Snow Biking in St. Louis

If you ever want to ride Forrest Park's bike path without any runners, bikers, or rollerbladers getting in your way, wait until the mid-west decides to drop 8in of random snow. Sunday, it was in the 70's, then Tuesday, it dropped to mid 20's and snowed all day. The snow was thick enough, and coming down fast enough, the plows couldn't keep up. Accidents were all over the road, many stayed home, and I went for a ride around the park.

First, I finally got Marc's frame done, and needed to get out on the bike again. Second, I had a ton of gear to test out, and it was a great day to do it. The Lake winter boots worked like a champ (note, I do have last years model, so they're not exactly the one in the picture). I do think a Pugsley would be awesome for this, but I still can't see getting/building one for the few days a year that I could actually use it in St. Louis. But I will say my mountain bike still worked pretty well. Aside from snow getting hub deep at times, and leaving weird tire tracks with foot scrapes on either side where my feet were pedaling through the snow, I could keep chugging along. And chugging it was, I averaged 4.72 mph for two and a half hours. Of course part of that was I had to get off and hike if the grade got too steep. But man, I tell you it was a blast. I had the "trail" to my self. The only thing I saw was a few foot prints where people were hiking or running, and I think I saw one section of bike tracks. But aside from that, just a few people at road crossings that either gave me a big smile and friendly hello, as I crawled by in my granny ring, or people giving me dumbfounded looks of "what the hell would make you think that was a good idea." There didn't seem to be a middle ground. But I'll tell ya, next time it snows and I have the day off you'll know where to find me.