No not an anti greggs rant instead i'm talking about little icey puddles of imminent death* my commute was covered with them Thursday morning, nightmare. Fell off in the first 5 mins frozen churned up ground, stalled, couldn't get foot out, crash. New tubeless rear tyre ran ok thankfully, took long enough to get it mounted. On my way home i tried some of the new stuff at phillips (on harrythespiders instructions) had difficulty finding it, detour round whitefield but found a nice bit of trail, eventually found the end of the trail so rode it backwards, then once I got to the hall rode it right way round. Nice and swoopy, berms and some jumps if you want to, couple of places where you can jump doubles or ride the berms around them, good stuff. Preferred it backwards riding it blind in the dark on a cx bike but reckon on an mtb in daylight it'll be proper quick. Had started snowing so was a light frosting on the trails. Got to darcy lever there was more snow over the puddles, a bit worrying, speeding along until I broke through the ice slowed right down and handling went all wonky as I crunched through the ice, pretty hairy.
More snow this morning and more speeding along silently then hearing the scary crunch of ice under the snow, eeek. No offs but did get another front tyre, will give the rear a week and if its ok go to tubeless front too. Riding home was ace took the scenic route, more snow made for interesting riding. Got to the woodsy singletrack as I was hefting the bike over a style I saw a bike light only 30ft away, oh ho, race time, got on the singletrack and put the hammer down, whoosh. Got to the end waited for the rider but after half a minute no sign so I kept going, snow on the next road looked highly polished so I minced and rider caught me as I got to the canal. Had a chat as I rode the WoH, mountain biker from Moses gate, also a rivi regular. More near death experiences as I was bounced waaaay offline by icey ruts and unexpectedly crashing through ice into deep ruts, scary but I had a big smile plastered across my face as I got home.
*was going to go with uncertain death, much nastier, and some of them were bloody big puddles but bipuds sounds stupid
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