Tuesday 21 December 2010

Mud, mud, glorious mud!

Well, as predicted, the rising temperatures have seen off the snow and consequently the tracks, trails and paths are now awash with mud and slush. Oh joy. But I reckoned that by being careful about our mountain bike route choice this afternoon we could probably avoid the worst if it. The no. 15 VTT circuit took us on hardpack tracks initially which was great. But then we arrived at the Lac de Montbel which looks quite bizarre in its drained winter state!Our route took us on the fun woodland path that skirts the lake, but my goodness it was slippy & slidey in parts - I guess that's why it was such fun! The bikes did however get very cacked up with clayey mud and dead leaves which made gear-changing interesting. Then back on a narrow tarmac road before a cracking little narrow technical descent down onto the voie verte which should have been easy going. But the wet gravel and slush made for unnecessarily hard work and we were both pretty tired when we made it back to the car after 21.6kms. The bikes were in a bit of a state
We don't have a hosepipe or jet-washer here, so we had to resort to numerous bucket-loads of water and brushes to clean them down when we got back. But it had been good to get back on the bikes again and I am sure it won't be long before they are once more coated in mud :-)

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