Since I purchased the Road Razor of Mikefule I feel duty bound to make a ride report.
Saturday the day dawned with clear skies, I dawned with a head full of mucus, and general ill feeling, so instead of riding I watched the Moto GP, felt sorry for myself & managed a 300m ride to the shop & back (I was testing the cycle computer & buying milk, I had to ride it honest).
Fortunately I felt a heap better on Sunday thanks be to the twin miracles of paracetemol & ephedrine. Unfortunately my usual stomping ground of Sherwood pines was closed due to some loon letting cars into the forest to play in the mud. So my b*ing compadre & I headed off to Clumber park. The early start meant that the entry booths to the park were unmanned and the shop/info point closed so we couldn’t pay for parking or entry.
Having parked where we could easily get at all the gear and not be blocked we unloaded & set off on the gravel paths, roads in order for me to get used to the shock that is the road razor’s tyre (especially after the 24x3.0 on the Muni). Most of the people we passed were pretty unfriendly, special mention must go to the grumpy old sod with the disintrested golden retriver, who managed to get himself,his dog & his car in our way in 3 seperate incidents. (The car one was particulary annoying as instead of moving all of 5m he parked it across the cycle path access grrrrr). We then made our way down the park roads into quite a fierce wind which made my helmet whistle in quite an intresting way. Our aim was the cycle hire centre where we hoped to pick up a map (not knowing the park anywhere near as well as the pines).
Cycle hire wasn’t open, so instead we meandered to the info point and managed to pay for the parking too. (yes I know we could have not paid, but I generally support the work of the NT) Unfortunately Clumber seems to have been hit pretty hard in the storms we had back in Jan and still hasn’t recovered so a lot of the park is out of bounds. That was Ok because all we really wanted to do was ride round the lake.
Having crossed the bridge we came to the steepest part of the ride, where I had my one and only UPD (I’d dismounted a couple of times earlier to deal with cattle grids) I’m guessing I just lost momentum on the way up and just toppled off. Then we had a whole bit of windy road all to ourselves on a wonderful spring morning. The only other soul we saw on this section was an elderly gentleman from a cycling club who shouted “nice riding” as he flew by.
Clumber has a really od take on kissing gates, earlier in the ride I’d tackled the cattle grids rather than fanny about with their peculiar take on the standard kissing gate. This time however there was no choice. I can’t really describe the gates in question except that to me they are counter intuitive and open the wrong way. Once that obstacle had been negotiated (with much hilarity from my companion (a little help would have been nice)) it was time to try out the RR on some light off road.
No real problems there, but a very different experince to the muni, the cows seemed quite unitrested though. after about 250m it was back to the roads and down the hill to the ford. Discretion being the better part of valour (and experience having taught me this is probably the slimiest ford in Notts) I rode over the footbridge rather than through the ford, I’ll have to go back when its warmer, I’m less ill & I have the muni to ride through :). The ford provided for a nice photo op (despite the odd couple in the huge 4x4 sat there staring at the bridge)
From there it was a quick roll back to the car and away home to do the usual Sunday chores.
Statistics (slightly skewed as I hadn’t quite got the computer set correctly)
Distance 14.6km
T I M 1:12:23
Avg spd 11.06 km/h
Max spd 18.4 km/h