Toasty warm!

Rode to work this morning and got to test out the Hippo Hands for the first time. It was pretty chilly this morning even though the high today ended up in the 50s. The Hippo Hands are fairly narrow but they fit the bike ok. It was a bit weird not being able to see my hands or the controls. I practiced a bit before leaving the driveway. It was a quick adjustment. I started out without the heated grips turned on and was comfortable. I thought I'd take highway 93 part of the way so I could get up to speed for this test. The weather is certainly getting warmer so I may not need these at all in a few weeks.

About half way to work I turned on the heat. High got warm very quickly and was a lot warmer than I remembered. :-) It was toasty warm! I actually had to turn the heat down. Sweet! On the highway, the bike didn't seem to handle any differently. I didn't think it would but you never know until you try. It wasn't a windy ride anyway so that was a good thing too.

The openings are not very large. My right arm would catch the edge if I wasn't careful. But, I can adjust that. Because they are so narrow, the tops of my hands touch the top of the inside of the hippo hands. But, not enough to make me worried. The hang guards will keep the hippo hands from collapsing.

I'll post photos later.

I think I'll like these very much. :-)

Warm weather is surely on the way!!

I just received my pair of Hippo Hands in the mail yesterday. Warm weather is surely on the way now! In fact, this morning, it was too warm to try them out and I didn't even need my grip warmers for most of the trip. So, I suppose the review may have to wait. They are a bit oddly sized it seems to me, but that's the way they are designed. I went home sick yesterday so luckily was home when the mailman arrived. But, I also didn't get to try them out. Oh well.

I did manage to ride to work almost every day last week. Didn't ride on Friday because I had some place to be and needed to be there in the car. It was glorious to be out again!

On Saturday, while hubby worked on replacing his tires on the GL650, I did a short ride to Boulder to try out a new app on my new iPhone. There is an app called iMapMyRide that is for bicyclists to track their routes, mph, and time. I was hoping it would work to map my routes as I some times have a hard time keeping track of where I travel exactly. It didn't work. But, I think I'll try it again and do some fiddling with where I store the phone. I went to Boulder because of the phone actually. I needed to have the AT&T store submit some proof of employment so I could get my discount on my plan. I also went to Whole Foods to have a snack for lunch. After that, I realized that one of the nice things about traveling solo is that it takes me so long to get geared up again. My hubby is often waiting for me when we ride together. I like to take my time, gather my things and my thoughts, and then get going. Not that he ever makes me rush. But, I am quite slow. So, it is nice some times to just be on my own. :-)

Rocky Mountain National Park - there and back again

FINALLY!!!! YAY!!!!!

Headed out the door at 10:30 am. Destination - Estes Park. I grabbed my laptop thinking I'd stop and sit somewhere with a warm beverage and maybe get some work done. I took my usual route up to Boulder and stayed on Broadway through town to get to Lyons. There is lots of construction still going on on Broadway but it wasn't any worse than sitting in traffic and stoplights on 28th through town. I made one pit stop in Lyons and then headed up towards Estes Park.

Estes Park is one of my most favorite places to be in Colorado. I know it fairly well, having spent several weeks working on various archives projects with my library school. I took an archives class as a student and then spent the next few years assisting current students with the projects. The history of the area fascinates me. And having spent so much time there, I can usually avoid the tourists and the crowds. But, yesterday, it was very quiet. I guess the cold weather and snow might be keeping them away.

I stopped and had a bowl of chili, sitting outside to enjoy the moment.
















I stopped in the Beaver Meadows visitor center to check on the road conditions. On the board they were officially listed as icy but the ranger said they were actually mostly clear. So, off I went. I bought a year pass. I hope to spend a lot of time riding through here this season. :-)

Once in the park, I headed up Trail Ridge Road. I like to look at the road past the road closed sign to see how high the snow is. Here is some video of me leaving the parking area at Many Curves Park, where the road is closed. (Hopefully the video works.)



The roads were very clear, even clear of gravel or sand. Some of the shaded curves had some gravel so I just took those very slowly. No traffic, no people wandering the roads, I didn't even see any wildlife. I road up Trail Ridge Road to the road closed sign and back down. Then took the road out of the park at the Fall River entrance. There was a gaggle of cars pulled over at the fork in the road to go into downtown or up to the Stanley, so I went through town instead. They were probably taking photos of elk so I thought I'd just avoid the situation.

I headed back home the way I came. When it was all over, I'd traveled 152 miles in 6 hours. It was a good day. It could have only been better if my hubby had been with me. Maybe next time. This time it was nice to have some solitude. And, I didn't get any work done, so that was ok too.

So depressing...

