Guess I won’t be going to Wales (again! :cry:)tomorrow given the weather armegeddon. I suspect I’ll ruin more of my transmission closer to home in 4celcius, 20mph winds and heavy rain………

Anyone else taking the view there is no such thing as bad weather merely wrong clothing and out for fun ‘cos it’s the only time off they have?

All ride time is fun time. Unless your not having fun

Mate, can’t be much worse than BPW on Sat – the afternoon was horrendous.

Was only really cold in the queue for the minibus though.

Saying that, I had Lusso Max Repel bibs on, sealskins, MT91 Goretex boots, knee pads, heavy duty Troy Lee shorts, body armour, No Fear top, Altura Attack jacket, a Buff, Royal Minus gloves and a full face helmet. Boots were full and gloves soaked through – couldn’t face the last run of the day.

Ouch – just realised that’s over £600’s worth of clothing! 😯

I had thought of Aston instead

Mate, can’t be much worse than BPW on Sat – the afternoon was horrendous.

Cwmcarn uplift was fine – very windy at the top at times and you’d have to be insane to try the jumps at the bottom, but otherwise just a couple of touches of rain and all was good.

Kinda dreading going this Saturday…

It’ll still be fun though 🙂

queue for the minibus

Queuing? **** that! I’d rather go somewhere well organised!

Queuing? **** that! I’d rather go somewhere well organised!

Erm, yeah – on the odd occasion that your run down didn’t coincide with the bus coming down. What sort of place has an endless stream of buses so that one is always available at the exact moment any one of dozens of people hit the bottom? 😕

A ski resort…?

Glenshee ski centre tomorrow.
See all that wet stuff that’s been falling out of the sky recently? Well, it’s been snowing up there almost all week.
On a base already several metres thick.. and tomorrow looks like the weather window.
Friday is going to be a good day and there’s a few pals available to help the day along.

Today wasn’t to bad so I went out for a two hour ride on the driest route I could think of. Needless to say at the furthest point of the ride the heavens opened and I was sleeted to death. There is no hope!

Some of my most memorable rides have been the ones where I almost didn’t go because of the weather. Take last night for example:

Wednesday is the only evening during the week when I can ride. While we haven’t had the flooding up here that you’ve had down south we’ve still had twice the average rainfall and it sometimes feels as if most of that has fallen on a Wednesday. Sure enough, while yesterday dawned clear and bright, as the day wore on the clouds rolled in and the wind picked up. As I got ready to start my ride it was dark (of course) the wind was howling through the trees and the heavy rain had turned to horizontal sleet. The temptation to just forget about riding was strong and as I ride alone I wouldn’t be letting anybody down. But if I don’t ride on a Wednesday that’s it until the weekend and I have decent wet weather gear, so I just got on with it.

Within half a mile of the start the sleet had turned to wet snow. But it was never deep enough to hinder progress. In fact it was perfect. Just enough to soften the trail and make the night seem brighter and wet enough that there was no fear of ice. After a while even the snow just turned to showers and between these the moon came out; bathing the trail in a lovely soft light.

As I was going along a straight and flat section of trail I noticed some footprints. Dog? No, too small. Cat? Maybe. Then up ahead, just at the edge of my light I saw something furry moving. As I got closer it just carried on down the same path with me slowly catching it up. Eventually I worked it that it wasn’t one thing but a pair of pine martens. Trotting along the path, side by side, as happy as you like. I rode right up to within a few feet of them and they just kept on going down the path. Eventually they stopped and looked round, causing me to brake and my brakes to give a bit of a squeal. This startled them and they raced off, but still down the same trail and I was able to catch them up again. We must have played this gave for a good five minutes (with them stopping occasionally to look round, then being startled by the sound of my brakes and trotting off again) before they eventually took off up a bank at the side of the trail. Fantastic stuff and well worth getting a bit wet for.

Spent the day recovering from last nights ride which was @ times scary up Kentmere way! Will be out tomorrow come rain or shine as I have non biking visitors all weekend 🙂

What sort of place has an endless stream of buses so that one is always available at the exact moment any one of dozens of people hit the bottom?

Pearce Cycles – they do it right. It can get like a caucus race. I’ve managed 23 runs in a day at Hopton cos there was always a trailer being loaded when I got to the bottom.

At Cwmcarn & Revolution you get enough time to grab a drink in between runs, but no queuing cos they don’t overbook and do dumb things like get single ticket bikes on board and off again when day ticket holders show up.

Riding the couch. Bad calf sprain, swelly leg going bruisy yellow:(

Sitting in my mums 3 bottles of wine down because bringing the bike to Fort Bill in Feb was a stupid thing to do.

Going up Nevis Range at 8 to sweat it out and ride whatever doesn’t have a tree on it.

Or shuttle run fire roads pretending I’m Ben Reid/sam hill etc.

Or be sick.

Tomorrow, I will be riding dry dusty SoCal trails in San Diego!!

Rode at Afan on Wednesday afternoon and that was a mistake. Trees coming down everywhere and one literally nearly right on top of me. First ride I’ve ever done where I’ve been genuinely concerned for by wellbeing.

Tomorrow swim, steam sauna then Espresso time for me.