Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Dog Ate My Blog

This, the first post of the new year, coming in late January, is sent with my apologies. Pick an excuse... It's been an unusually cold and snowy winter for DC, as evidenced in the shot below... I've been working my tail off with a silly little thing like trying to fix health care... The kids are fully into basketball, swimming, indoor soccer. etc season. But the real truth is... The dog ate my blog.

Meet Cisco. He's the latest member of the family, a six month old Wheaten Terrier puppy who demands a lot of attention. Yes, Cisco has, on more than one occasion, kept me off the bike on a fair day that would have otherwise contained a less-than-epic winter ride which would have been fodder for a post.


Well enough already with the excuses. Its' time for a ride. So what if we're in the middle of the second significant snowstorm (ok... third by DC standards) of our still infant winter. This morning before the white stuff piled up too high, I dusted off the trusty rugged-tyred, mudguard-fitted DL-1 Roadster and took a little ride down the Mount Vernon Trail. The bike handled beautifully in the snow. These tyres were made for the stuff. The brakes on the other hand, not so much. Keep it slow on your snowy rod-braked roadster ride. I would guess I had about 25% of normal stopping power. Any of you who have ridden a bicycle with roller lever rod brakes already know that it probably only has 10% of the stopping power of modern disc-braked mountain bike. Good enough if you keep it slow, which is good advice for riding the snow any way. Well that's it for now. Time to have some hot chocolate and cozy up the fire.

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