9am and 15 degrees. Great big exhausting day starting at Highland. Took a chance going to Highland and sort of paid off as to the trail being dry 2-3" powder packed. Started on A and there was probably 10-12" of riding track - very grippy with tires at 5/6psi Surly Lou and Buds. Next on to B section - now the track is a very narrow 6-10" and tons of hills and downs. Made it up most all the hills but literally in top two granny gears for everything with the thick snow. I get to C trail crossing and no one has ridden it and all roads lead to B cut-off. Going that way out and thru to the A trailhead is fast and miraculously fall free. An hour and twenty minutes to go 6.2 miles very slow but that's snow biking. 11am and off to Pontiac figuring a lot of fat bikes have ridden there and it will be nice second ride.... but only 2 fatties had ridden it. Even more snow and tough riding blazing my own path through 3" of powder most of the time. 4 miles in 40 miles and exhaustion makes me bail at the halfway point and ride back 2 miles on the road. Everyone must be riding Island lake and Maybury?...
1pm and TJ at Cass rigging 13 = time to snowkite. I packed early in AM and decided to only bring 12 and not the 9m.... however all the kites look alike and I grabbed the 9 and not the 12... didn't realize this until I was packing the kite at 5pm to leave! Winds were S 10-15 and the lake was powder coated with 1-3" over 80% of surface. Somehow the 9 worked even though I had about dozen times where there were dead holes and the kite fell out of the sky. Got top speed of 24mph and logged over 30 miles in 2.5 hours. Really fun and only one fall trying to jump and spin. Wearing waist harness in place of seat hate the jumping aspect of not sitting down while getting lifted, seat to tight fit in ski clothes. All done by 5pm with legs fully toasted from doing all the work. Alleve and beer, beer, beer.
