I'm liking the cold-weather riding a lot.

In some strange way it's almost like a different sport (activity, pastime or whatever you want to call it).

Fat biking the winter trails is an entirely different experience, even to riding my MTB. It's not just the temps it's the physical exertion of pedaling that 40lb beast around in the snow - I'm using different parts of the leg muscle, I'm getting a tougher upper-body workout, I feel physically and mentally fatigued after a much shorter time in the saddle. The riding demands are different and it just feels altogether different, in a good way.

The weather/clothing becomes a bigger part of the puzzle. It's much more critical and integral to the to the overall experience and has a much larger bearing on the outcome of the ride.

Hydration becomes more of an issue than riding in warmer weather, which seems counter-intuitive at first. You seem to lose the warning signs for hydrating and for eating, so you need to pay special attention to it along with solving minor issues like having a frozen water bottle!

Oddly enough I've 'bonked' three from the five times I've ridden this week, and I've only ever bonked once before in the whole of the Summer. And I'm only averaging around 18 mile rides, mostly single-track at 6/7 mph, versus 50 mile average rides through the summer. Yesterday I crashed the whole day, slept for two hours in the afternoon and barely moved from the couch. I slept-in 'til almost 9am today and I never sleep past 7am as a rule !! My legs and arms are aching, but it's that 'good ache', if you know what I mean....

I don't know if any of this sounds familiar to other folks, it certainly isn't what I was expecting after a summer of riding 200 mile weeks.

I'm tentatively planning for an overnight camp at one of the State Parks locally, to see how that experience compares with the summer camping I did. Should be a blast!

It's all good.