Not so much a bike ride, more a two hour tank slapper. Riding in snow is fun. It’s also bloody hard, and can be simply summed up by “Grip, Grip, WOW Amazing Grip, no grip, Tree”
These photos are from Jim’s iPhone which did its best considering a) it was dark b) it was about -2 and c) it’s not really a proper camera is it?
The FoD riding cluster climbs into double figures come Spring and isn’t much reduced during the months of mud, cold and darkness which precede it. Last night tho, only Steve, Jim and I made the more than a little exciting trip to the FoD.
The key to staying on was speed. Sufficient velocity delivered a wheel straightening gyroscopic effect to your track. Getting up to speed was tricky with bikes being rear wheel drive and we’ve all seen how well cars of that configuration go in the snow.
And if you should even twitch the bars or touch the front brake, the magic was gone and so were you. My 2.35 tyres floated well but you couldn’t really steer. Jim and Steve’s narrower nobblies seemed better suited but maybe they’re just a bit better than me!
We played about a lot. Skids were harder than expected tho with the powder snow offering up oddles of grip. Right up until the point when it didn’t. Ummmph generally followed.
We seemed to spend a lot of time climbing and not much descending. Although that perception was all about the sad fact we were pedalling downhill as well. No matter, a final three sections of singletrack where we were lucky enough to be carving freshies made up for the fireroad slogging.
Anyone who decided to stay at home missed one of my favourite rides of the last few months. And afterwards, the beer tasted better than good 🙂
The last of the little wheelers has gone. In its place is this rather Fab Islabikes Beinn bought today under cover of snow. Random’s little hotrock has passed from third to fourth hand, and I am sure it’ll carry on being a much loved wheeled sidekick.
Islabikes are great people to do business with. Everything they sell is for kids; from the ickle balance bike up to 3/4 size smart road bikes and everything in between. I was tempted by the rather fetching kids full-on MTB with a suspension fork but Isla talked me out of it.
Apparently unless you’re hucking major rock fests and shredding like Sam, you really don’t need anything but the fully rigid. I didn’t think this was a good time to try and justify my extensive suspended mountain bike collection.
The Beinn is lighter that the Spesh it replaces, has more gears with a far wider ratio, some proper off road tyres and oodles of clever designed-for-kids stuff. It even has her name on it – that’s proper factory.
Unusually I am even more excited than when a new bike is for me. Really looking forward to riding with Random (and hopefully her sister who also has a lovely bike but this has so far failed to spark her interest over anything more scary than forest tracks) when we can see the ground again.
It was also more than reasonably brilliant to see her face light up when she realised we could take it home today. It is on this cheery note I shall end, possibly forever due to the high likelihood of certain death on tonight’s FoD ride.
I’d tried being sensible about bikes and riding. It’s a lost cause to be honest.
Three times I have trudged up steep hillsides encumbered by expensive pieces of moulded plastic, and three times have I descended same hill without so much as a sniff of being able to launch them into the slope.*
It’s been nearly a month since a windless day scuppered my last attempt. Winter arrived early for Christmas, and appears to be hanging around for a while yet. And while I’m stupid enough to inflict trench-todger in sub zero temps on a mountain bike, even I can see standing still on the highest and windiest point around isn’t going to be a lot of fun. Especially as access tends to be via untreated, broken up doubletracks on a gradient.
Still day off, monster westerly forecasted, above zero for the first time in weeks – surely portents of a successful day ahead. The lack of actual blowy weather against the lies on the Interweb was nothing more than a back-story to the main event of actually getting there.
My faux-by-four may be lambasted by Landrover beards’ and the like, but I’m still amazed at the stuff it gets up. Our road is a good start since one good freeze closes it to anything 2 wheeled drive that’s not a tractor. The steep, ice-encrusted slope was another, shimmied up there with only increasing revs demonstrating how hard the 4WD was working. I was keen to engage the manly diff-lock, but apparently that’s not something to be attempted while teetering on the edge of traction half way up at 15{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} slope.
