Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Five met this morning for a little winter riding over the holidays. Bad Christmas jokes aside, for me it was the first real winter adventure of any length for the year. Winter riding is something else entirely and one of my favorites. For those who prefer the balmy and dry conditions of summer, there is a whole new world of terrain, experience, and social time to discover.

Today was the perfect example of such a day that ranks among my favorites of any season. After a lengthy coffee visit in town, we set off on the usual singletrack up towards Tuscany. Every year new sections are added, to the pint that we now reach the outskirts of town with less than a kilometer of roadway ridden. Today I had the priveledge of introducing the group to a new trail section I discovered in the summer across from the twelve-mile-coulee. Soon we were connecting to the Glenbow Ranche, another gem of terrain and scenery seldom seen in the summer.

Soon we were riding down overflows of the Bow and tip-toeoing across frozen creeks, playing "watch my steps" with hilarious results and only 3 soaked feet/calves. Then it was 3 hours in, and lunch time in Cochrane; coffee, and more visits.

More backroads, pipeline right-of-way, and well service road took us back towards Calgary and the Valley Ridge trails, which are the closest you'll get to mountain biking vegetation and terrain near the city.

You know you're on a Stappler-winter-ride when it's 4:30, and you've elected to take an "ambitious" single track detour on the way home that even Craig admits to being "a little more challenging than needed at this time of day"... The 4 remaining riders are now regrouping every 40 meters, and one of them has turned on his front and rear lights, possibly on fear of not making it out of this forest before dark.

...But we did and it was great, well worth spending all my energy on.