Coldest day in the UK, ever!

Today (11 January 2009) was officially the coldest day I've ever experienced on a bike... ever! (left: see the spider webs frozen at the rear of my Mini) Thankfully it was on a mountain bike with a good bunch of lads: John (Veness), Mark (Hutt) and Jon (Pierce). (see photo below)

We met at Loggers car park, Winterfold at 9am. Before setting off I had to scrape the ice from my car windows. Unlike the usual window scrapping efforts, this mornings ice was so thick that I broke the screen scraper.

Anyway, we had another great day on the trails. Poor Mark had to lead the group again - sorry mate. We did the usual trails around Surrey Hills picking up all the usual beauties. Unfortunately right at the start of the ride I was carving my way through trees when I went a little too close to one of the trees and caught my left shoulder on it. It was bloody painful, but I soldiered on. Jon suffered a similar fate much later on hitting the deck on the icy road surface during transition.

John (Veness) was testing out his 'new' second-hand mountain bike he picked up on eBay. It was a Rocky Mountain ETSX dual with full XTR and Fox forks. I had a little spin while waiting for Mark to fix his first of two punctures and found the front end a little too slack. John and I agreed with front-end and said he was planning on selling and replacing it with a hardtail. (contact me if you're interested in a Rocky Mountain dual bouncer frameset or if you have a xc-ready hardtail frameset for sale) We completed a freezing ride in just over 3 hours posed for a shot and headed on home.


Today's ride stats:

Time: 03:06
HR: 154bpm
Distance: 50km