Twenty years ago when i lived in Brizzol we had several inches of snow which partly thawed during a sunny day and then froze hard over night. The Bristol to Bath cycle path became a solid ice landscape of the previous day's traffic, bike wheel tracks, foot prints and pushchair tracks. I had a crappy old mountain bike ready and waiting with IRC Blizzard tungsten studded tyres fitted, and so i set off from Staple hill with eager anticipation! On my way down the footpath switchback a bloke who was trying to escape, pushing a road bike and could barely stand up told me not to bother - "Its impossible to ride" he said.
Ha!! I farking sailed down it, zooming past walkers and cyclists who literally couldn't keep upright on the frozen moonscape.
People were riding on the grass verge hoping for extra traction, but it was futile. Every so often someone would try to get on my tail, imagining, i suspect, that my ability to stay upright was because i had managed to find a safe line through. They all fell off.
Anyway, i got to work on time. No other bugger did. One of the lads arrived, ashen faced, having been in the front seat on the top deck of a bus when it crashed into a building! Ice tyres are bloody brilliant, its a shame we have to wait so long between opportunities to use them. £70 worth of tyres. Used twice over the course of a decade. Not a great return!
