(All apologies to Milli Vanilli for corrupting their lyric masterpiece.)
I'd heard that it snowed in Albany, that there were such things as snow emergencies, and that there were times that you needed to budget an hour to shovel your car out of its parking spot, but until this last Friday these stories all sounded like attempt to pull one over on the silly little southerner. In fact, it seems that all of these things are painfully true.
Friday brought us somewhere around ten inches of snow in the matter of a few hours. Once we'd gotten six or so inches I figured it had to be about to stop (I mean, god doesn't have that much dandruff, does he?), so I ignored my better judgement and took to the streets, General Lee-style.
And lo there was ripping. And the ripping was good.
As it turns out, my marginal skillz are unaffected by what skiers refer to as a powder day. When you're already pretty challenged in terms of your shredability, the addition of snow makes everything a little more difficult, but also increases your margin of error. My four inches of bunnyhopability was constant and I still couldn't do a bar spin, but then again I didn't break myself, either.
I had backup along, so I was able to grab a few pics. Here I'm basically showing the very peak of my skills, the rarely seen snow-bound trackstand. Behold it's brilliance.
Since it normally is only light up here for like seven hours a day, during the snowstorm we were reduced to like four. It was already getting dark at this point in 
the afternoon, though it was only a little after four.
The very pinnacle of my trickery.
This was all pretty rad on Friday, and my amusement extended into Saturday. However, as it's continued to snow, and I've had to dig my car out twice, gotten stranded in the Albany airport for all of Sunday, 
and seen all of the world disappear under a blanket of white for the next three month, my love for the white stuff has diminished. I'm planning a New Year's Eve shredathon regardless of temperatures (and sobriety level); pics may not follow.
I hope you're all getting to ride some down south. Happy holidays from the Northcountry!
Why stand on a silent platform?
2 days ago
4 comments:
I read this great article about tire traction in snow. Get yourself some zip ties, bigger the better and place at clock intervals around your tire and rim. cut off excess and now you have "chains" for your tires.
I love the photo of Pirate's high point in the snow. The look of concentration is priceless.
But then what do you do for brakes? I can see the zip ties working for traction, but they'd seriously compromise the brake track. I like brakes. Even on my fixie.
Actually I know that a number of people up here either buy studded tires or make their own with a standard tire and a bunch of screws pushed through from the inside. This seems a bit like overkill for me, and not something that I think I need for my less-than-a-mile commute, but it's an interesting idea. I can only imagine the carnage that would happen were I to put such whirling flesh cutters on the GL.
Yes, concentration is important when you don't have skill. If only I could strike the devil-may-care poses of Dave when he's showing us how it's done...
Looks like fun Duke!
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