Thursday, December 8, 2011

Snow!

Oh yes! The long anticipated snow has arrived here in Southern Finland! And afterall, not so late. It had already snowed just a little on the Independence Day (6th of December), but last night it snowed a lot more, meaning the maiden snow voyage for my 9:Zero:7.





The temperature was fairly close to 0°C, so the snow was heavy, and as my morning commute progressed closer to my work place, there was also lots of slush. But the first 2 km of my route is gravel road which is usually not plowed when the first snow comes, and that was excatly the case also this time. With normal mountain bike these conditions are already fairly challenging, so it was really interesting for me this morning. So how it went? Very well! This bike is really great even in heavy snow. There were moments when the front tire did wander but not nearly as badly as with normal mtb tire. If the conditions are really bad, it's better to ride slower, and slow riding charasteristics of this bike are PHENOMENAL!

Throughout the day the temperature was between 0° and +1°C, so some melting happened but not much.







These kind of winter conditions are actually very typical for Southern Finland. The paradise conditions of 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 happens usually in 7-10 year intervals.





And as you can see in the photos, conditions look bad, but I like this much more than plain water and rain. This makes commuting interesting, challenging and fun!





"Larry was here":



Lets see if the snow remains. Weather forecasts don't look too good for next week, but they can change and I really hope so. Interestingly the AO index (Arctic Oscillation) has been lately almost record-breaking positive, but we have had still somewhat winterish weather. A good sign is that it's now going down and probability of colder weather increases. But as always, we have to wait and see. The weather and climate is awesomely volatile here.