Wednesday 8 December 2010

What a ice day to go out on the bike

Well yesterday was certainly an action packed day once I left my place with my bike and my camera, I did not have much food in the fridge or cupboards so my only fuel was a bottle of water, but earlier in the morning i had oat cereal and the night before had a nice spaghetti bolognese so I guess they were my fuel for the ride

So as I walked out the door, I enabled CardioTrainer on my Android phone to record my workout as it calls it, I was all set too, I had all my layers of clothing on including a jumper and a jacket, 2 scarf's, a pair of thin gloves and another pair of thick gloves over the top of them, 2 pairs of sock's, you get the idea, I also had jeans on, and the reason I am mentioning that is because i would like to share what I use as trouser clips as I not sure if many people have thought of using what I use? Many people may have but just may not be cheap like me, well what I use is string off a ball of string like this here and the rest is obvious after that, I double knot it around the bottom of my trousers, and when I want to take it off, I just use some force and pull the string and it snaps, so it is too inconvenient using string

On with the ride, as I rode through the town to reach Beam Valley Country Park it was quite clear, there were patches of ice here and there, but not so much, once I had entered Beam Valley I was in for a shock, the entire wide path once inside was thick full of ice, there was so much that I decided, this is going to be called not ice skating, but ice biking so as I rode slowly down the path it was very bumpy and slippery, but I did not fall off or land on my feet once which was quite good seeing as I had my camera in my jacket pocket and if I fell off the bike, may not have had a camera anymore

after not so long of riding down the path I pulled in to some grass as it was time for the bike to do some posing, see photos from 2 to 6 here and that place is the same place I also took some photos the other day when I went out, when the snow was extremely thick, that album can be seen here

So After I took those photos I moved on, and about 1 minute later I stopped again, this time I stopped here and beneath me and in front of me was a frozen stream of what should normally be flowing water I think, you will get the idea if you look here from photo 7 to photo 11

So once again I get moving and do not stop for about the next 5 minutes or so and I stopped here because I simply loved this view and thought it made a beautiful photo, what do you think?

And I continued riding, stopping, riding, stopping for many more photos that you can see, like this photo of an interestingly shaped tree that I took about 5 minutes after that last photo with the nice view, I guess this crow wondered how many pictures is this dude goiung to take today, Although minitaure this slope could be fun riding down, but that would be another day

After those photos I turned out on to another path that would lead me here to these steps where I would walk across the train tracks, well above actually, so yes I was totally safe on the bridge that I was on

Now it was time to walk down the steps and exit the bridge and come out on the other side of the country park which would lead me eventually to here, which technically is now The Chase, as I entered the chase there were these icy steps that I decided not to go down, so instead went left instead of forward which brought me this view of this sneaky fox and as I went down, the fox obviously run off but I stopped to look to my right and noticed these massive patches of ice mixed with snow and I moved on and thought these photos would make for some nice photography, photos 33 to 36

Now was to head out as it was starting to get dark and I was getting tired and also my hands were freezing off, so after 5 minutes of riding from the place I took the last photos from I came to this gate and pushed and pushed myself accross the rough snow, it was so rough, I was on low gears and my back wheel was spinning up occasionally, as I got to the end of that I turned right to head down this long path where I had to  battle through patches of ice, some I rode over, which was quite fun, I only rode over the tiny patches though, but still, when riding through them it was like riding to escape death, but of course not literally as i am sure you know, riding down this path was also another tough challenge through rough snow, it felt like I was doing a game of gladiators or trying out for the army, I was pushing as much as my body let me and was having loads of fun

Once I reached the end of that long path I exit through the gates and came on to a path that would lead me out these gates

Finally I was out of the country park, but I decided after that to quickly cross over to another part of the country park, this time to the fishing lake that I thought had a real beautiful view as the sun was low and reflected on the water in the lake

After that It was time I headed home at last, so I did but thought I should take one last photo of this fun and great journey, so ended with this photo and after that, headed home through the town at quite an average speed

Now I was finally home, time to stop CardioTrainer, sit down, rest, and eat

Hope you have enjoyed reading this post, hope it did not drag on for too long, but I thought I would write about my entire journey, rather than split it up in multiple parts

Thank you for reading

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