Bethel Spring Series - Snow cancels Tour de Kirche

So this morning I looked out the window. Apparently I have no voodoo powers. The world was white and still.

My fiancee and I went out to shovel early this morning. This was getting old quick since we shoveled last night to cut down the volume of snow we'd shovel today. We found that the snow had semi-frozen, creating a sort of shell of snow. The shoveled areas were only 3 or 4 inches thick, but even that was very hard to move. We had to chip away at it and then move it.

After two hours, we cleared about 100 square feet. We played Rushhour with the cars.

Eventually we got the red car out (it has very aggressive snow tires and is great in the snow). I had to back it up a bit, gun it, and then go for it on the foot deep snow on the road.

State maintained roads were surprisingly clear, but all the secondary roads were like ours - unplowed with 2 foot high "walls" hemming them in from the primary roads. We were able to get out only because some kind Samaritan plowed a lane down the slight hill down our road. The Samaritan stopped about 10 feet from our driveway and so that bit was the stuff the red car had to surf over to get to the "safe" area.

After talking it over with my co-promoter, I decided to call the race. The most significant factor, after the sheer volume of snow everywhere, was tomorrow's temperature forecast. Even without anymore precipitation expected, with temps in the 20's in the morning, we'd run the risk of having ice on the course.

A close second were the unplowed roads. I don't know how other towns are but it would not be good to hold a race and have racers crashing on their way to the race (that already happened this year). Plus from a purely practical standpoint, I don't know when my road will be plowed. And with a very heavily loaded two wheel drive van which has an official tendency to spin and flip when it loses traction, it didn't seem like a good idea to be driving that around today to go clear the course. And if we don't get there tomorrow, well, no race.

So no race.

This sort of frees up the weekend unexpectedly.

And it gives me some time to train and recover. I hadn't touched my bikes since I put them in the garage after last week's race. And I'm finally getting over my cold.

Next weekend they're forecasting temps in the 50's.

Maybe I'll finally have a good sprint.