Bit damp yesterday morning but then glorious sunshine all day so I was planning an evening ride, 4:00 rolls around, I was just about to set off home and it hammered it down. Grrr. Waited 30mins for rain to ease then set off. Still raining but not so bad, got to Swinton rain stopped sun came out and steam was rising from the road - weird. Then some complete retard drove onto a slip road, changed her mind and did a u-turn right infront of me. Had some more idiotic driver stuff happen but I'd already used up my shouty quota.
Got home grabbed my SS and went straight out, nice and warm, tired legs tho, up barrow bridge, down san marino where it rained briefly, then back up. Shonky singlespeed in the mud with tired legs not as fast as light FS in the dry with fresh legs shocker! Just under 15minutes with a couple of stops, bloody hard work. Down the shoulder, belmont road is back to it's usual very wet self, ICR, pike, wildeswood, backup foxholes/marklands - ouch! From George's lane all I could see were black clouds and rainstorms all around, just a little island of clear sky above me. Down barrow bridge and down the road to town, thunder and lightning booming all round and sky got very dark, heavens opened just as I got to the bottom of my street, phew!
The trails haven't turned into a mudbath as I feared but the gully on the shoulder has been ravaged, ICR, SM and WW have changed a lot. I hope the rains stop soon.
5 comments:
Got chased down off the top of Darwen moor by the thunder and the blackest clouds I've seen in a long time promising a torrential downpour. Fortunately seemed to miss the worst of the rain. Trails over Darwen moor way similar to what you describe over Rivi, still firm underneath but lots of water movement on anything rocky and loose and SSing was knee explodingly hard work for me in the softer conditions, not helped riding with the lads who seemed to be coping with their gearing. I'm going super girly and putting a 20 cog on the rear for a while, it's equivalent to them running an 18 (I've convinced myself).
my knees aren't feeling too good at the moment either, think it's down to running on monday but lastnight didn't help :-(
32x20 on a 26er? thats going to be a whole lot of spinning on road sections
I got myself caught up in the thunderstorm on Darwen moor a few years ago. Proper shit me up is did, lightning strikes only a couple of hundred meters away. The bloody wire fencing was fizzing!
Out tonight with lights!
You coming on Sunday Dave ?
I'm not spinning out the 32:18 on flat bits and as was pointed out to me last night I tend to spin a reasonably fast cadence anyway. Though comparing the gear inches it's a bigger change than I realised...it still smacks a bit of "giving in" so hopefully it will be temporary whilst I toughen up a bit.
Lowey YGM. Storm sounds cool, bloody scary but cool.
Julbags, I'm ok offroad but as soon as I hit tarmac I spin out, guess I need to work on my spinning.
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