Had I not been on board the dithering bus to unflown-central, the bloody glider would have been at least briefly committed to aviation. But no, the wind died and with it my hopes of anything other than flinging bits of foam about. It’s no much about flying then, more throw/sigh/collect as I’ve shown below:
The Fling.
The Brief Period Of Aviation.
The Inevitable
The Trudge of Shame
Always worth the walk for the view tho
Eventually the wind circled round nearly 180 degrees creating an instant competition of who could fly a glider back down the slope and end closest to the truck.
It would be unfair of me to gloat as befits the winner. Let’s just say my victory was sweeter because it included a piece of precision flying where I dumped the foam wing on top of the only tree for about 9 miles. Actually that’s not true, there is another spiky number some way off to the south side. Ask me how I know.
On arriving home, I couldn’t but help notice the gale now raging at the front gate. So before I contact deed pole, I need to decide on “Al the Unflown” or “Al the sodding Weather Jonah“. Honestly it’s enough to make me reconsider the planes with bloody great fans on the front. Although the last time I tried that it didn’t end terribly well either.
Ho Hum, beer time methinks.
* Most proper flyers throw them off the slope. I’ve found it saves time to just crash them straight away and get it over with.
Today I was an extra in the horror flick of that name. For two hours, my role was to squeal “Is this the bit where I die? No, must be here then? Oh, ARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH”
Crash. Fade to black.
Thankfully as it was only made up* I didn’t actually die, but it wasn’t through a lack of opportunity. The frozen trails of last weekend were still rock hard but now encased under a thick layer of ice.
I knew this, and have ridden enough to understand the frictionless consequences of the freeze/thaw cycle, but still I had to ride. A crap week at work leaked into the weekend and was met head on by a Saturday hangover, which made me want to chop my head off.
So half the weekend gone and my only contribution to Thespian services was a world-weary re-incarnation of Mr Grumpy that the family didn’t deserve.
Portents of what lay ahead were all around. Firstly de-icing the car was a twenty minute job which made me late enough, before further time was wasted while kettle-tech(tm) gained me access to the trailer locks.
Locks that had re-frozen by the time I arrived at Jezz’s gate some 20 minutes later. No matter as so was his gate. Going to be one of those rides is it?
It was. Pretty much the same as last week in conditions similar, and yet entirely more menacing. Ice was everywhere, on the roads, packed down on high traffic trails and hidden under guilty leaves.
Descending speeds came down, but it was that or ploughing into gates/rocks/people. Brakes were more scary, the front one especially. Trying to stay relaxed while all things pucker shaped are puckering up was more than a little mentally challenging.
But really this is a matter for rejoicing. Two consecutive bluebird rides. The mud and sludge and grim of winter belayed by a protracted cold snap. The terror of hissing tyres on ice tempered by the relief of remaining upright and the same shape.
The freezing eyes of a blinking shimmy from the ridgeline bringing forth the inner warmth of this landscape being your playground. The realisation that the seasons have truly changed, and the joy that the next one is spring.
You’d not get me out on the road bike tho. That’d be lethal!
* In the same way as economic forecasts, household budgets, cost of bicycles and the answer to “how much did you have to drink last night” are merely glittery cast-offs from some boring place called “Truth“.
That's me. Looks cold eh? There's a reason for that.
… mostly at yourself. Often at your friends. And increasingly at the Met Office PR team who appear to have their credence radar permanently set to “pratfall“.
First we had the BBQ summer which triggered floods not seen since Noah was a lad. Then we had the promise of a mild winter at which point the entire country was transformed into a set for Narnia. And now this- “2010 is the warmest year since either a) records began or b) 1997 depending on how hard we’ve hit the cosmic fail button”
A logical counterpoint would suggest the poor old tea leave diviners have been chronically misrepresented. Firstly the sizzling summer was a 60{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} probability which is about as statistically significant as a shampoo poll. Then the Arctic conditions of this year were the result of a freakish crashing of hitherto unseen variables, camping out well past any computer model could predict.
