rhm

Tuesday's snow melted off the streets yesterday, and on the canal towpath yesterday evening it felt mostly like slush, barely slowed me down. But temps dropped into the 20's overnight and at 5 AM the remaining snow had a tough frozen crust, no way I could ride on that without studs, so I took the road to avoid the canal. Slightly longer, so I had to hustle; and slightly unfamiliar, so I don't know where it's likely to be wet. And it was fine, mostly a dry asphalt stained light gray by the salt. Uh, mostly. At one point I realized I was riding across a 40 foot black patch of snowmelt that had been running across the road during the night and was now either mostly frozen or entirely frozen. I didn't want to find out. I was going 15 or 16 mph and there was no time to react. I uttered an epithet and kept going. Nothing went wrong. Whew.