Wednesday 4 February 2009

Snow Adventures

It’s been snowing!!!!

On Monday Rob and Pip ventured over to Cardiff to join me for an adventure on the roads of south Wales. We left Cardiff in bright sunshine, if a bit chilly. After about an hour it began to flutter with snow, but being hardcore Enduro riders we pushed on!

The further north we rode the worse the snow became until eventually we were riding in a complete blizzard. The snow began to settle on the main roads and by the time we reached our turning to cross the moors the road was covered in an inch of snow. So we turned around and headed back the way we had come as fast as possible before we froze!


Unfortunately this re route meant that we missed the most scenic part of the route plus the main climb of the day. On the positive side we did fit in 4hours and a tour of the ‘cultural’ spots of the south Wales valleys, complete with chavs.

Tuesday morning brought more snow. I was sat in uni watching the blizzard out the window contemplating another session on the rollers. Thankfully the snow stopped and the sun began to shine. BONUS…. 2h30 on the road!

Today was my epic ride of the week. The snow thawed out over night so I decided to ride over to Cwm carn on my mountain bike. Although there was no snow in Cardiff I could see snow on the hills which I presumed would only be a slight scattering. How wrong was I! There was at least 4 inches on the hills behind Caerphilly which made climbing difficult. I had to resort to pushing in some places.

Surely Cwm carn would not be as bad I though? Wrong again! There was 6inches here! It took almost 2hours to complete a single lap. The granny ring was abused today (along with my feet).
On the higher slopes of the hill the snow was drifting to a foot in depth. The trails were hard to pick out and required great care… but were amazing to ride!
It was picture post card scenery in places.


I decided to ride back on the road rather than risk Machen Mountain on the way home. It was still a 5h40 ride though!

More snow is forecast tonight. Hopefully it will clear before the weekend though as I need to get in a few more long rides to complete my 20h+ week.

1 comment:

Blanche said...

I'm glad to see you are getting your times down for a loop of Cwmcarn. ;)