And yes this is the warmest year on record. If you look at medians and not specific events. Right now though, I seem to be riding into , through and shiveringly out of such events which is rather fab during, but motivationally crippling before and toe poppingly painful afterward.
Sunday, 7am. -7.4. Five minutes loading the bike and I’m already late. This is mainly due to an unscheduled pet activity; namely defrosting the dog. 7:30 warmed by coffee and central heating, I struck out onto icy roads with the temperature gauge beeping -8 and suggesting the Siberian engine setting.*
No matter. At least the mud shall be temporarily banished under an ice crust. and no other silly bugger is going to be icy toe side of a warm duvet. More right than wrong, but the hills were alive with the sound of nutters’ knee knocking by the time we’d been over half way out and back.
Every trail was rock hard and tho – where foot traffic was negligible – pretty damn grippy. All the time being crunchy under wheel and framed by a child-painted blue horizon. Wales was full of snow and foreboding, but due east was just lightly dusted and crackling. In the middle, we rode on ridge and woody singletrack that felt like summer from the axles down. Above that both Jezz and I were swathed in layers of expensive fabrics and heroic grins.
And rather than our normal “got to get back, got to get back, got promises to keep” approach to Sunday morning rides, we took it easy, took some pictures, stood astride fantastic bicycles feeling pretty damn good to be taking in some altogether more fantastic views. Lots of climbing, quite a few kilometres, all felt pretty fast which bodes well for when cold and dark becomes difficult and boring.
Normally late January when motivation is in thrall to sofa suck. Which makes the daft nonces who wait until the new year to start winter riding all the more unfathomable. The Malverns are a tough gig at the best of times, which January absolutely isn’t. Early this year the hills were full of huff and puff, until New Years’ resolutions wilted in the face of not being arsed.
Not us. We’ll be getting up at stupid o’ clock. Stumbling about in the dark cursing at the stupidity of it all. Getting wet, cold and unpleasantly windswept. Chipping off frozen mud because the hosepipe’s been frozen for six weeks. Looking at the confused faces of our dear ones who have all sorts of good reasons why we shouldn’t, and then doing it anyway. And it’ll be good – sometimes great, sometimes averagely ok but always epic – once tyres hit the dirt.
I’ve said it before, but it needs repeating- Mountain biking is like the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
* I have a photo of that in case you think fibbing for the sake of strutting a heroic stance may be at play here. I can’t show it to you though right now for which explanations may follow. It really depends on whether the embarrassment falls below a level acceptable for public ridicule.
My previous FoD night ride started in daylight and ended in darkness. This time around pitch black was wrapped round my shivering preparations, before even a wheel was turned. It may still be a month until the Winter solstice, yet it feels as if we’re there already.
Other differences presented themselves out of the darkness. Firstly, a nearly double digit turnout of riders I’d not seen for two months. The lumens’ arms race showed no site of abating, although it has branched off in interesting technological directions. Of all those branches, I am hopeful that the “Mickey and Minnie Ears” evolution is subject to brutal natural selection.
Following that helmet light setup put me in mind of a Disney rave with the mice off their faces on acid. This was an unwelcome distraction to a man already much distracted by a trail surface offering the traction properties of polished glass.
In one of those ‘it’ll be funny afterwards’ ironies, my toes were frozen as were my fingers and probably my ears. Although that was nothing more than a guess since feeling had left the helmet some time ago. The trails however were not frozen. They offered a number of alternatives; 1) deep mud but rideable 2) slidey mud sort of rideable 3) large puddles hiding patching of mud rideable if you were lucky and 4) Chiltern-esque stretches of absolutely no point in even trying to ride.
We did of course. And much falling off and general finger pointing followed. Even the Singlespeeder was cut a bit of slack until the full moon rose hauntingly above the treetops, and it became clear that Adam’s Facebook profile reads “Likes: Singlespeeds, exploding knees, beards and werewolves“. Can’t turn you back on ’em for one second – it’ll be off with your derailers or something even more ghastly.
