Ice riding

CB fishing around in an ice fisher's hole

CB at one of the forbidden islands on Lake of the Isles

Yours truly on Cedar Lake (you can kind of see hidden beach in the background over my left shoulder [right side of the image]).

This weekend I was heading out to make my weekly bike run to Whole Foods, when I realized that with Lake Calhoun frozen over, I could easily take a shortcut across the lake instead of taking the Midtown Greenway over. The ice conditions were perfect - just enough snow to provide some traction, but at the same time allow you to lock up your brakes and do some fun skidding around if you tried.

CB lives across the lake, so I stopped over and he grabbed his old mountain bike and we headed out onto Calhoun for a little ice riding. We cruised around on Lake Calhoun, under the Lake St bridge (thankfully it was well frozen under there - last year that area was pretty questionable.) Checked out the islands on Isles, then headed to check out the Isles ice rink. I was pretty impressed - they have a huge area cleared of snow, and there were lots of folks out there enjoying the great conditions. Talked briefly with a couple who were ice skating on the uncleared part of the lake - the guy asked if I had ever ridden with studded tires - I said "no, too much labor involved in making a pair, plus the studs wear down quickly on pavement." He told me that he knew some guys who raced motorbikes on the ice, and they made their own studded motorcycle tires - which involved screwing in 1200 sheet metal screws into each tire. Like I said, too much labor! But I suppose, some people knit in the winter, others make studded tires ... to each his own.

Next we road the creek over to Cedar Lake - there are some really pretty nice homes along the creek - in the summer, you can't see them behind all the foliage, but in the winter it's pretty obvious that some folks have some cash stuck in their homes. By the time we got out to cedar, we were getting cold from heading into the wind, so back to Calhoun we went. I mentioned to CB that there's a big pressure ridge jutting from the ice on the east side of the lake, and CB wanted to check that out. Tried to take some photos, but my camera battery died (probably the cold) so I'll have to head out again someday to capture that.

By this point, the wind had really picked up, and we really struggled to get back across that Lake to CB's place. Luckily, the wind was with me on the way back across the Lake when I headed home, so I totally flew - it practically pushed me the whole way.