Winter creek rides are the sweetest

It's been winter now for a day or so and it's still raining. It's starting out like one of those winters where you ride creeks and rivers and you don't get cold. You slip around a bit and you follow the snow over the ice and when that disappears you take it straight and easy on the ice.

Today was one of those days. Temperature hovering around zero. Mist and rain and sleet in the air. A light Northeast wind. Perfect. "We should ride the creek!" That's the standard line around here these days.

The "creek" is the Buffalo Creek, a near river/field drain in Spring and Summer and a cycling haven from the wind as soon as it freezes over. Some winters, when there's a regular amount of snowfall, the creek riding season is short - that week or so when it's cold enough, but there's not much snow. Some winters, like this one so far, it freezes over hard, there's a sifting of snow - enough to coat the ice for some traction - and then you can ride it like a wind sheltered, traffic free, winding road with the occasional trail section, and the occasional walk-a-bike through the reeds section.

Today it looked like this as we rode North from town until the creek devolved into a cow pasture.

You can see how happy we are, standing out there in the schtruck.

Along the way the creek will at times narrow down to this, and narrower. Sometimes you're riding on a bed of cat-tails hoping the creek shows up again. Sometimes you're thrashing along a two-foot wide canal with cat-tails and reeds whacking you in the face. 

Creek-riding at its most awesome.

Smooth and hard and fast and tacky snow. Sweet.

We rode about 30 ks on the creek - see these links (Going North from A-town we then doubled back and went South from where we dropped in taking gravel back into town.) for our route, with help of the folks at daftlogic.com and their distance calculator.