Snow, Mud, a Single Speed and Lunch

At lunch today, I took the new single speed out for it's first inaugural Oakland lunch mud ride.
I like that it's simple with no gears, just lots of hard pedaling. It'll be good for my little bird legs. Tweat, tweat. Some nice lunch time power intervals. I think I'll make Wednesdays my official single speed ride every week.
I found that in order to get up any decent hill I had to work the rest of my body a lot harder then when on my mtb or cross bike. Right now as I sit writing this, my hands and forearms hurt and my shoulders hurt and my lower back is sore. And of course my legs are tired. I feel like I got a good workout.
I remember being a kid riding my little 1-speed cruiser, trying to ride up the steep street to my friend's house in my jeans and having to weave back and forth across the street riding an S all the way to the top. I had to grind the pedals hard to stay upright. Riding the single speed reminds me a lot of that.
I saw some snow and daffodils and the Bay from the Bayview Trail. I rode Big Trees and passed the little fairy circle of trees. And I rode West Ridge and East Ridge through Roberts and back down to Bayview.


And I think I saw Mt. Hamilton with snow on it. I think that's Hamilton way in the back.