Saturday, January 9, 2010

Snow Riding on the Isle of Wight

Well, I couldn't resist the temptation to go out riding my usual Cyclo-Cross training route in all this snow, so regardless of the danger and with no experience at all of riding in snow, it came down to assuming that years of riding in slippery, mud must mean that I had at least some ability to handle it. Whether that was true or not didn't bother me though as I wasn't missing this for anything. I'd managed to ride to work every day since the snow fell Tuesday and Wednesday and have been surprised how grippy the ice is once it's been churned up and refrozen by the 4x4's; surely riding soft snow would be ok. At this point I hadn't realised how much running and walking I'd be doing. As a matter of note, the bike I'm riding is my trusty singlespeed Specialized Tri-Cross, with 42x16 gearing and Racing Ralph CX tyres.

Setting out from Hewitt Crescent

Once I was out on the main road, now clear enough and perfectly rideable, I set about putting a bit of pace in just so I got at least some quality riding in. Five minutes later, through Gunville, I was back down to concentration of not falling off on the less used road to Carisbrooke. Once up the hill to Carisbrooke and the view to the castle, I realised that things would  start getting difficult. The road now, was pretty treacherous and I still have a few miles before I reached the first off road trail up onto Chillerton Down.

View across to Carisbroooke Castle on the Chillerton Road

The road from now on

Riding the Carisbrooke to Chillerton road was pretty sketchy, hopping from one clear bit to the next, it was like riding a hard packed dirt trail in summer but with the risk of slipping out everytime you traversed the ice lumps between car tyre tracks. Once I reached the climb at Chillerton the road was almost totally snowed over, but again rideable and solid, the ice actually providing grip. Up the hill and finally I arrived at the  trail. It was worse that I'd imagined!! But the Grin Factor almost split my head in half. I tried to ride it and lasted two whole metres. Oh well, better start running then.

Top of Chillerton, start of off road trail

Looking back down the trail

Bike on shoulder, legs feeling lively for running and off I go. The first thing is see is more snow falling. That can't be right, it's not snowing, the sky is blue and there are no clouds. Oh, what an idiot, its not snowing, it's only a snow drift. Snow Drift!!! I thought that only happened in the Mountains. This is cool, I'm in a snow drift, running and breathing the coldest freshest air and . . .  oops, I've just sunk in two feet of snow and the bike is sitting on top of me.  

Two foot Hole and my leg

No, I haven't fallen in that hole and that isn't my hand trying to pull myself out.

Out of the snow drift and onto the half pipe. This is a part of the trail that we have always imagined as a half pipe and riding the MTB down here in summer is great fun but today it is the Snowboarders domain. There is evidence of them having been here but as yet it's just me. This is what solo bike riding off the roads is all about; on my own, surrounded by flaky, virtually untouched snow with the most beautiful blue sky you can imagine. Cold, but blissful. I start wishing I had a snowboard, but for now, I need to keep running.

The Half Pipe, the top is about the same distance again, just round the corner. Not very long :0(

View from the top of the Half Pipe. You can see snowbaord marks zig-zagging all the way down

So, now at the top of Chillerton, running the whole way (usually I only need to run the top section) and it's back onto the access road the the radio mast, and rideable . .  for about a minute before turning off to Lordon Copse. I've seen Lordon Copse in the worst conditions and the best. When its muddy, its hell, when its dry its fast, when its snowed in its bloody hard work and, as you might have guessed, totally unrideable on a singlespeed bike. So back to running, bike on shoulder now starting to make my collarbone sore. One thing about running (actually its almost fast walking now, I'm not a runner and it's starting to hurt a bit) is that you are going much slower and you can take more things in. There are a lot of animal tracks along here, I'm guessing rabbits by the small holes. It looks as if there little legs just sink right in and to keep moving they must use there back legs almost like a sled as there are tram like lines with intermittent holes where they must dig their legs in. Eventually I arrive at another snow drift that has almost buried the gate meaning I have to climb over. This isn't easy as I have to get out of the drift first and lift the bike over. What greets me is a tunnel of drifting snow leading to the top of Shorwell Shute.

Top Of Shorwell Chute, drift snow to left, thankfully clogging up in the trees and bushes.

Once back on the road at Shorwell, the descent back down was a bit hazardous but again, presented no problems. Left turn back onto the trail down the lane through hard packed snow - hard packed I assume because of tractors - past a load of sheep and onto the climb up to Brighstone. Back to running again. After a couple of hundred yards my foot started hurting a little so I guessed I might not to be able to on much longer. My aim was to get to strawberry lane car park but that was optimistic as by the time I got to flat ground at the top, after falling foul of a couple more drifts the foot was sore, my shoulder was sore and I was getting cold. I'd been out for about 1hour 20mins so retracing my route would mean nearly three hours, that would be enough. So turn around I did and headed back through much the same conditions, only this time I was able to ride down the sections I was running. It's worth mentioning at this point my battery ran out on my phone so no more pics but worse than that, I was now aware that I was cut off in case I had an accident. Oh well, but that ain't going to stop me riding downhill in that snow. Descending in snow is actually really easy, not fast at all, but easy. You just have to let the bike go where it wants and make very small and gentle steering actions to keep in a  relatively straight line. I have no idea how much the tyre tread helped here but the biggest problem was getting my feet clipped into the pedals as the cleats were now encased in a tomb of ice. A few hard backward bangs on the pedals while descending did the trick, the ice fell off and I was able to click in again. Oh well, at least the trick I learned a long time ago to get mud out of cleats without stopping works for Ice too.

Start of climb to Brighstone Forest

The only other challenge really was deciding whether or not to climb back up to the top of Shorwell Shute or turning off at the Cornish Pasty road (my name for it) and getting to the top of Chillerton that way. I took the pasty option and instantly regretted it. There is no shelter here and drifts were in abundance nearly all the way up. I couldn’t ride and had cold wind, ice and snow blowing right into the side of me, freezing my ear and cheek for about ten minutes. Not nice but strangely exhilarating. 

Once at the top of Chillerton I knew things would get easier and it was now I bumped into the Snowboarders walking to the top of the Half Pipe. I had an audience descending the half pipe on the cross bike so coming off now was not an option. Embarrassingly, I came to a complete standstill when I hit yet another snow drift. Still I think they were impressed. I hung about and waited for their runs but the chickens just sat around at the top, so I left, for the final leg home on the road. All in all, a good ride. Possibly a one-off, but I suppose we will see.

Below is a short clip from halfway up the climb to Chillerton.

Happy riding

Sean

  Posted by Admin at 15:23 | January 2010 |   Comments ( 3 ) |   Link

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