There was plenty of time for piss taking, excuses and the new sport of precision mincing because this ride group isn’t exactly motivated by speed. Oh sure, it rambles along at a decent pace but stops are not mere halts for breath catching, more an opportunity to select the next victim. Compare this to Malvern rides which are all a bit “wham bam thank you mam” and non the worse for it, but there’s fun to be had with nine people and no mercy.
Everyone fell off. Some more than others. Some – smug mode – not at all until the penultimate descent on a fast, flowy trail barely hovering above the water table: “oooh nice drift, I’ve got it, I’ve got it, I’ve….. not got it”. It was almost peaceful as I slid down the trail on my arse, the bike long gone behind a distant tree.
A new ending started tonight. Final grind up a fireroad to access a cracking bombhole hidden deep in the woods. Again many of the group were in the vanguard of “All Mountain Free-Mincing” while a few of us just rode down the bloody thing. From below, the circling lights of the lesbian horde put me in mind of a very camp UFO experience “ooohhh I’m not sure about that, noo you go first”
Honestly, just get on with it man. They did. Eventually. Proper cold at rides’ end. Six desperately defrosted cars and hurriedly packed their gear. Three had a more leisurely experience via the pub.
I love the FoD in the dry when it’s fast and whippy and you can rocket through the trees for ever without riding the same trail. I’m quite surprised to find much of that love extends to the muddy season as well. C’mon winter, I’m ready for you.
Odd looking thing isn’t it? Back in the days before the tiny chip inside the camera sensor became sentient, such an effect would have required a depth of knowledge around focus and field. Whereas now one just twiddles the idiot dial to “1cm macro” and hits the “go” button.
What’s stranger still is that a few of the default settings are actual quite useful. The “Pan Focus” essentially selects a depth of field from the front to the back of the image making everything in between quite sharp.
Although sometimes it has to use such a punchy ISO to get there, and the resulting noise is a bit irritating. Still I have two children, so irritating noises are pretty much the background day to day hum 😉
This cold spell (or in Daily Mail Speak “We told you all those hand wringing hippies were talking shit about global warming“), will see the final few leaves – clinging onto frozen branches – soon to join the mouldering winter carpet. So I thought I’d best all snappy with the new camera before naked trees and dead stuff dominates the landscape.
I’m pretty impressed with the results (if not the composition, there’s only so much the Camera can do to be fair) in decent light. Focussing seems pretty quick, two macro settings are really spoiling me, the jury is out on black-dog mode and low light images tend to the grain, but generally bob on. Battery life appears to be an issue compared to the S80, but this may be either unrealistic expectations, or something more warranty related.
Talking of woody, that’s where I’m off tonight. Minus anything with a biting north wind make the Malverns Hills a tad bleak for night riding, so it’s off to the Forest where frozen mud and much merriment awaits.
I wasn’t sure which clothes to wear, so decided to go with “everything I own“. The only downside of such a fashion choice is I dare not strip off in those dark woods – It would be a cross between American Werewolf in London and Deliverance!
This way or something less cosmically destructive.
Let’s weigh up the evidence. I’ve broken almost everything toy glider shaped since embarking on another stupid hobby some eighteen months ago. The latest “bring a bag, we’ve had an nasty incident” episode saw my first proper moulded glider be re-kitted to nothing more than vaguely recognisable broken bits.
There was also a case of the “unbreakable” flying wing being AL-transformed into an entirely unflying explosion of foam. I’ve spiralled in my GRP birthday present of last year – more than once – and it flies now only because of the pity based repair lavished on it by a friend of mine.
There are many fliers who turn up – slopeside – with fantastic models looking entirely unflown and perfect. Whereas my motley collection all have the appearance and general airworthiness of models downstream of a nasty fight with a lawnmower.
Rather than fix the broken Luna, instead I threw some money in another direction snapping up a bargain from a man who was keen to educate me in every nuance of setup, flight performance and various unfathomable – yet seemingly important – pointers around how to land the bloody thing without loud noises and softer tears.
