March 19th, 2006
Cold Feet
“I’ve left my shoes at home!”
Inspired by the home nations success on the track at the Commonwealth Games we were on our way out for a ride. Fortunately we were still only a few miles from home filling up on diesel, and unusually, not filling up on chocolate milkshake and tangfastics.
Grizedale, when we arrived was blanketed in snow. We had decided to take refuge in the last resort of the uninspired and ride some man-made trails. In this case the newly opened North Face trail.
The chaps in the cycle shop advised us against it. Although the start was rideable apparently the snow up on the tops was too deep. “We’ll call in the air ambulance for you,” they joked. Had he been on our Wales in one day trip?
Undaunted we set off, legs suffering from yesterdays intervals. And as we rode we kept encountering other riders coming back down the trail, defeated by the snow.
We kept going.
Just past the elephant carvings we broke out of the trees and onto the fire-roads. It really was no fun out in the open - the snow was heavy, wet and gave no traction or steering.
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| Fisheye - the last refuge of the amateur. |
Instead of pushing on for an epic we nipped down a handy green road, which would be a nice enough downhill itself if it could be guaranteed clear of sour faced walkers, and headed up to the trailhead for the drop of certain death and other obstacles.
We were defeated in our efforts to get round the whole thing, but we had a cracking time riding the last section. Kirsty finally reached a high enough speed to appreciate the handling of the Burner and I learned that the Five Spot loves being muscled around. Oh, and choose your jumps with care in case the trail heads off round a corner while you’re still up there doing a little tailwhipping.
Hot soup, tea and Bakewell Tart were a fine end to the ride.
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March 19th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
sounds like a good un! Wasnt all of Wales great! Funny thing for me was that the hardest part was the M32… hope you head down for my epic. I’m pre-riding the course next weekend. If you fancy a long drive for a long ride (2days!) for a sneek peek give me a call/mail!
x for kirsty! :-)
March 20th, 2006 at 11:16 am
It was fab. Some cross country whippet on skinny tyres passed us on the way up - he was cutting through the snow to the stuff underneath.
Not sure if the 5 Spot needs some slightly wider/higher bars to get the best out of it’s freeride fun capabilities.