don't knock it till you try it: biking when it's cold outside

To celebrate my recent birthday, Nick planned a weekend trip to Red Wing to bike the Cannon Valley Trail. We drove down to Cannon Falls on a Saturday afternoon in late October, loaded our stuff onto our bikes and started the 20-mile ride to Red Wing.

It was probably about 40 degrees when we started, and to be honest, I feared that the experience was going to suck. I am definitely a fair-weather biker--I'll happily bike 60 miles in one day, possibly uphill, but only if the weather is nice and warm. I have no interest in purchasing face masks and special tires so I can commute to my job all winter in the snow like many of the more resilient people I know.

But it wasn't that cold, so I decided to hope for the best.

Once we got going, it wasn't bad at all! In fact, I ended up getting overheated from the many hysterical layers of clothing I'd piled on.

We arrived in Red Wing and checked into the St. James Hotel. Later we had dinner at Norton's, a restaurant owned by the former bass player for Husker Du. The food was super good! Overall, biking in the cold was just fine.