From your Devon correspondent:
What a difference a day makes.
Woke up to a stunning white frost, -4C outside. Went on an afternoon walk with my daughter. The lanes sheet ice in places and all the bridleways coming home were solid. Mud hard as granite.
As I got a log in for the fire about 9pm last night, noticed the cold aluminium garage door ‘sweating’ as condensation occurred as waemer air hit it.
Today, much wamer. About 6-7C when I left, about 10ish now. Got out on the bike for the first time since just after Xmas. I simply don’t function in minus temp’s and with white frosted lanes and my trails being poached rock hard mud, didn’t feel like it at all.
Trails have a nice ‘give’ to them, though still saw the odd sheet of ice. Now the mud gives way under you as opposed to being solid and pinging you around like a demented bagatelle ball!
Started to get a bit breezy, the wind roaring in the trees and gusting fairly strong, and overcast but with high cloud. forecast giving rain later.

My new front Crud guard actually saw some mud – and kept it off well. The rubber snout allows you to put it up behind your fork, the nose giving if the fork touches it – as it says on the pack!…..and it did. worked a treat.
hey ho…….
Though ‘only’ 6-7C it felt positively balmy, and I really enjoyed being out. Perhaps I’ve got more equatorial genes in me than polar……
cheers
Q

oh @rse.
First paragraph should start
” Yesterday….”
oh well, the intention was there!
( sigh….. I need to use preview too. Please ignore apalling spelling, but I am trying hard to translate from native language to English!)
…and they pixies keep moving my keyboard keys around. Little b*ggers.
bows head, puts on pointy hat and stands in corner……
Q

Just noticed the “Edit” bit below the post – so presumably you post new thread, then press “Edit” to edit out my unusual Devonian translations???
hmmmm
Q
( still learining how to use the new forum )

Know what you mean about the temperature difference, went out for a ride yesterday, think it was about -3c. Then just come back from the ride today, and temp gage said 8c.

Yesterdays ride was more fun, but so dangerous, hitting ice isn’t cool! Today the bike just got so muddy it was unreal. Yesterday hardly any.

‘ hitting ice isn’t cool….’
I’m glad someone else is in fear here!
On my post Xmas ride, I kept wondering what would happen if I had an ‘off’……. and it really hit home to me. A lone rider, bridleway traffic very infrequent, in those temp’s it wouldn’t take very long at all to be in hypothermia, despite my thermals etc. I suppose it’s a sign of getting old when you really do realise that for once there’s a sensible option that is worth considering!
cheers
Q

i’ve been riding in dust round plymouth all week. Been to the little dh trails at the back of Woodbury common this morning and still just have a dusty bike to show for it!

but yes its much warmer today.

I don’t know happened to the 5-8C we’d been promised today on the south downs. It felt colder in that wind than it’s done all week with the freeze.

Julian:
My trails were ‘damp’ I think because of the simple fact of cold ground meets warmer air, and a layer of thawed ice/permafrost on the surface has given really nice conditions – firm but giving. My next door neighbour has a stables and none of them have ridden recently because it’s been absolutely bone hard, and they don’t want to risk wrecking their horses’ hooves. I think a lot depended on what was underfoot before the freeze set in. My trails were very muddy, therefore holding water, so when it froze it becamse a hard poached nightmare to ride. I imagine Woodbury’s a bit more sandy and free draining – hence nothing to freeze and you get the faled dusty trails???
But I might be taking cr@p heere…..sadly known for it!!!!!!!!
😉
cheers
Q

Newton Abbot, Devon here – stepped outside this morn expecting the usual biting cold and it felt like summer! By the end of my ride I realised I was vastly overdressed and sweating loads. Long live the heat I say!

I much preferred the bright sub zero conditions to today’s damp [if somewhat warmer] offering

Yep Uplink, I’m with you. I was gutted when I got out today and found the ground was starting to thaw.

The cold snap was like a wonderful unexpected gift that transformed my slippy, muddy local trails into a superfast “rocky” tech-fest for a week and a half.

Luckily I managed to get lots of riding in, but I fear it’ll be summer (or later) before I’m riding so fast round there again.

christowkid,
yeah, i wonder if trees suck up a lot of the moisture so seems to dry a bit better, plus trees in woodbury are in fairly sandy soil. My local trails are also mostly in the woods too. Finally a silver lining to the unpredictability of all them there roots.

whereabouts are you?

julian:
Youre absolutely right!
I remember going to see a friend who lived close by. They lived in an old mine captains house. I used to park right by adits ( horizontal tunnels used for drainage and acess) going into the mine and was often tempted by a trip but never did. Without warning the forestry cut down the trees above the house, resulting in the adits being several feet in water and the whole area becoming much wetter. This greatly annoyed my friends, and they quoted ‘ a big fir can transpire 200gals/day….’
Trees do shift water!
I’m in……Christow!
Where are you to?
Q