Saturday Spin, dodging snowflakes

Ahh, the Calgary cycling community faced another tough Saturday morning.  After club and inter-club email threads were priming everyone for a 10am showdown departing the Cabin Cafe at 10am, we woke to see snow piling up outside our windows.  It was enough to kill my momentum for the day.

I did a few errands, and started working on a few bike tune ups and part swaps, only to realize I was a part or a tool short here or there.  Didn't make much progress.

I geared up to ride at 1:15.  I was planning to ride Airport road, then north to Cochrane, and wind my way home through my beloved gravel roads.  I brought the Moots.  I rode a steady tempo and worked leg strength on the hills.  At the end of Airport road, a look north told me Cochrane wasn't a wise bet, it was enveloped in a white wall of snow falling from purple clouds.  I turned south to Bragg Creek and said farewell to my gravel roads.

Shortly after the new traffic circle (as a side not I'll add seems to be quite a small diameter circle for semi trucks?) I spotted a group of riders about 150 yards ahead.  With prey in site I set off to hunt them down.  I was successful, but the joke was on me.  I caught up with about 1.5km to go into Bragg, and as it turns out it was a group of four ladies, probably 40 years old, on "tri" bikes (ie. Cannondale R2000 with bolt on bars sitting up 4" above the handlebars).  They were chatting casually and didn't appear to be pushing the pedals very hard.  So either I'm really lame, or this Moots does take a little caloric expenditure to push around.  

We chatted briefly at Cinnamon Spoon, where they actually said "ooohhh, the tires are so big".  Right they are.  I rode out to highway 66 then turned back to retrace my route.  Believe it or not, with a little winding through the city at the end, it was a 5 hour ride.  I struggle to sustain speeds much over 20kph with that bike.

It was a fairly nice day, a few flurries to deal with.  I had full fenders, and the work/speed ratio on the Moots makes it a lot harder to get chilled while riding.  I can coast in a road paceline and expend 100W and hold 30kph if the conditions are right, which is a great recipe for a human popsicle.  The Moots demands at least 200W just to roll along, and I'm going roughly half the speed.  

Other than a satisfying workout, the other benefit of the ride was that 5 hours solo time gave my brain plenty of time to work through iterations of the house renovation we're looking at.  I hadn't had time to sit and think recently about it, and after viewing some drawings and seeing a few new houses, the jigsaw puzzle might be a little closer to being solved.