Santa Hat TNUA
Last night was the annual Santa Hat ride at the Tuesday Night Urban Assault. Ride leader, Scott Page of Full Moon Vista Bike & Sport, has dozens of Santa hats, custom modified to fit over bike helmets.
Traditionally, a collection is taken for a children’s charity and we drop off the money as part of our ride. Apparently there’s an issue with that charity. We were told they didn’t like such small donations as ours (usually several hundred, but below $1,000) but I suspect the reason is that it comes as cash in a brown paper bag and well after office hours. That makes it hard for the charity to be sure there weren’t any sticky fingers along the way.
In any event, we were told instead to give to the charity of our choice and to come up with suggestions for next year. I have three in mind for each.
Some of the 39 riders in the parking lot before the 2007 Santa Hat TNUA
The city has cleaned up admirably from the winter storms last week and over the weekend. So road riding wasn’t really in the cards. Yet, it was too deep to go off-road. This left the sidewalks, which usually get only a token effort by the city.
The trouble is that sidewalks aren’t safe for cycling, no matter what the weather, and they’re not much fun either.
What the sidewalk plows leave behind is terrible for walking and worse for cycling. Sometimes I take to heart the ribbing I get about riding a road bike in the snow, despite my studded snow tires. I was relieved to find the same issues I have with the ruts and brown sugar snow left behind by the sidewalk plows affects fat-tired MTBs as well, although perhaps to a lesser degree.
Yours truly at the 2007 Santa Hat TNUA
We were all relieved when it appeared we were headed to Mt. Hope Cemetery. Admittedly a cemetery is not the best backdrop for a Santa Hat ride, but the cycling was excellent. Some of the cemetery roads were clear. Others were hardpack with some ice. Others still were virginal.
The varied conditions, the hills and the turns held just the right combination of challenges for everyone on the ride. It was the most fun I’ve had on a bike in a long time. I particularly liked this one off-camber 90° turn in the middle of a climb. It was glare ice under hardpack. As studless riders routinely slipped, slid and wiped-out completely, I never even spun a wheel.
Other riders were afraid of going back down through the same turn. Between the smoothly predictable Avid BB7 road disk brakes on the Portland and the studded Nokian Hakkapeliitta W106 snow tires, I was able to brake and turn on the downhill, on ice no-one could even stand on.
While I was doing that, the MTBers were going downhill on a nice, straight stretch of unplowed road. They had plenty of fun on that, I can assure you. The hoots, yelps and laughter echoed off the headstones and mausoleums as they alternately charged and fell down the hill.
As I rounded a turn and came towards them, one rider said, “Geeze, it looked like a UFO was landing with those headlights you have.” I love my DiNottes.
Even though at over three hours total time and 2:10:11 ride time it was the longest TNUA I can remember, it was over far too soon.
Next week, Christmas is on a Tuesday, so I doubt there will be a TNUA. I can’t wait for New Year’s.
