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 [censored] 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)
[image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/417481736_4671b2384b_m.jpg]
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
--
anam
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