Musings from a ride.
It hasn't been a bad week for getting out on the bike. Frustratingly only night rides, and for pretty much the first time ever, last night I opened the door to pop out for a ride, but turned tail back indoors thinking sod that, it's too cold.
I took two tumbles on frozen ground during the group night ride, totally my fault as I had the tyre pressures set too high for the conditions. The Hutchinson DZO's would normally just shrug ice riding conditions off in their stride.
The first incident was on level ground, as I became cross rutted in my own frozen tyre tread marks from two days previous. Frustratingly it was a hidden tree stump along a tight technical wooded section that had me off the second time. It sent me to the ground and I was pinned under the bike, against a tree, with my leg bent backwards and as hard as I might try, I just couldn't get up. Unbeknown to me, another tree stump had become wedged in the bike frame, and the bike with me on it, was locked solid. Much to the amusement of everyone else, both the bike and myself had to be lifted up at the same time. Just glad that this hadn't happened when out on my own!
I always look forward to the banter and conversations when out on group rides, and this weeks ride didn't disappoint. The bulk of the conversation revolved around dropper posts, Danny Harts mental 2011 DH run, Video clips about Nino Schurter, which somehow always lead us to our favourite topic of conversation about Jenny Rissveds. Emily Batty cropped up briefly, along my opinion of her only being a seven tenths rider. A super fit (in more ways than one) rider, but has herself beaten and defeated before she even starts a race. As was pointed out to me, no one cares about her riding ability, she has looks and fitness, and that sells bikes.
Next up came Seths Bike Hacks, and a clip that he made about not given up when an obstacle beats you the first time. A very informative clip that makes a load of sense. All to often when out on a ride, a bank, drop off, or something else has you defeated, but rather than just shrugging your shoulders and carrying on, go back and try again and again until you do it. Something that I did just last weekend on a bank that I had failed to get up on five separate occasions. Not any more, and used that advantage to great effect on the night ride, by climbing that bank whilst no one else did.
I do still have one nemeses though, and that is an almost vertical 1.2m bank which has in my head, the potential to just send me over the bars when I hit the bottom of it. It's daft really, as the drop forms the second part of another drop which is probably about 3m high. Everyone else struggles with that one but not the bottom one, whilst I can blindly go off the 3m one, but not the 1.2m one. Very weird.
The final bike related topic of the evening focussed on José Hernández, another superb rider.
Roll on next months group night ride.
I now just need to decide where to ride this weekend. I had in mind to head off to the South Downs, but the weather doesn't look that great, and it would be a wasted ride. So with that in mind, it could just be a local ride in my private play ground, along with some more trail building.
