First ride of Winter, 2007!
Saturday, 22DEC07, we woke to maybe two inches of snow. I'd snow-thrown most of what fell on Friday during the evening once the snow had stopped falling so there was not much left to clear except for ice patches and such along the King Canute Escape Path.
I spent most of the morning clearing the ice patches away, ensuring drainage occurred and by 11am I could get out of the neighborhood just fine. Sure, if my motorcycle was lighter, I could try just riding out on the snow-packed neighborhood roads but the risk of dumping her and ensuing embarrassment and damage still dissuade me from such attempts. The sun did most of the work of getting things ready for me to ride. : )
I left after lunch around 1315hrs and rode for perhaps an hour and about 30 miles worth of loop to check out a customer site's parking lot. It was snow-packed. Perhaps by tomorrow there will be some room to park Maria when I go there to do some work. I basically took Arapahoe Road westward to Quebec Street, then returned via the Cherry Creek Dam Road, Parker Road and then neighborhood roads.
The route I took, not the most direct in terms of getting home, led me to the "golfball" on Smoky Hill Road, just west of the Southlands Mall area. It's some kind of satellite downlink housing structure which I've taken pictures of before, here's another angle.
Had a minor "ass-puckering" moment when jockeying Maria on this street to get the picture. Some parts of the street were still snow-packed you see; and I felt the rear wheel try to wiggle out from under me for a nanosecond or so.
It reinforced the idea of not risking riding on the snow-packed streets in my neighborhood until they clear some more! Slushy snow is not bad, kind of like riding on mud, icy hard snow is quite another matter!
Got home just fine and cleaned up Maria from all the grime she'd accumulated this week while we commuted to/from work.
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