Awesome mountain bike ride Shell Lake to Rice Lake

Kristine had errands to run in Rice Lake (about 20 miles away), and we wanted to take the kids ice skating – so we worked it out for me to bike down there on some nice backroads for a good 32 mile ride. It was COLD. The air temps were in the lower teens, but the wind was just unbelievable. I only had Kristine’s iphone with me to take these pictures, otherwise I would have taken video of the snow blowing across the road at 20mph. Check out the pics!

Mountain Biking Adventure

	Here’s the annotated topocreator route.
	Lots of long straight flat icy snowy roads – the challenge is finding a smooth line and riding as fast as you can without falling
	Some curvy roads too
	Some very icy roads – this is the stuff you want to avoid
	A huge snow plow
	The view from the high point of the ride
	Blowing snow – the windchill was incredible. There was one part of the ride where the wind was blowing hard from the side and being funneled right into my eye by my sunglasses. I had to turn to look into the wind because my eyeball felt like it was starting to freeze!
	Snow drifts
	Rice Lake – the cool thing about this picture is the island with a picnic table only in the winter (or by boat in the summer)
	Ski-do anyone?
	My mountain bike at the ice rink
	An icy version of me at the ice rink.

Wind skiing

This was awesome to watch. Unfortunately my batteries died right before this guy took off … literally. He got going very fast and then jumped at least 8 feet in the air with the windsail taking him up and setting him back down. I got a new set of batteries in just in time for him to make it back. How cool!!!

Ice Skating Princesses

My favorite picture of Analise and Kristine, the ice princesses

Cold roller ridin’

The high temperature today was at midnight this morning. The temperature dropped throughout the day until it was just over 10 degrees by the time I started a two hour ride on the rollers outside on the back porch. By the end of the ride, the temp was down to 3 degrees.

More winter “riding”

Mega snowstorm or not – I’m going to ride and enjoy the snow at the same time!

Winter road riding before the big storm

I went for a 52 mile road bike ride today up here in northwestern Wisconsin – figured it would be my only chance before we leave to head home on Tuesday since there is a winter storm being compared to a storm from 1991 that is supposed to hit us tonight, tomorrow, and Christmas day dumping maybe a foot or more of snow. The roads were pretty much clear and dry and the temps hovered in the mid 20s for the whole ride – pretty decent weather for this time of year!

Cycling in the northwoods, part ii

Here are pics and a topocreator map from today’s ride.