Last Bike Ride of the Year on Cascade Lake Trail?

As I've often said, we're fortunate to have such a great trail system here in Rochester, and I often use the Cascade Lake Trail to jog a few miles or hop on the mountain bike. But with 'Ol Man Winter bearing down, and after nearly freezing my hands on a 10-mile ride this morning, today might have been my last of the year.

Now, I know that with a pair of biking gloves, and some winter-grade cycling pants, I could extend my biking season well into the winter season. Of course, once the snow hits, I'd probably need to upgrade my bike to one of those fat-tire bikes, too. And now, we're talking some serious money I'd be spending. So, I'll probably just resolve to put the bike away for the winter, and head back to the inside to the gym. Which isn't nearly as fun.

Putting the bike away for the season hearkens back to when I was a kid, and my dad would always store both mine and my brother's bikes away each fall. Mainly, because it was a small garage, and there wasn't room to store both the bikes AND the snowblower. Besides, it was Wisconsin-- you didn't ride a bike in the winter back in those days!  So every fall right about now, the bikes would be packed up and shipped off to the shed for the winter. It was always sad to see them go.

As it stands, 2015 wasn't a bad year for biking, though. I found a picture from March 31st, in which I noted that I was on the "first bike ride of the year." And here it is, November 10th-- almost 8 months later-- when I'm calling it the last ride of the year. That's a pretty good season. Of course, if this climate change thing is for reals, and it gets warm again next week, I'll be back out there, hitting the trails again on my trusty Trek 8800. You never know, I guess...