Desperation

No new snow here in VT. Skiing was good for a few days, but it has since gone downhill quickly...(get it?) Ok, not funny. I have made a valiant effort to stay active this winter and avoid gaining too much weight. I joined a crossfit gym, and the workouts often leaving me wanting to vomit. It is a good option when the weather is absolutely suck-tastic, but when it isn't sneeting/snaining or just plain raining, I want to be outdoors. So, the logical solution would be to ride the bike. But, what do you do when the trails look like this?

Slip and slide.....

Well, I'll tell you what you do, whether you want to know or not. You get a friend who has a box of screws, a drill and two free hours. When you are done drilling and screwing, you have this.

Like a 60 tpi hedgehog.

Making these death tires is just half the fun. After spending two hours (two guys, two drills, two tires, all in two hours. Not a fast process) you get to mount these m$)#$*)%)($ sharp tires. It took me about a half an hour to get both tires on. It took me another half hour to get the tubes seated correctly.

It was truly something I never want to do again, until I think about how fun this is. With the recent thaw/freeze cycle, our local trails now have an inch thick glaze all over them. This glaze makes them quite treacherous if you don't have some type of spike on your footwear or tire, as I discovered two seconds before I took this picture. I was trying to get across the trail near the tree Marc is turning around, but I ended up almost sliding into the stream bed that is immediately to the left of the frame. Luckily, I was able to grab a small pine tree and get my camera ready before Marc cruised by. The glaze, besides being lethal, also smooths out all the rocks and roots that we typically deal with. It actually made the trails a lot of fun to ride, with quarter inch spikes biting into the ice. They bit so well it was almost like riding with resistance on a trainer. At the very least, I will be able to ride the luge track trails around my house until we get enough snow to get back into the woods.