The Big Chill

Twelve hours after returning from sunny Ibiza we go for a ride in sunny Dorking, except that it was one degree centigrade here and 20 there.

The mighty dinsdale and paul turn up and the four of us set off up the road on black ice, the main roads are ok but the side roads had yet to be gritted.

Off road the trails seem pretty good, the real problems are the small joining roads where water has run off the the hills and frozen. Paul has a minor off on one of these roads - one nano second he's on the bike the next he's not. We press on up Holmbury to the fort, where for some stupid reason we stop and chat and freeze, and then freeze completely on the descent. The climb up to Leith via High Ashes begins to warm us again. Here we meet Steve a guy I know and his friend Dom. They are pushing it a bit so me and Jane sit with them to test our legs, unfortunately Steve unships his chain and drops off the pace. Our legs are not too bad, Ibiza has helped condición nuestras forma. jeje! We continued up to the tower, which was packed with walkers and cyclists. JD wasn't far behind, which was great considering her rear brake was rubbing and the wheel wouldn't spin freely.

We descended the steep east approach to the tower. I followed the mighty Dinsdale down, it was quite icy in patches. At one drop off onto ice she locked up her back wheel and for a split second spun a full 180' around to face me before spinning back to carry on! Maybe it was intentional :)

Jane was having a good day she seemed to be able to ride everything, she wasn't fazed by the ice at all. She put it down to riding the greasy rocks in Ibiza.

A good Sundayriders ride :)