25 truths about riding the bike home on a deserted mountain highway, with 8 inches of snow, at 11 p.m., in a whiteout:

1. The experience bears little resemblance to a most sublime pastime: biking home through a deserted alpine valley, at 2 a.m., on a vivid starlit minus-20-degree night. Although both journeys require blind faith, offer heightened sensation and result in exuberant spiritual clarity, there is one elemental distinction: ice.

2. Initially, this activity is more terrifying than fun.

3. Constant vigilance is required to avoid knocking yourself out on the frozen pavement, and subsequently dying of exposure or getting squashed by some intrepid motorist forging ahead blindly on the same path later in the evening.

4. The dominant foot should be unclipped at all times, ready to deploy as an outrigger when the tires kick out spontaneously. Hopefully, the outrigger will not become entangled in the vanishing bike, and will help spare your tailbone. Attempt to break the fall with all body parts equally at once, with the exception of the wrists.

5. The headlight battery will die early.

6. There are no lanes; at most there are only vague tracks. Ride with the tracks in sight, but in open powder since tire tracks = packed snow = ice = death. Bike tires in deep snow make effective rudders. If forward progress is maintained, you are probably on the road.

7. When facing the headlights of an oncoming motorist, the usual visual warning indicators of being overtaken by a vehicle from behind (glowing road signs and reflectors, a horizon of illumination progressing down trees and toward the rider on the road surface, the rider’s shadow in sundial rotation, etc.) will be obliterated by a blinding glare refracted in blowing snow. Ride off the shoulder deep into the nearest snow bank at the first sign of traffic in either direction. Motorists may be operating anywhere in the general vicinity of the roadway, including skidding sideways off-road because they think they just saw a bicyclist.

8. Ambient blue strobe light from beyond the crest of a hill indicates impending snowplow. When overtaken by a snowplow from behind, veer into the opposing lane.

9. Aerobar tucks are rare since you don’t want to go that fast anyway, and your elbows are already sore.

10. Riding at a low speed seems prudent. However, some evidence suggests traveling at maximum speed could produce higher safety margins. The gyroscopic effect of wheel rotation is amplified by velocity, rendering ice chunks, snow density differentials (ruts and drifts), black ice and other surface hazards less consequential. Obstacle patches also become more transient as the ratio of ground-covered to rate-of-slip increases with speed (the just-try-and-ride-it-out formula). Additionally, when airborne, a body in motion seems to have better hang time than a body in direct vertical free-fall, therefore it is must be falling slower, and thus softer. Forward inertia translates force along the ice, instead of into the ice. This theory is untested.

11. In a howling blizzard, minimal visual information creates the perception of diminished speed. Actual speed is unwittingly increased in order to gather more visual input.

12. Descend long steep grades at a rate equivalent to your climbing speed on the same hill under normal conditions. This is achieved through unrelenting and forceful rear brake application, staving off icing and terminal brake failure. Front brakes are not advisable.

13. Relax — dying tense doesn’t help.

14. Sinuous sheets of powder blowing over the road are more beautiful in four dimensions (height, width, depth and stinging face).

15. Do not lean into gusty crosswinds. There are two ways to relate to ice on a bicycle: perfectly perpendicular or painfully parallel. There is nothing in between. Let the wind blow you off the road, turn and tack directly into the wind, then repeat in a zigzag pattern.

16. Thighs feel tired, but are actually just numb.

17. If a motorist passes, and if they do see you, they may roll down the window and loose a primeval holler of solidarity.

18. Normal winter riding entails gradual stripping of protective garments as the ride progresses, and the metabolic rate increases. Eventually only gloves, goggles and usually pants remain. Roadside wardrobe modifications are not attempted in blizzards.

19. Hands will warm eventually. Toes will sustain minor injury due to wind-chill, tripled travel time and deliberately slow pedal cadence resulting in lowered cardio output and diminished peripheral perfusion compounded by constrictive bike shoes. Other alarmingly numb appendages will eventually regain sensation.

20. Avoid fixating on how long it will actually take to get home by trying to remember all the clever observations about whiteout riding that you will write down if you ever make it there.

21. The last stage of the ride is on a fixedgear bicycle.

22. Goggles may ice, but visibility is not affected.

23. When leaving improved roadways for the final climb, feel your way into the depths of an icy rut. Focus on momentum. Faltering = hiking home.

24. Once home, note the nine-inch breathcicle attached to your neck gaiter.

25. Pain is part of a universe in balance. Enjoy it up front in small doses, or differ it for convenience and experience pain accumulated with interest. Blizzard biking is pleasure and pain in balance.

Daniel Hutchison lives in northern New Mexico. This is his first story for the Gazette.