rolling on the river

So when it is freezing out and there is too much snow out on the trails to ride, what is a mountain biker to do? Ride on a frozen river of course! On Monday my buddy and I went up to Algonquin IL, to see another buddy and ride the Fox River. We were up there early in the morning and river was frozen solid, or at least 10 to 12 inches thick. We started of the ride by jumping off the dock into some think powder. As we rode on we found that the best way to move was to follow in the snow mobile tracks. After the 2 plus miles to the end of the river in downtown Algonquin where the damn was we stopped for an hour to eat some lunch and regain some power in out legs. Riding down in granny gears takes alot out of you when you don't move that fast. I want to compare it to riding in dry lose sand. As we started on our way back to my buddy's house the temp. was rising the conditions really started to get sloppy. We started to move just a little quicker and heard the ice crack every now and then. We then had the great idea of trying to race so with almost no traction and low gear we tried. Needless to say there were quite a few falls. By the time we go back to the car it was a nice 41 degree's out. A far cry from the 19 degrees we started off with in the morning. The ice on the river is all broken up already and we all glad that we had the chance to ride the frozen river and get some really crazy looks from all the people in downtown Algonquin and the snow mobiler's that few past us what looked like 100MPH's.