"You didn't ride your bike today, did you...?"
Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies. : )
Downtown Spokane, with the Davenport Hotel on the left.
Merging onto southbound Maple at 2nd Avenue.
Ok, I escaped the city and made it down onto Inland Empire Way. Ahhh, peaceful. That is a Cateye TL-LD170-F mounted sideways as a clearance light, just for kicks.
Goodbye peace, back to mayhem. The turn off Inland Empire Way onto Highway 195. I better wait for my guardian angel to catch up with me here...
Ok, now this is scary. A bicycle tire track in the snow?! On a busy highway? At night, at rush hour, in a snowstorm?! OMG THERE IS A CRAZY GUY RIDING A BIKE SOMEWHERE NEARBY! :o (no, that's not my tire track)
Looking back down the highway after making it past the Cheney-Spokane Road turnoff.
Whew, I made it off of Highway 195 at Hatch, got a break in the traffic, and went up Hatch and hung right on Hangman Valley Road. Quiet peaceful curvy two-lane country road, just me and the Flamethrower HID mostly. Snow's still falling heavily and in a few places I'm dragging my lowrider front panniers in the snow a little as I go up Hangman Valley.
About halfway home now, mile 11 or so. My toes are starting to get cold and I'm starting to get a bit wet. For some reason.
I took a flash pic of the bike here as well. Those are the IRC Blizzard studded tires my co-workers bought me; I've since graduated to Nokian Extreme 294's.
The fire station at the top of the Old Palouse Highway hill. I'm almost back to the south edge of civilization. That snow in the foreground is about 4 inches deep at this point, so it's taking a fair amount of power to roll through it.
There's Regal St. A right turn, north a couple miles, and I'll be home. I'm up to mile 17 or so.
This wouldn't be a good time to discover that I left my apartment key at work.
Letting the bike drip in the tub. 19.3 miles, 10.3mph average. If you thought that was a crazy ride, you probably don't want to know about the 80-mile ones... ;) my sample winter craziness video at YouTube