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As suggested in my last post I went for my normal Sunday ride yesterday, out through Throop into Sopley forest and then Hurn forest and then back to Throop and along the river. But it was not an enjoyable ride, there is just so much ice about it is making the riding so damm dangerous and yes, I fell off on the ice again. There is one section where the trail is gravel and sand path, but where the snow has started to melt with foot prints and track in it and then refrozen and repeated the same process over several days the entire path is covered in ice which is contoured to the underlying surface and there is no way you can keep your wheel from slipping out. Having lost my front wheel, I walked the rest of this path. It took me an hour longer to ride the route yesterday than it normally does. Thankfully a thaw looks like it has set in this morning so future rides should be less dangerous.

I took the camera with me yesterday (having resolved the camera battery problem to a dead battery from a brand new box of batteries (decent ones this time)), managed to get a couple of shots from Hurn forest and down by the river.

No ride today, giving myself a break but hopefully going to try out the Croft Trail at Swindon tomorrow, wifey and son are coming along as well although I don’t think the wife will be riding, so hopefully there will be a few pictures (like you really want to see a picture of me riding a bike). I am informed that we are going shopping this afternoon and it a few minutes I am going to build a Lego model with the son, the joy of Christmas presents.

The field that leads from the river path in to Pig Shoot Lane

Hurn Forest, the bottom of the snow covered dip on the left is a sheet of ices

Looking through the tree's at the early morning mist

Like many, we have our traditions for christmas, only buying a certain foods to eat over the festive break which we don’t eat at any other time of year, I know Clive at Massive MTBer cooks a special ham for christmas. One of our christmas tradition is christmas day is a family day so the doors are locked at bedtime christmas eve and we don’t venture out of them till boxing day morning, we don’t visit family or friends we don’t go for walks or go down to the pub. I can remember when I was younger, if you saw somebody go past your house on christmas day it was a rarity, now a days the pedestrian and motor traffic past our house makes it seem like any other day.

One christmas tradition that I have recently started is falling of my bike on my christmas eve ride. Having got up really early and out to the supermarket for the fresh food shop and all the remaining shopping bits we were back home and finished by 9:30am. With only the family present delivery and collection to do I opted to go for a ride this morning, decided to ride the local heath again. Well the condition were much the same as they were last Saturday, sunny and cold. One thing that was different was the ice! where the snow had been trampled under foot it was now a sheet of ice, several inches thick, where the snow had started to melt, it was frozen solid ice complete with frozen foot prints and tyre tracks. In fact the only bits that were not ice was the snow under the trees or on the heather. It was a nightmare, I fell off and bashed my knee (which now seems to be the tradition on my christmas eve ride), in the end I had to give up and walk out of one section of the heath as I could not go further than 2 meters without the front wheel sliding away underneath me. Lets hope the thaw starts soon and I can start moaning about the mud fest……………..

As the big days approaches my thanks go to all my fellow blog writers and readers for your encouragement these past 12 months, your input has certainly helped.

It just leave me to wish you all a very merry christmas

Last night was my last weigh in for the year and I had gained half a pound, I am not surprised given what I have eaten, in fact I am surprised it is only half a pound. Problem I have is I am what is called a “stress eater” and yes the past week has been stressful so I have eaten whole large bars of chocolate!! I won’t be at the next weight which is the 27th, so I won’t be on the scales again till the 3rd Jan 2011. I had been hoping to end the year in the 16 stone range but it is not to be.

I was intending to go for a ride yesterday, when I got up it had just started snowing which turned to sleet and then rain by early afternoon. Everything turned to slush city so I decided to give it a miss, (I reckon had I ridden yesterday afternoon, I would of lost that half a pound).

I went out for a ride this afternoon, left it until mid afternoon and headed out through Throop and on into Hurn Forest, by the time I got to Hurn Forest it was time to turn the big light on. I was surprised by how much snow was still relatively untouched and still quite deep (considering the rain we had had) in Hurn forest and that was my undoing. Where on Saturday morning I found the fresh snow on Canford Heath easy to ride, riding the snow in Hurn forest I kept thinking I had a flat tyre as my back wheel was all over the place. Not sure why, maybe because it was dark and I was missing the ideal line, maybe because the surface (below the snow) was rutted and back wheel was falling into the ruts.

By the time I left Parley Common the moisture was starting to freeze on the road, so rather then head back towards Throop Mill and back along the river I headed for home via the road, shorter than my normal Throop and Hurn loop but still enough for a 20 mile ride. Hopefully I will go for a short ride tomorrow and again Thursday. My next ride after that will be Boxing days, going to try and do as much riding as I can to hopefully help counter the festive over indulgent’s, that is my plan.

