Thursday February 10th, 2011

Greetings and welcome!

I am sorry for being so late today. A whole bunch of things conspired to make that happen unexpectedly.

Anyway..

We have a big weekend coming up for area events, and usually a lot of riders visit on the second weekend of February. I am a little concerned about what people will find for conditions, especially if it warms up.

There are a lot of good areas out there, and the clubs have been out in force grooming this week. The trails that I have seen from the truck looked like the pictures yesterday.

Last weekend got pretty warm on Saturday, almost 40. The warm day and traffic made for some bad spots and some high traffic trails took it hard. The week since then has been cold, but the sun has been warm. We have had no snow. There will be some bad and marginal spots.

As far as the warmth for this weekend it looks about 50-50.  I just checked the latest models and they have it looking nice but not out of hand for Friday and Saturday with a little light snow possible Friday night and maybe Saturday. The NWS forecast is for highs around 20 Friday and low 30s Saturday.

Sunday looks less ideal as the warm air makes it’s entrance for the week. The NWS is looking for mid-30s for Sunday. Hopefully that isn’t too optimistic.

People will find some great riding this weekend as well as some less ideal conditions. Your mission is to find the good spots.

One place that we have really suffered this year is on the road trails. Roads that normally would have an inch or two of ice on them and very rideable shoulders are bare and dry back to the snowbanks.

The warm weather next week does not look pretty. At all. There are a lot of mid and upper 30s predicted, and looking at the maps, I wouldn’t hesitate to add ten degrees to that.

It would be nice to see a completely different scenaro emerge for next week. Barring that, our next best hope is a storm at the end of the week that could snow and make it all better. There are several bigger storms possible on the 16 day GFS, so I wouldn’t get out the fogging oil yet.

It has been a cold week. Last night set the record for the week with a low of -19. It was indeed pretty cold. Tonight we are expecting between -6 and -14.

We have the biggest event weekend of the winter this weekend, and there really is a lot going on. Because I am like 5 hours late with my update, I will refer you to Monday’s listing.

I will be at Rapids working this Saturday from noon till 5, and sometimes later. I often stop back to socialize after a stop home to feed the cat and wood stove. Stop by if you are in the neighborhood. I will make sure that I bring a camera.

I am expecting to be back with a late afternoon update tomorrow. I will be gone for work in the morning. If things go just perfectly according to plan, I will be back in time for an early afternoon ride. Taken in the context of this week where virtually nothing went according to the plan, that is pretty funny. I am motivated though, it is the first day this week without -20 wind chills and next week looks ugly.

Have a good Thursday night and thank you for visiting!

RJB