The sun was shining and the temperature was perfect for a Sunday afternoon foothills ride on the singlespeed. I headed south from the house to Bear Canyon arroyo and climbed up to 365, then headed south toward Montgomery. That section was way too muddy and shouldn't be ridden right now, so I practiced some cyclocross and ran a lot with the bike up to Embudito. From there pavement over to Comanche then picked up the 365 singletrack on over to Copper, to the saddle at the top of the FooMTB trail, then hit the switchback climb going back north and the other nice climb over toward Indian School, and on back north to the casa. A nice 22 mile ride and I'm not sure about the stats, though I know it wasn't too fast. There's enough soft and wet soil in the foothills that you really have to pedal through it so it's good work for the legs, but much nicer than when it's so dry out there that your bike sinks in the sand. Saw a bunch of friendly faces on the trails. Everyone was happy to be out with flecks of mud all over. Ran into old friends and new. There were even a few paragliders coming down off the mountain near Menaul.

Today at lunch, got out on the roadie for a quick spin through the bosque. Ran into Matt coming the other direction about the time I was planning on turning back for the office so joined him for a few miles before I peeled off for the office. Glad he was on his recovery ride cause keeping up with him when he's hammering is too painful to think about. You can read for yourself on his blog the serious miles he puts in. Good to get out. Have to take advantage of every opportunity when we're having our first real winter season in some time.

Friday I was down at the big reservoir for work and hauled the SS down for some after work play. Found some fun jeep and cow trails to poke around on. Things were so moist down there that riding through the middle of a sandy arroyo was actually pretty easy too. Fun to explore and just a couple hours south of the burque. I stayed low on blm lands as the forest service lands were snowed in. I started the ride in snow, and finished in beautiful sunshine. The creosote and the occasional mesquite smell so good after rain and snow. The pic is a little crummy and was taken with my cameraphone, but the red rock outcrops above the bike are the Permian Abo Formation which in places contains fossilized lizard tracks. Cool area.

Snow again this weekend but it wasn't really so bad. The big remodel starts today, and over the weekend we got moved out of the master into the spare bedroom for the next 5 or 6 weeks. I'm sure it will be an interesting month and a half but will be nice when it's all finished. Saturday we did manage a nice workout at the gym and got the dogs out for a good run afterward. I was reading Matt's post on MTBR.COM Saturday evening and noticed he'd gotten out for a foothills adventure in the blowing snow, so I took the queue, and got out Sunday afternoon for a nice ride on the snow in the north foothills. For the most part, I stayed on the lower trails, but also did the long, steady climb from the Bear Canyon arroyo near Tramway, to the wilderness boundary at Pino Canyon. The last half to quarter mile of the climb was tricky dealing with all the icy, lumpy snow from hikers and snow shoers (including some of my own snow shoe prints!) and I occasionally broke through or dropped the front wheel into a print, impeding my progress. Really had to concentrate and work harder than normal to get up there, but it sure was nice to be out. All in all 15 miles in 95 minutes which didn't seem too bad for the snow, though 3 of those miles were on or adjacent to the bike path which was pretty smooth sailing. Looks like we're due for a few days of nicer weather, so I should be able to at least log some miles on the pavement this week.

I've put way more miles on the snowshoes and spin bike since Christmas than on the pavement or dirt, but it is winter after all. And, we're having a real winter this year too. Last year we were able to ride the entire winter, even on our favorite east mountain trails and we took advantage, knowing that the Forest Service would likely close things down come spring or summer due to fire danger. The good thing about the snow and moisture this winter, is that it is highly unlikely the Forest Service will close down our trails in 07.

I did manage a nice road ride last week when the temps warmed up, but my legs were absolutely dead from intervals on the spin bike from the night before. One of these days I'm going to get a compact crankset for the Klein. My 8 speed Klein was previously owned by a Cat 1 roadie who was on the Junior National team in his youth, and it's geared accordingly and frankly, I'm just not strong enough to consistently push those tall gears on the big climbs. It's the first real road bike I've owned and though not my favorite kind of riding, I need to beef up the road miles this year. Spin classes have been a nice diversion the past month, and they are serving their purpose, and helping to maintain fitness. I should still have a good base to build on as trail and road conditions improve and am hopeful that I'll be able to significantly improve on my total mileage in 2007. Hope to have some dirt rides to report on soon, but the weatherman has not been my friend lately.

Here's a quick chart showing what the big storm did to our snowpack in the Rio Grande basin based on various snotel sites. You're looking at the snow-water equivalent.

The Jemez and the Sangre de Cristo's fared the best. Also, not shown is the Cimmaron which is at nearly 200 percent of average, and the Pecos which got hammered too.