For Saturday, I talked to my friend Simon and we got a group together for a big suffer fest on gravel roads out near his house. The route was about 66 miles with nearly 9,000 feet of climbing, including plenty of gravel, mud, closed roads, powerline cuts, and steep climbs. Exactly my kind of stuff. Plus, a few of us were extra stupid and we took our singlespeeds on the ride. My bike was my Salsa Stormchaser with 38x19 gearing.
I brought donuts to Simon's house for the ride, where me, Zach, Simon, Cinderbloch, Litz, and Stick messed around with a pogo stick for a little bit before setting out on the route. It's worth noting that Simon is really good at pogo sticks, and even though he's a great rider, Litz is not very good.
Halfway though Nichol Road, we met up with Dave J., who rode with us for the rest of the route. With his geared bike, Dave broke the tie and (sadly) geared bikes were now the majority on the ride. Dave is a strong rider and a great guy, and we used to be be on the same team together.
It really was a good day of riding with below-freezing temps the whole time. Somehow, I stayed warm even with blowing wind and snow. We finished up the day with a gas-line cut through, where Jim broke his strap-on. We were all dirty from the mud, but not that dirty, by strap-on I mean strap-on fender. He snapped it off while trying to get back on his bike.
The conditions were surprisingly excellent, especially early on. The snow was pretty grippy (depending on who you ask) and there wasn't much mud. Davey showed off some bike pull-ups on a tree branch that was this close to snapping. We ripped it pretty hard, and eventually we met up with Stick and Suz (not by plan, but always a good thing) for a few miles. Everyone was riding really strong in the snow, and my legs were definitely feeling the day before a little bit.
For Sunday, Simon got the green-light from his family to do a ride, so my brother and I headed out to do a snowy singletrack ride with him in Bavington. For those not from the area, Bavington is a trail system just west of Pittsburgh in some state gamelands. It's closed during hunting season, but there's no hunting on (most) Sundays, and it's a pretty unique place to ride.
Our friend Davey (different Dave from the day before) also met up with us on his fancy new Canyon full suspension shifty bike. But don't worry, Davey is a singlespeeder at heart, and all is forgiven on Sundays.
Sometimes the winter can be rough in Pittsburgh, but despite below-freezing temperatures and snow on the ground, it was a pretty great weekend of riding with friends.
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