This fall and winter, I’ve been riding the Beast on my work commutes pretty regularly. Some of the weather has been dicey, but nothing has compared to today’s ride to work. We received three or four inches of fluffy snow last night, much of which was getting blown around by a stiff westerly breeze that brought the wind chill well under the 22-degree air temperature. More importantly, the roads were in terrible shape, with the few plowed-and-sanded stretches outnumbered by stretches that were either still untouched or had been smashed into rutty messes by car traffic. Literally from the moment I rolled out of the garage, I was loving it. The Beast blasted through the ridges of snow at every intersection, gobbled up the loose snow on the streets, stuck to the icy patches at the corners, and generally performed brilliantly. I laughed more than once at the sheer ridiculousness of riding so easily through such terrible/wonderful conditions.