Saturday 19 January 2013

Ice Road Trucker*


*I know it's a predictable header, but I couldn't help myself.

I spent a long time thinking about going out for a cycle today. As I sat with a coffee looking out the window the snow was falling and a cold easterly wind was whipping flurries across the roof tops. Cranking up the heating and staying in watching nonsense on television seemed an appealing option. It took until mid-afternoon before I got my act together and wobbled out on the 'trucker and headed to the hills.


The skies were heavy with snow so the pictures are a bit dark. It was also a bit nippy as I climbed up past Bowerhouse.


I may look like a reject from the cycle battalion of the Mujahideen, but I was warm.

These ladies were scratching around without much luck. They were also quite silent. None of the usual clucking and muttering that happy hens make. 


Onward and upward. Pitcox was a lovely winter scene. The trees provided some much appreciated shelter from the wind. All around was silence, just the vvrruuup-whish of my tyres cutting through the snow. You might just be able to make out some other tyre tracks. There is a set that looks suspiciously like a 'fat bike'. They had a square tread so they might be 'Nates'. Not many of them around.



I went back on to roads that had been ploughed and started back towards home.





As I set off back downhill the snow started again. Anything over twenty mph was like needles hitting exposed skin.




I was fast running out of daylight and my feet were getting cold, so time to get the head down and get back indoors. The temperature hovered around freezing while the sun was up. Food is short and I saw quite a lot of wildlife, grey squirrels, swans, snow buntings and long tail tits. Only an hour and a half (11miles), but a great cycle. If only I had gone out earlier.

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