Caught By Surprise

Sad as it is, for all intents and purposes, the group riding season is over. There are still a few individual riders here and there, holding out as long as they can, as morning temperatures have dipped into the 30s the past couple weeks.

For the most part, I've been fairly busy with work over the past several weeks, so I did not log much riding time as the riding season dwindled. My riding was mostly limited to once a week, usually on a Sunday. The last time I rode was Oct. 31, and that was about as late into the season as Anna could stand (at least without a full-face helmet); her lips and face were chapped. She's done for the year as far as riding is concerned, but I wasn't ready to call it quits yet.

This week, I had no work planned, so my goal was to get some riding in on one or two weekdays, and change the oil on my bike before I put it up for the winter. But this morning, I was caught by surprise when I looked outside and saw snow on the ground! Argh!! It's probably occurred at some time within my lifetime, but I'll be darned if I can remember it snowing this early in November. Anna says it's the start of what she believes will be a long, difficult winter .... sort of Mother Nature's payback for a near-perfect summer. Only one or two rides were rained out, and it never got excessively hot.

It's only an inch or two of slushy snow, so it will likely be gone in a day or two; I'm more concerned about the possibility of salt on the roads, although temperatures are not expected to be below freezing. In any case, I'll be keeping a watchful eye for the telltale white residue. If crews did not put sand or salt on the roads, I may still have hope of riding this week, since the forecast calls for sun with mid-50s temperatures by Thursday and Friday. If they did apply salt, though, I would have to wait for a good rainfall to wash the salt off the road. The end results of salt on chrome ain't pretty ....