Statistics from Saturday and Sunday morning rides. I thought I would take the camera out with me on my Saturday morning ride after the overnight snow fall (couple of inches). Pity I never thought to check the batteries before I left home, managed to take one picture before the batteries died. I remembered to changes the batteries in the camera before this mornings ride, I managed three pictures before the camera died again, must stop buying cheap batteries, £1 for 10 no wonder they were a bargain……….NOT

Both dog attacks were this morning, I decided to ride my short loop around the Throop and Merritown this morning. The first dog attacked me on the way out along the river, fortunately the dog was muzzled but it did not stop the dog from trying to bite my calf and ankle. Then I got attacked by another dog on my return along the river in virtually the same place. Unfortunately this dog was not muzzled and he kept trying to bite my ankle, I treated him to a swift kick in the jaw for his persistence. In both case the dogs were not on leads and their owners were about 50mtrs away and made no attempt to stop their dogs other than calling them (which both dogs ignored).

The ride themselves were good, yesterday morning ride was across the local heath in the freshly fallen snow, on many parts of the ride my tyre tracks were the first imprints in the snow. My first OBE (Off Bike Experience) occurred on a short (40ft) steep descent. My glass had become steamed up and as I approached the lip I did no notice that somebody had been sleighing down the line which I normally take so as I went over the lip I had to quickly adjust my line and go down the centre of the track which had some deep ravines in. I consequently lost the front wheel dropped the bike, stepped over the handle bars and then ran down the rest of the descent only to bump into the two sleigher who were watching from the bottom who I had not seen through my foggy glasses. I walked back up the descent remounted my bike and rode down.

I was not cold during the ride, the sun was out and there was a lovely blue sky, I only had a base layer and cycling jersey on and I was more than warm enough. I quite enjoyed my first real ride in snow, ended up with the front gear change freezing up and covered in snow and slush.

This morning ride was the opposite of yesterdays, dull grey overcast sky’s, cold and very icy. My OBE on this morning ride happened on the road towards Throop mill which was covered in compressed snow which had in turn frozen and turned into sheet ice. Being a country lane it is not what you would call smooth, I must of caught the edge of a rise or dip as my front wheel just washed out and I went sliding down the road on my butt. Fortunately there was no traffic around so I just picked myself up and remounted and continued very carefully down the road. I must admit on the way back I walked that section of the road as it was bumpier than the other side as I did not want to go butt sliding again.

Hopefully going to try and get a ride in late tomorrow afternoon but it will depend on how frozen it roads are around here.

Below are three picture from yesterday and today

Saturday morning, the track near Eastland farm

Looking a long the river path toward Throop (yes it is black and white)

The river path is part of the Stour Valley Way and here at Berry Hill move's in land a bit

You don’t lose weight by eating a whole packet of chocolate peanuts (m&m type thing) and a whole bar of Fruit & Nut, had a bit of a sweet tooth moment last night, bet that shows on the scales tomorrow night.

Did not ride on Saturday due to (xmas) shopping commitments and the weather (issing down), so was keen to get out this morning. Decided to take the hard tail over the local heath and check out the trails that I tried on the club ride a couple of Saturdays ago. Found all the trails again and had quite an enjoyable time, after riding around the heath I made a little excursion along Bourne Valley, nothing special unless riding along a 100mtr section of path edged with overgrown gorse bushes is your thing.

There was a lot of slushy ice on the ride although I did find several section of proper ice which made for some interesting moments. I was glad to find when I got home that the hose pipe had thawed out and I could wash the bikes. Both bikes were sporting a couple of rides worth of grime because I had not been able to wash the bikes. They were both nice & shiny and oiled when they were put back in the shed.

I have a problem, Monday to Friday the alarm goes of, I can turn it off and easily go back to sleep. Saturday and Sundays the alarm goes off and I am wide awake, I can’t get back to sleep, this morning I got up at 6:30am, only because I could not get back to sleep, Why? Unfortunately turning the alarm off is not an option at the moment and I can only program two alarm times when I really need at least 4 and I can’t be arsed to faff about every night reprogramming the alarm for the following morning, think it may be time to invest in a new alarm clock.

Talking of alarm clocks, I left the house for my ride this morning at 8:30, normally our son is up and I instruct him to wake mum up around 9:15. Well this morning he gets up at 9:30 and forgets to wake mum up until………….10:45!! apparently he did not know what the time was, despite the clock on the wall in the lounge and the one on his laptop (which he was playing on), and the one on the TV he was watching. Kid are great, they can watch TV and play on a laptop at the same time, although obviously not taking notice of either.

I shall report later in the week the misery which will be tomorrow nights weigh in…………