I’ve chosen to ignore all that. Instead I’ve slapped some weight in the nose, waggled transmitter stickage to approximate movements of flying surfaces, and congratulated myself with a beer. Tomorrow, I’ll chuck it off a high Welsh mountain ignoring a bird-walking cloudbase, freezing thumbs and absolutely no idea what’ll happen once expensiveness is committed to aviation.
I fully expect the experience to have the same time span as an ice cream introduced to a blast furnace.
Yeah, it’s another pic of a static bike – nothing more than a visual prod to de-randomise some recent thinking.
1) Mud Tyres are for those who lack ambition. Really, thin sludge-cutting rubber may provide the illusion of grip and traction, but where’s the fun in that? The Cove is booted up with 2.35in wide tyres, the front being basically a downhill tread and compound, while the rear is barely less of a monster. No point in having wide bars/short stem/ace fork/brill frame emasculated by condition specific tyres. Get out there and slide about, the ground’s pretty soft when it goes wrong.
2) That bike is a lot cleaner than it was at 10am last night. Two hours riding* in the grottiest Malvern conditions I’ve ridden for a while turned the word brown under the black of night. When we weren’t sliding around in a vaguely comedic fashion, we were groping about in hill clamped top fog. Jez is either better at remembering where the trail may be than I, or he’s upgraded his night vision to HD/X-Ray. I stumbled about, blinded by reflected light, occasionally intersecting with remembered obstacles, before falling off over them.
3) It was still, surprisingly, fun. I know this is somewhat expected behaviour to appear stunned that travelling at 10km/h, mostly sideways and grinding over endless peaks can deliver so much pleasure. Especially with a knee that appears to be going backwards. Certainly painful in the opposite direction. And back in the Chilterns, the winter mud was an endless horror story – a place where even singlespeeds made sense. But here, there’s still enough yang offsetting grimbly yang to bring a smile to your face. A face chowing down on gritty granite and half covered by suspicious smelling mud, but a smile nevertheless.
4) Hardtails are hard work. A few times my ankles took the brunt of trail debris normally softened by rear squish. The Cove feels really properly odd after two solid months on the ST4. Possible MTFU required.
5) Exactly how dependant on the re-hydrating power of beer are you, that you will insert a soggy foot into the door of a trying-to-close-shop and demand alcohol satisfaction? I wasn’t sure if they served me out of fear that the swampmonster cometh, or just plain pity.
* and about 10 minutes lying on the ground awash in a sea of sludge.
Fantastic day at Brechfa yesterday. 40ks, 1550m of climbing.
A loop of the Red and then the Black taking in disappearing trails, mud, massive berms, tabletop jumps for the talented, rock steps for the brave, even a bit of “Welsh Shore”. And some very, very fast and tasty singletrack.
I’ve no idea why – between the three of us – there wasn’t an accident that required hospitalisation. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, as there is something about this trail that brings out the Devil May Care/Body Might Go to A&E in any lucky Mountain Biking individual.
That’s my first attempt at video with the new camera. It’s not great but better than the static shots. Sorry it flips the horizon half way down, best thing to do is to lie your head flat on the desk. That’s worked well for me.
I could go on – yes I know as usual – about how brilliant riding bikes with your friends is. I could talk about the soul destroying fireroad climbing that put the never into ending. It wouldn’t be a surprise for me to wax lyrical on the joy of line astern descending, absolutely flat out but wanting to go faster. It might even be of interest to discuss just how fantastic the egg and bacon doorstep butty was half way round.
But instead I’ll summarise.
Mountain Biking makes me happy 🙂
PS. That might look a bit lame but the drop’s bigger than it looks and those steps had a nasty little, er, step in them. Anyway it was damn good fun, even when a Downhill Boy separated from us by a 7 inch travel bike, balls of steel, talent and about twenty years basically cleared the lot of them 😉
