Words – Dunc , Pics – Dunc & 3Sheds (and 1 “library pic” from Pete)
Crew: Dunc (late ride), 3 sheds (Early ride), The Next Generation (different early ride)
Pub: Dunc’s Sofa
Route (Late ride) : House of Dunc, BL, Buton old road, Charity lane & extention, standing stone,Towards Nessit, Half Pipe descent, lower singletrack, around the reservoir and back to Tythy.
Conditions: Clear, snowy & icy. Slushy in places
Stats: None
With the core team away enjoying the high life with the european skiing jet-set, there were a couple of murmurs of interest in a snowy ride from the residual TNRers, but with Eric and Nic pulling out late (Elf and safety and medical reasons respectively), this left 3 sheds out for a solo early ride and yours truly out for a late ride after much tubeless faffing. I understand there was also good organisation from the next generation TNR lead by Mini-Pud (apparently the organisation involved lights, warm clothes and rice pudding – it was going to be “insane” ).
Off into the quiet of the fresh snowfall to find Buxton road closed and Buxton old road proving a challenge (thanks be to the freshly installed 2.4” rubber). Arrived at the start of Charity to find no bike tracks, but deer and a 4WD had beaten me to it. After a lot of start-stop, complicated with iced up cleats, letting a few PSIs out proved the right answer, making the rest of the charity climb to the weather station much more do-able. Charity descent proved a little messy with snow, slush and ice cold stream running freely – arriving at the bottom with a super-cooled behind.
Charity extension was untouched, on the climb to Standing Stone pulled over to let a 4WD pass to find it was a chavved up Fiesta with Mr & Mrs Yoof onboard (who needs 4wd anyway?).
The Half-Pipe descent (or Christmas tree alley as I like to call it) had more pristine snow and made for the highlight of the evening – crunchy snow, stars, snow covered Christmas Trees and that foreboding thought in the back of my mind that if something goes wrong here I’m very much on my own.
Pub stop consisted of Leffe and Cous-Cous at home after a shower to thaw butt-cheeks.
Post ride analysis from the next generation: ”Sick”