As I cycled through snowmageddon yesterday, I smugly thought, "I beat the Beast from the East" In reality, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected.
I had to go to work, at a school 3 miles away, usually I would use my Sirrus for this, but it is currently laid up with catastrophic front chainring failure, so I took the Rockhopper instead, which given the weather, was probably quite a useful coincidence due to the big fat, knobbly tyres rather than the 28 mm Sirrus ones. My wife urged me to throw the bike in the car, but I reasoned that if things got too bad, I could always walk what was left of 3 the miles each way.
With 7 layers on, and 2 pairs of gloves, I set off and the only problem was it was a bit blustery, but nothing like as cruel as the BBC website said it would be. It had still snowed though, and that put paid to working outside, so we had to go home early. Having not been out since Sunday I was itching for a ride, and the conditions would make the local Coastal Woodland nature reserve route a bit more interesting than usual, so I nipped down the Formby Bypass and into Freshfield, past the really posh houses and along the path by Freshfield station, then up to Fisherman's Path. This takes you across the railway into Formby golf course, and sadly is a place several people have been killed, some by taking their own life, and others because the trains appear suddenly and apparently their sound doesn't emerge until they are very close.
The "Cyclists Dismount" sign amuses me slightly, I mean, what choice do you have?
Looking across the golf course to the club house:
Into the nature reserve trail - there was a good mix of dry track where it was covered by the trees and ice and snow covered track where there wasn't any tree cover, some of the exposed track didn't have any snow. It made it interesting as some snow was still soft, but some had compacted into ice, generally the big tyres coped well, but in a couple of places it was necessary to exercise a bit of caution to avoid skidding, and some of the track has been damaged by HGVs that have been moving felled trees from there lately, so there were a few frozen ridges to be aware of as well.
My Rockhopper, which I have had since January 1998 - gets the key of the door next year
Onto the Coast Road at Ainsdale - below is a view towards Ainsdale Beach. You turn right just down there to get on the Coast Road to Southport. It has a cycle track all the way along, which is fine for an MTB or hybrid, but a bit bumpy on a road bike, but personally, I wouldn't use the road there, it's a long, narrow, straight, fast road and wouldn't be much fun on 2 wheels.
It was only 10 miles all round, it got a bit tough along the Coast Road as heading north east meant the easterly wind was holding me back a bit, and I was a carrying a heavy back pack full of hi viz jackets, various tools and paper work, as well as my uneaten butties, and unopened flak full of hot tea, which I had for my lunch when I got in.
Quite daunting conditions everywhere at the moment, and here we seem to have got off relatively lightly compared with elsewhere, but still a very cold period and a cruel wind, but glad I didn't succumb to temptation and take the car, it was quite exhilarating being out there yesterday.
