When Steve “The Wall” brought this ride to my attention a few months ago when it was still warm enough to ride and still not have your extremities frozen off, I thought this  is a perfect ride for the Winter Nutz. Not knowing that it would be in the low 20’s with a cold Adirondack wind blowing off the lake. The Wall could not shield me from the steady wind (I think he needs to eat more cookies and bulk up).

    We first arrived at the parking lot after a 2 hour drive up from the OC. There were a few riders already with the bikes out (but they were in the car keeping warm not coming out until the last minute whistle was blown).

    We then met our savior (sag driver, arrow painter, ride organizer) for the day Heather. She was all bundled up with a coffee in hand. She greeted us with a friendly smile as we signed a waiver (that said she was not responsible if parts of our body were frozen or if we got lost never to be found again).

Promptly at 9:00AM the 7 of us (Yes you heard me right 7) rode off into the cold North wind as the sun started to shine. I think it was about 21 degrees in the sun. The plan was for all of us to ride together, with worked for about 10 miles, until the first hills and the wind and the cold separated us.

After about 30 miles we started up the the big mountain of the day, which consisted of on average grade of 9% for 2 miles. After a cold descent into the valley we rode along the Lake for about forever it seemed. The wind off the cold water was unforgiving for many miles and the warmth that we generated going up hill was soon sucked out of us.

We finally turned back away from the water, but by this time the sun had gone behind the clouds as snow flurries filled the air and the skies darkened.

At the 85 mile mark the, Jack Frost was nipping at our toes and nose and fingers and everything in between. The power bars were frozen like a rock and our water bottles were like a Slush at best.

    So we got lost at the 91 mile mark and stopped and asked for directions, then we noticed an arrow pointing the other way (we had crossed paths with our route on the way out and figured we would back track to the parking lot. Then low and behold a fresh red arrow that guided us home.

    We had survived(I do mean survived the coldest century i have every done)

Post ride we went to  a local restaurant with everyone and talked of the days ride over dinner and drinks. We had a great day, meeting and riding with new friends. As Arnold once said. I’ll be back

Artic

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7194998