frozen snow. We stop in Medford center to get Randall some Hot Chocolate to pour over his hands and decide that a shorter loop may be in order.

By the time we made it to Pine St (formerly Dover-Roubaix) it’s full on snowing. To add to this, the frozen white stuff was making a nice crackling sound under our 23mm tires (yeah, good weather so we took the good bikes). I drop back to throw on my rain jacket. By the time I catch back on, Fabio is pulling over to the side of the road. It seems his chain is coming apart and none of us have a chain tool. He jabs at it a bit and is good to go.

Snow turns to rain and things start to get COLD fast. Bye bye toes. Bye bye fingers. Nice knowing ya. We decide to head straight back to Fabio’s place and take him up on the offer of a ride home. There will be plenty of hard men days ahead this winter, I was fine putting in only 2 hrs.

About a mile from our destination it was all SNAP, CRAP. Fabio’s chain went and he totally kept the bike up right in the process! A few minutes to decide that chain was toast without a tool. Randall and I push Fabio the remainder of the ride. This was a pretty awesome workout! Something worth trying on future rides (minus the equipment failure)

Get back, bikes on racks and head home. Bagel, hot cider, blog, shower.

-Mover