Tell us about your weekend ride

indoors today, calshot session 2 hours, ace fun.
would have liked to have been on mtb in snow though,
snow rides pics please.

Me and STE5 rode out from town and did the TNRC's E4 Ecstasy route today. It was a bit mental, in a good way :)

Tough 50 miles door-to-door.

I wish i was there, instead of wasting my fucking time...

We were on the road at 7.30am. I thought that was a bit early for you SSTC types?

:)

700c wheels? Mental.

I think 700c wheels with aggressive cyclo-x tyres, or widely spaced knobs and viscious spikes would've been best.

Sean's thinner tyres cut through the powdery snow and slush the best, and my studded road tyres were best on hardpacked snow/clean sheet ice.

Neither of us had an off, which probably tells you how slowly we were going.

We climbed Daws Hill (seated) faster than the cars behind us, and we even stopped to help push a car up a hill, at a spot where loads had been abandoned.

Bicycles FTW :)

Neither of us had an off, which probably tells you how 'on' we were.

Fixed.

top work boys. sean kelly points i think andy?

Fixed.

oh dear!

top work boys. sean kelly points i think andy?

Certainly.

Double points I think, as proving the old Kelly adage, you can only tell how bad the weather is after 2 hours out in it, is worth extra.

Paris, 4cm of slush, just outside of Paris, about a foot of deep, fresh snow. I have rarely, if ever, had quite so much fun on a mountain bike. First ride ever in proper snow. Utterly brilliant. 20k in 2 hours...not very fast, but very hard work.

http://www.lfgss.com/picture.php?albumid=1628&pictureid=9612

Did a big steep rocky descent that I know well (but hardly recognised in the snow), and instead of it being a bit of boneshaking bump-fest, it was smooth as, and I just rolled down, unreal. Then I hit a big rock lurking under the snow half-way down, which sent my front wheel one way and me the other. Into a big pile of snow. Big soft pile of snow, and big fat grins.

On the road on the way up to the forest I went up a hill and overtook some idiot in a range rover with 'racing' style low profile road tyres on massive alloy wheels, wheelspinning himself into trouble. 4 wheel drive = 4 wheel spinning. Felt very, very smug.

Me and STE5 rode out from town and did the TNRC's E4 Ecstasy route today. It was a bit mental, in a good way :)

Tough 50 miles door-to-door.

I look like I was throwing a snowball in that picture, but actually I was putting my camelbak underneath my gilet to stop it freezing.

This was an awesome ride, what makes me happiest on a bike is doing things I never thought possible before. Today's 40mile (I live closer to essex than Scarlet) ride through very snowy country lanes on a road bike is one of those things. We had every conceivable form of snow and ice and rode through it as if it wasn't there (well sort of).

I got back in just before 12.00 so that's probably 10mph average and I'd guess about 12mph moving average. Not all that far off the last E4 TNRC I was on. But then there was some issue on that one with a guest rider...

Lots of hard work in the snow, particularly with the close fitted mudguards I had on, they filled with slush and added a lot of resistance, I'd thought of this before and considered using my track bike but couldn't bear the thought of seeing it covered in gritty slush. I was virtually brakeless, on the few occasions I did try to use my front brakes they were absolutely useless.

Essex was beautiful in the snow.

Did about 45km on the new SS. Mostly on snowy backroads, a few horrible main roads and a bit of off road in Burnham Beeches which was fucking hard work. Fell off once for seemingly no reason but didn't hurt myself too badly. Should learn to take more food on the longer rides as I was feeling pretty drained and a bit odd on the way back into Wycombe, had to keep stopping every 200m to have a breather :/

edit: 40 mile^ Fark. That's pretty hardcore.

I am envious - of both of those. That looks like an awesome ride. I also thought you were throwing a snowball...

Fox and I did about 12 miles through icy/slushy south london roads and bit of cyclocross through the parks. It was a lot of fun.

That rear sprocket is fucking massive! I've never seen a single speed MTB set up like that before, like it.

How many teeth is it and where'd you get it from?

Ha, yeah it's a bit odd granted. It's a 28T, the top sprocket from my old cassette. I built the bike as a winter commuter/road hack from my old MTB, spending as little as possible. Finished it yesterday and went to have a play in the snow and quickly realised it was geared way to high for the snow/off road. My smaller chairing is knackered so this is the only combination that gave a low enough GI without waiting for new bits. After riding today I might see if I can set up to chainring/sprocket combos, one for on road and one for off, that's if the bodged dropouts will give me enough adjustment, as getting to the trails was slow going and mucho spinny spinny, was perfect in the powdery snow though.

Embrace the spin.

I used to ride my offroad gear on the road all the time. Not ideal, but being comfortable with a +110 cadence is no bad thing.

I think 700c wheels with aggressive cyclo-x tyres, or widely spaced knobs and viscious spikes would've been best.

Sean's thinner tyres cut through the powdery snow and slush the best, and my studded road tyres were best on hardpacked snow/clean sheet ice.

Neither of us had an off, which probably tells you how slowly we were going.

Very impressive stuff - was it mainly on packed snow and icy roads? You did well to keep warm enough.

Some very impressive rides up there ^

The about 14 miles I did with spybot today was an average of 6.8mph, I did 22 miles altogether today and total average was 8.1. All that ice and not leaning!

^^^cool bikes, boom boom-
@Andy W, great pics there, Isle of Man in Moon.
that guys face is classic- sums up riding at mo,
@BMMF STE5, top efforts, pretty positive isnt it seeing just what can be done,
we dont push ourselves(im generalizing) nearly enough in this society,
getting something like that done is a buzz.
I did a 10 k orienteering race in forest at Longmoor, navigating between checkpoints,
was superb out there, deer racing across my path couple of times, came middle of field,
then had a spin locally after before swim training.
this bike is ace in the snow, get it tracking right it just cranks, steering it is so much fun, this is Poole park, *note cute steam train. Im gonna fix this up soon try offroad fixed 29ering, gonna be either mental or take me to the next level.

Very impressive stuff - was it mainly on packed snow and icy roads? You did well to keep warm enough.

Incorrect spelling of 'vicious'. I'm a little embarrassed.

I've got used to dressing in the appropriate garb. Didn't feel anywhere near as cold as the -7 degree ride I did in Hertfordshire a few weeks back, which was my last ride on a road bike, therefore massive extra windchill due to speed.

Like Sean said, we dealt with a huge variety of road conditions.

• 7.30am up Queensbridge Rd was a weird kind of ribbed ice, plus black ice.
  
• Lea Bridge Rd was horrible grey powdery 'snush', plus some black ice.
  
• The Epping Road gradually morphed from white 'snush' (or is it 'slow'?) and ice into hard pack snow, which was how it stayed through the forest.
  
• The lanes were a bit of everything, including some deeper fresh snow, and frozen puddles that cracked or semi-cracked as we crossed them; crusty refrozen ruts, hardpack on tarmac, hardpack on ice, etc, etc…
  
• Where the cars were abandoned, under tree cover, it was a deep and dark brown sludgey syrup - and by the time we were heading back into town, there was a dark grey version of this being thrown up in tidal waves by the traffic.
  
  

Some traffic was very friendly, and their was a sense of camaraderie in the lanes, irrespective of transport method; but there were loads of Range Rovers too, and the drivers were consistently belligerent in their attitude towards shared space and iffy conditions. The only negative to the ride.

Oh yeah, we did actually have some short stretches of damp tarmac too. Nice to get the 60" gear spinning once in a while :)