Well it was yesterday afternoon when I came back from riding my bike, I was determined to go out riding to help with the weight loss. I had been out Saturday and that was a bit of a slow ride as the wife was not feeling to great so I felt I needed to go out again. Well Sunday weather was miserable, high winds and plenty of rain. I wanted to try out my new jacket to see how waterproof (or not) it was so now was the ideal time. I dropped the wife and son off for a bit of xmas retail therapy and headed for the local heath. The path across the top of the heath was windy as I had expected with the rain coming in at 45 degrees to my face but once I went down the slope at the other end I was sheltered from the wind but unfortunately not the rain.
It was not long before I started to have some close encounters of the muddy kind, nearly going through a hedge on one short steep decent, then a little further on there was a tree down across the path, in fact it was propped up resting on a shed leaving enough room to ride under it, at least I did on Saturday. Sunday as I ducked under the trunk my handle bar caught a branch sending me lurching into the deep mud, if only I had known this was to be a minor event compared to what was coming.
At the bottom of one slope was what can only be described as a lake, Saturday we both managed to ride through it, but with the over night rain it was now double the size, so I headed into it and then suddenly found myself in the middle of the lake in axle deep water losing momentum due to the clay bottom, I stopped and put my foot down, boy was that water cold.
Having paddled my way out of the lake (managing to keep one foot dry-ish) I set off along the narrow sandy single track, this included riding up what can only be described as a fast flowing stream, swollen by the rain of the past few days. I was just yards from reaching the point where the track widen outs and heads for home when I found myself making a close inspection of the heathland foliage, not sure exactly what happened accept I was on the deck.
I reached the return point and decided to take an alternative route back (it meant not going down a long slope and then having to climb back up an adjacent slope). I was soon riding back across the top of the heath this time with the wind and rain at 45 degrees to my back. All that was left was the muddy area where they had laid a new water main, this meant swapping from one side of the track to the other to keep out of the worst of the mud. The next bit was like slow motion, I found myself on the wrong side of the path and in a deep puddle, suddenly my front wheel disappeared, I am flying off the bike over the handlebars and I land on my side in the middle of the muddy puddle. I was absolutely soaking wet and covered in mud, I put my hand out in front of me and that disappeared into the mud, when I pulled my hand out my glove was covered in yellow clay.
I got up and retrieved my bike, remounted and rode the final half mile back to the car, I was absolutely soaked. When I got back to the car I took my trainer off and poured the water out of it, it is still soaking wet now despite sitting next to a radiator drying out for more than 24hrs.
But best of all I enjoyed every bloody minute of it
