A most spectacular ride

[the Ferret]

Today's ride was simply spectacular. Not for it's destination...a local loop, or it's length...43 miles, or the temperature.... 30 degrees F, but yesterday morning we were "blessed" to wake up with a quarter inch of ice covering everything. I mean everything. It covered the road, the vehicles left outside, the porch, every blade of grass, weed, tree limb, every overhead wire..everything. I decided not to ride yesterday for obvious reasons. But by today the roads appeared fine and I decided to ride. The sun was shining brilliantly, creating shadows, by the time I pushed the ST out at 2 PM and fired it up.

Due to the low temps, none of the ice had melted off the trees, shrubs etc and everything looked like it was made out of glass. Glass chandeliers were everywhere, sparkling in the light. In many places the frozen drips looked like led Christmas lights scattered throughout the trees. Out here in the country I would ride down roads with these glass trees and shrubs lining both sides. I'd ride over the top of a hill and laid out in front of me would be acres and acres of glass trees. Miles and miles of 2"-4" icicles hanging from over head wires. It was truly stunning visually. I took about 30 pictures just hoping one of them would show the brilliance of what I was seeing, but of course the camera couldn't capture it faithfully. I hope with the one I am posting you can at least visualize what it might have looked like. It was truly awesome!





Here is what the ice looked like that covered everything

[emptysea]

Beautiful..

[Stichill]

What a memorable ride, ferret. As I left work today in the car, I saw the sun shining through the ice-covered wooded areas and it was spectacular.

[jimgl3_imp]

this is the closest I can find to the most spectacular I ever saw

It was dawn and there was ice like yours, but was snow also. I was in a patrol car though, not on a bike!

[the Ferret]

Gorgeous pic Jim. Hauntingly beautiful

[Offroad]

Love to look at snow and ice!

School was out for us again (5th day)....we are out of built in snow days....any more days are added on so hope not or it could interfere with the rally.

[emptysea]

Hmmm... offroad, I sense in your tone that you may be coming down with a cold. One of those slow building ones that won't come into full bloom for quite some time......like the last week of May.

[Nortoon_imp]

A number of years ago we had an ice storm in the fall. There was a large crab apple tee not far from my home with its fruit covered with ice. But with the morning sun on them, they looked like Christmas tree ornaments instead of apples.

[Cormanus]

Ferret and Jim, what lovely pictures. Thanks for sharing them. It will be a very cold day in the devil’s domain before Brisbane ever looks like that.

[cookiemech]

Beautiful photos! But Ferret, I don't know how you manage such consistently better road conditions than I have in SW PA (I mean, Ohio, PA, same latitude, probably same elevation, though we have hills). We had the same freezing rain/sleet/snow mess here, but there's no way I could ride. I walk into town (~4 mile round trip) every day, and yesterday was a challenge to avoid falling on ice.

Send some of those dry roads over this way . . .