Snow every three days has been the norm around here. Sigh. Very cold morning temperatures, slick roads in the morning, 40's in the afternoons. Those 40s are nice, and we even had some sun this week, but those cold slick mornings are not conducive to my riding. Today, I have a workshop in the morning until about 2:00. Maybe I can make it home in time to get a quick ride in. Saturday it is supposed to be nice too. We'll see. Sigh.

so much snow....

I got a short ride in yesterday. We had a plumbing issue that took up most of the morning so I didn't get out until about 2:30 or so. And, once the sun goes down, it gets cold quickly. So, I just made it a quick jaunt to Golden and back. I wanted to keep going but, laundry was calling. Sigh. And now there's snow on the ground and colder temperatures in the air. Sigh. It has to warm up some time, right?

Sigh.

Cold mornings, warm afternoons

Rode to work yesterday and today. The mornings are still pretty cold, in the mid 20s. In fact, this morning, as I walked out to load up the moto, my neighbor was scraping ice off her windshield. But, the high today was close to 60! Of course, I'm sitting at my desk when those temperatures are happening. But, it does melt more of the ice that still lingers on the side streets and in the parking lot.

Yesterday morning, leaving my driveway, my rear tire slide out a bit on the ice that was still in the street. The block still has enough ice to make the street bumpy in places. I slide out a little as I drove away as well, yesterday. But, coming home, the melt had happened and most of those spots were just wet. Still some chunks of ice but I could avoid them and drive on the wet spots. When I got to work that morning, the parking lot was mostly a sheet of ice. The moto parking spaces, which used to be the snow plow point, were pretty clear. But, the entry into them was a sheet of ice. So, I pulled in head first, and waited until 2:00 when the ice melted, to turn the bike around.

This morning, leaving the driveway wasn't a problem. But, the parking lot at work is still a bit scary. For some reason, the parking lot had been plowed again. There wasn't any more snow but instead there were long lines of raised ice, the trail of the plow, running parallel to the curb. I was able to carefully back into the spot this time. As I was leaving however, I did hit a chunk of ice edge that pushed the back end quite a bit, enough to catch me off guard. (Actually, I just wasn't paying attention.) And, instead of taking the left to exit the parking lot, I took a right to go through the parking lot. As I came to the stop sign in the lot, the ABS kicked in as I tried to stop on a sheet of ice. That was a bit freaky. I wasn't expecting that either. So, after those two near misses, I decided to just head home the way I came in, on highway 93. It was dry and uneventful.

The good news is the days are getting longer. It was still light out at 5pm. Who hoo!

I think I'll get one more riding day before the snow flies again on Thursday. It's been nice being back on the GS again. And, I am quite comfortable even at 25 degrees with the sun out. The heated grips are awesome. (I learned today that I can feel the heat a lot better without my glove liners on.) I'm wearing my long Smartwool ski socks, fleece lined tights, my Olympia airglide mesh pants with the quilted liner, and my rain pants over them, a short sleeved t-shirt, long sleeved t-shirt, long sleeved turtleneck, Tour Master Transition jacket, Olympia hi-viz vest, silk glove liners, Olympia all season gloves, and a fleece balaclava under my helmet with the Respro foggy liner in the helmet. All of that keeps me very comfortable in the morning. I wear it all on the way home as well since the temperature drops pretty quickly when the sun goes down.

I get a lot of air inside my helmet which is really nice in the warmer months. In the cold, not so much. But the Respro and the balaclava keeps my chin warm. The air seems to blow right on my eyes though. And with my sun glasses that isn't so bad because they wrap around pretty closely to my head. My regular glasses though, don't help much. I may check into getting some clear lens sport glasses.

Shiny side up! :-)

Ice dam - Ice Damn!

Aaargh! I just spent some time trying to shovel the ice away from the front of the driveway in the hopes that it will assist my efforts to ride to work this week. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm not sure it did any good. And there is still that large patch of snow and ice in the street as well. There are three patches that are pretty thick that I couldn't move. The two closest to the forefront of the image are the ones I really wanted to get at. They are right in my line of entry and exit. No matter. The river of water along the sidewalk will be ice in the morning anyway. It is dammed up all along the block and can't drain. And the snow melt will make the entire entry into the driveway pretty slick in the morning. I put some ice melt down anyway. Actually, I also put some fertilizer down because I thought it was ice melt.

Sigh. This weather is really making me sad. If we have blizzards in the spring I might just lose my mind. But, I won't worry about that now. The forecast for next week looks like this...Should I drive Monday just to check out the road conditions? Or just go for it? I usually do the drive first just to be on the safe side.

The weather outside is frightful.....

Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgghh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe my lovely hubby can retro fit my Rebel with ghost rider tires to melt the snow and ice as I ride.......