Well it came down on Monday...finally, our first snow for winter 2005. A few of us banded together at Wakefield to take part in the first snow ride and put down some virgin tracks. Conditions got a little sloppy and we ended up cutting the ride short, but damn it was nice to get out there and crunch up some snow. Winter snow riding has got to be one of my favorite aspects of mountain biking.

Riding in the snow is a workout, whether your going up, down, or just cruising the flats. Your not going to break any time barriers, but that's a good thing. You take the heart rate monitor, the cycle computer, and all the other stuff that might be weighing you down and you just ride. You straddle the line of being in control and becoming a human snow plow. It's hard work and takes a lot of concentration, but that focus is what really makes it fun.

With friends, without friends, it doesn't matter. The isolation of riding alone in the snow is an eerily beautiful thing and a nice stout at the end of the ride is the topping on the cake.

If you want pics, you'll have to surf on over to Steve's blog and check out the fun we had...

DT

I think I came up with a good Google Maps mashup, but I haven't really searched enough to see if someone else has already done it. A quick google search didn't show much. I'll post the idea here and maybe someone can build it out or point me to a site that already has it...

Take google maps and add a topo layer, you should be able to switch from google maps to topo and then to hybrid mode showing both. The point behind this is to get elevation data incorporated with google maps. Why would you want this? Well say your going out for a ride and you want to make sure you hit the biggest hills in your neighborhood - well using this map you should be able to determine the size of those hills (grade, how long, how many feet climbed/descended), maybe color code the streets based on how big the hills are. Of course if your just trying to get to work and you think it would be nice to take the flattest route so you won't get into the office all sweaty like, this map should show you that too. I'm sure there are other non-bike uses for something like this, who knows.

Anyway, I signed up to get a key for the Google Maps API, so I'll see what I can bang around. Been quite a while since I actually did any ground up developing, so it may be slow going...

Last nights TNS ride was a good one. Just Stoner and I and the raindrops. We headed to Arlington to the Boulevard Wood Grill. They were supposed to have a bunch of winter beers on tap. They didn't have most of them yet, but I did try two beers I've never had before. First up was the Clipper City Winter ale and the next was Sierra Nevada's Fall Harvest ale. Both were fresh and tasted spot on from their taps. The Clipper City was more malty, but light and almost foamy in the mouth, actually very good. The SNFH is labeled a pale ale and is definitely not as robust as their Celebration ale, but a very good pale ale all the same.

The food was spot on too. The menu is definitely higher priced and I could have swore they did pizza and some other low cost items, but I must have been thinking back to another place. I ended up getting the Tuna Veggie Burger and it hit the spot. Basically a veggie burger made with ground up tuna steak and a side of liquid wasabi sauce, the shoestring fries just completed the meal. It rained pretty much non-stop while we enjoyed ourselves inside and a few minutes before heading out the rain magically grinded to a drizzle. The ride home was fairly uneventful with the exception of some stupid motorists. In fact, there were more on this ride than probably all our rides combined. From people honking, yelling stuff out their windows, to giving the good old buzz. Doesn't bother me too much, it's wet out and they are just pissed off for having to spend their evening in the car in traffic and they see it as a complete inconvenience to have to wait 10 seconds to go around us. I do however get much satisfaction out of catching these people at red lights and letting them know that I'm there. Usually a knock on the window or a tap on the back of the car is enough to get the WTF? look from them and then see their embarrassment or the "I can't see you!" look. All of which let me know they probably feel like an uncomfortable ass. Ah, well my job is done.

DT