Mud Splattered

My plan on Sunday, while I waited for Rampage, was to getup and go for a ride myself. Just to pop round a local circuit and feel my wheels rolling over the world. That sounds way more poetic than my really ideas. Anyway the day did not start well.

I sat on the sofa and stared at the rain for a while, refreshing the met office website in the hope that the band of rain would move away for just long enough.

Finally it looked to be moving away to the east and I scrambled together my stuff and threw it all at the car before driving out to Hertfordshire. The ride was on, but it would be pretty muddy. The trails I had been riding all summer in the dust and dry are now covered with a thin wet layer of mud and much of that ended up on me and the bike.

The mud changes the feel of the ride, where fast trails are slowed down and corners become sketchier and slippery. Singletrack gets more technical as you fight the slime and my sprayed mud covers me, filling every gap in my gear as well as my eyes and mouth. Brake pads that had been hanging on through the end of the dry summer instantly wore through leaving me braking metal on metal, screaming into corners and struggling to stop, while when wheels did lock up they slid on the surface. It's the end of summer and there are months of this ahead, but it's fun to do it again.

There was some serious bike washing to do, and a lot of muddy clothes to deal with, which is a change from the light sprinkling of dust. The bike got clean and I had to take a trip to the bike shop to get some new chain lube and attempt to buy some GT85, where I learnt of the national shortage of the famous teflon spray. The sales assistant in Cycle Surgery Pentonville Road is offering a reward for anyone who can find one.

With a crashing segue it would have been great to have some Muc-Off to clean the bike off, and look, I have a video they have made, following the JLT Condor team on the Tour of Britain.

Muc-Off Presents - Riding Home: With Rapha-Condor JLT (Part I) from Muc-Off Ltd on Vimeo

For a final crashing together of stories there was a discussion in the Guardian about whether the advent of driverless cars will be a good thing or not for cyclists. To be honest there are some cyclists it definitely won't help, like this guy, picked up on the M1.

A