When it snows enough to make the road a hazard and the trails difficult there are really only two places you can ride Pennypack Park in Northern Philadelphia and Tyler State park in Newtown. Both these parks have paved trails that are plowed when it snows so even when it the roads and trails are not rideable I can still get out for a few miles.
I chose Tyler because it was closer and some of us had to be back early. I sent out an email and posted a note to the blog and got 3 takers Laura, Chris and JIM!!!
After many weeks off the bike because of a bad ankle and bronchitis he was finally ready to ride again. It was good to see him again.
Tyler has 5 or 6 main trails that you can put together to do a couple of loops. With the snow it is very scenic so we stopped a few times for pictures along the way. The first picture stop was at the covered bridge.
There is a small part by the bridge that is dirt and not paved with snow on it but it was easy enough to ride through.
The park is very hilly in fact coming backup from the covered bridge there is section with a 10% grade for about a quarter mile. This was in the first couple mile of the ride and I had to stop after the next small climb to recover a little. I had a similar problem the last time we did this loop. According to my heart I didn't go anaerobic so I think it was just a combination of not being warmed up before the steep climb in cold weather. On the second loop we did a similar climb and I felt fine.
The 2 loops took us just about 2 hours and ended up being a little over 12 miles. This is because we climbed around 1100 ft and had stopped to take pictures since this ride was more about scenery then getting in the miles.
At the end of our second loop we stopped at the boat house to use the facilities and took a few last pictures before heading home.
It was a good change of pace to get out in the snow and get a few miles in but I am looking forward to warmer weather and longer rides.
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