Yesterday morning we had ice and water on the front yard and the street by the house. Optimistically I warmed up the motorcycle and carefully rode over the icy front yard. The tires were slipping regardless of spikes and the boots slid freely.

I took the front wheel over the kerbstone and looked at the icy and wet street going down. No way to get down that hill without dropping the bike, I thought and decided to go back. But I had a problem – I could not pull the front tire back over the kerbstone as my boots did not have any friction on the ice. I tried to put the bike on the side stand but because the front wheel was over the kerb, the side stand would have pushed the bike over on the right side. I was stuck!

Fortunately the family was home so I called my wife and asked here to come out and help me. She could not help push or pull the bike back over the kerb because she was sliding all over the place, too. I remembered we had a bucket with pieces of broken cement left after some repair work in the house. She fetched the bucket and spread some cement dust under my feet. I finally managed to pull the bike back to the front yard and then maneuvered it back to its parking spot. Phew!

So no bike ride that morning, had to take the car to get to work.

Here are some photos of the ice covering the yard and the street. If the street were level I would have ridden gingerly but we have a steep hill down to the next street, there would have been no way to brake. I was not up to the challenge. More serious spikes are on the wish list now.