Off the back off this I made an optimistic plan to have a few days riding around Bristol. However, I was very wrong about the end of winter and my dreams of slightly damp trails ridden in the sunshine were not to come true. Perhaps I should have remembered that it was the end of February, and actually still likely to be wet and cold.
In true style the moment I got through the toll gates on the Severn Bridge it started to rain but I pressed on to Cwm Carn, got ready and pushed out onto the damp Cafall trail. It was a damp but warm climb, and I was in the mood to hurt myself up the hill, so it flew by in a blur of big-ring cranking. It started to hurt more towards the final sections but I was soon onto the pay-off in the shape of Pedalhounds.
On this occasion it was wetter than I’ve ridden it before and the roots covered with leaf litter were a real slippery challenge. The first drop-off had me slipping out just after the landing, and put my elbow in the dirt leaving the tell-tale marks of a failed downhill run on my arm for any imaginary commentators to mention as a reason for my slow time.
From then on it was a solid run, over the wet roots, hitting the drop offs and getting back to the carpark liberally sprayed with mud and ready to drive to a friends’ to abuse their shower before lunch.
Overall this wasn’t wet enough to put me off and a couple of days later I was all up for another winter ride.
This experience reminded me of some really important life lessons. Firstly, however quick you want to make your pre-ride wee due to the cold you should be careful of pushing everything too hard as you may get more than you bargained for, but that’s another story. More importantly, even if you leave home on a crisp, bright, frozen morning that does not mean the hills will be frozen and fast to ride. In fact there’s a chance that there will be snow on the ground and freezing water and mud to spray everywhere.
The Quantocks were white over and liberally soaked, making navigation and enthusiasm for riding both pretty tricky. The Triscombe DH tracks were all closed for logging work and so I bypassed that area and rode on to get up to a highpoint and enjoy the stunning views.
After a clattering downhill I took some wrong turns in the untouched snow, cast around and finally tracked down the start of a coombe descent. This dropped me out of the snow but was still a soggy experience, dampening the excitement but still making it a fun swoopy flowing downhill to the stream. I climbed back up and cast out on some tracks that kept me below the snow, contouring around the hill and looking for some options to drop down the coombes and climb back up. This had mixed success but I found the occasional fun then pushed back up to the road. This was broken up with a pause for some definitely sketchy moments as a pack of fox hounds swarmed across the hill. It makes for a moment of question as the quiet is broken by dogs barking and a stream of them flow around the steep valley sides. The dogs had no interest in me and flowed past leaving me to climb back to the road and start turning the pedals up the tarmac.
At this point it started to rain. I climbed on into the wind and the rain turned to sleet. At around this point I decided I was over the ride with wet, cold feet and no hope of drying out. On the positive side I was wearing my new howies waterproof which was doing a stellar job at keeping out the weather as the rain and sleep pooled on the surface and kept my baselayers dry and warm, so I was getting the chance to do some sort of extreme product testing. Dry from the waist up at least I headed back to the car, feeling like I’d let myself down a little with the ride and with bailing out. At the car I attempted to keep clean bits that way as I got back into the warm. This was work that would be almost entirely undone as I met a tractor on a narrow lane and had to back the car into a muddy gateway.
Overall this was not the most successful riding trip ever, with bad riding on my part and bad behaviour from the weather. It has set me up for wanting badly to plan more trips as the weather gets better.
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