notes from the trail

(1) Rifle season is over. Hallelujah.

(2) I've said it before: Pennsylvania winters suck rocks. It is a "crappy dark-cloudy-northern-dreary-craptastic-cold-funk of a winter." I'd forgive the cold and windy and constant overcast-dreary if we could get a decent snow cover. But here in south-central pee-aay, even though it's been crazy cold for the past several days, we won't get precipitation again until it warms up.

It's become a predictable pattern.

(3) On Saturday's ride I looked down to notice that drips of sweat had frozen in a slick little sweat-spattered pattern on the flat black paint of my top tube. Cold.

(4) I bought winter riding shoes. From Wiggle. Some stuff is way cheaper bought in Europe, especially with free shipping deals.

(5) My new mtb tires, Michelin Wildgripper Sprints, are awesome.
I have the green ones (on my monitor, this picture makes them look teal, but they're more green than teal). Why are they awesome? One, green...and they look awesome on my otherwise black mtb. Two, prefect tread pattern for how and what I ride. Three, they do that cool optical illusion thing where it looks like the wheel is rotating the other direction. I'm exceptionally pleased with this.

Look, act quickly and you can get your own. Other than that, I suppose your best bet at finding a pair would be to clean out the inner recesses of your local bike shop's dusty back closet. That's where I found mine.

(6) I heard more gunfire in the mountains two Saturdays ago (two days before rifle season) than I did this last Saturday (the last day of rifle season). Damn poachers.

(7) Self-imposed moratorium on cycling-related spending until Feb 1 (with the exception of a rear mtb wheel I already have on order). Think I can make it?