Cubester has been badgering me to take him to Dalby Forest, and today I relented. He and Cubette have been staying at their Nanna's at York, so I loaded up their bikes and went to collect them. The website says the cycling trails are all closed, but a quick phone call confirmed that the Red and black routes are, but the Blue is open.
All the more interesting for me is that I was itching to try out my new Eggbeaters off-road, and as a novice to clipless wanted to see how I got on. All was fine as we deceided to do the family 2 mile route as a warm up. Part of that route was covered in slushy snow, so we had an entertaining few minutes getting a feel for riding through it. We then started on the Blue route. We climbed up through the singletrack and I had my first off as the front wheel lifted on a steep hairpin, and I just couldn't clip out quickly enough! We got up onto the Forestry tracks and found that the whole place was still covered in snow. There were enough ruts to try and keep going, but every so often the front wheel would clip the side of the slushy ice, the back end would slide, and the front would wash out as I tried to correct it. Twice I ended up on my side, giggling like a pillock as the washouts were too quick for my reactions.
At one point I clipped out of the side I knew I was going to fall on, only to find the action of clipping out threw my balance the other way and this time I ended up on my back with the bike above me, upside down, my left foot still in the pedal! Cubette was helpless. From then on I spent most of the time on the flat and downhill with my feet on the pedals, but not clipped in.
We were really looking forward to the last couple of downhill miles until we discovered that the snow hadn't even melted enough to form ruts, so we ended up scooting and sliding our way down until the last half a mile on the hard tracks. Hard work, but great fun all the same. Reckon the kids have learnt all about balance and low speed control today. I've learnt that using clipless for the first time in snow was not my brightest idea!
