End of Month Ride – Brechfa in the snow

We had a good Ystwyth-MTB end of month ride today, even if I was the only person from Ystwyth MTB club.

We had planned to meet at the Bryngwm car park for 10am, so I set off from Aberystwyth at around 8:45 with Dave and John just behind me. The journey there was just as exciting as the ride itself. By the time I got to Llanrhystud there was quite a bit of snow on the ground, but I just made it up and over the hill. A car in front of slid off the road and into the bank a couple of times and gave up and as I pressed on I spotted a few other abandoned cars as well.

Dave and John couldn’t make it up over the hills because of the snow so gave up and headed back to Nant yr Arian for a ride there. I eventually made it and only about 6 minutes late too. Jay, Brad, Matt and Beale were there (from Bristol) getting ready and Kelvin, Jim and another guy from South Wales were there as promised as well.

We pfaffed for a bit and waited in case Dave and John turned up but in the end went off without them for a spin around the Raven Trail. I’d forgotten my phone so couldn’t contact Dave and John to make sure they were OK.

Despite the snow the trail was riding well. They’ve done some work on it and it is holding up well. It was a little sketchy in places but there was plenty of grip and the trail was easy to see most of the time. The climbs were just as hard as ever but it was a good ride. It snowed pretty heavily whilst we were out now and then as well, but it didn’t get too deep.

All in all a good day out and the journey back wasn’t too bad as I took a detour so that I could stay on ‘A’ roads. It’s a shame Dave and John didn’t make it but they had a nice ride at Nant yr Arian anyway and Brechfa will be there another day.

My photos aren’t great, as I’m not really used to my little compact camera and it keeps defaulting to program mode, but here they are anyway as the riders out there today will want to see them.

Snowy Road

I like the snow, and I even, to a certain extent, like the disruption it causes here in the UK. It may be a little convenient for a while, but things soon get back to normal and it’s good to know that the Forces-of-Nature can best us now and then.

Lots of people complain about the disruption and the fact that local councils aren’t prepared. They always go on about the fact that it isn’t like this in Finland or Slovenia or Canada and that they cope with much heavier snowfalls without any problems. But there’s a good reason for that. Yes, plenty of other countries get much more snow than us and cope without any issues, but they are used to it, they expect it and therefore they spend time and money preparing for it.

The snow we’ve had this year in the UK is unusual. It isn’t unprecedented and we do get heavy snowfalls every now and then, but being ready for unusual conditions would be a complete waste of money most years. Buying and storing grit costs money, buying, maintaining and storing machinery such as gritters and snow ploughs costs lots of money too and I’m sure such things need replacing fairly regularly. The money to pay for such things comes from the taxes we pay and I for one wouldn’t want to think that my taxes were being spent on machinery that only gets used in earnest for a few days once every ten years or so.

In my opinion it would be much better to spend that money on something that is used all the time such as schools and hospitals and occasionally put up with a little disruption due to the snow. Even the snow we’ve just had didn’t last that long and within a week or so it will all be forgotten and things will be back to normal.

Stop moaning and trying to find someone to blame. It’s not anyone’s fault, its just the weather. It looks nice out there, so enjoy the scenery while you can and endure the inconvenience it causes.

It was a silly idea in the first place, but we hadn’t been out on our mountain bikes for a while so Dan, Dave, Martyn and myself met up at Nant yr Arian last night for a ride in the snow.

To be honest it wasn’t that much of a ride as we only covered 5.4 miles in close to 2 hours, but it was good fun and lovely up there with the snow all around and not a soul in sight. The scenery from our headlights was really nice and the riding was fun if not exhilarating. We all fell off quite a lot but the landings into deep drifts of snow were at least soft.

I forgot to take my camera, but Dan took a couple of shots whilst there, such as this one:

which you can see on his flickr photostream.

We’ve just got back from a nice little walk up at Nant yr Arian. There’s loads of snowy scenes up there and some cool ice crystals on top of the snow.

Winter Textures

We had Morgan with us so I didn’t really have time to sit there and play with my camera but there were plenty of photographic opportunities. It’s surprising how a covering of snow can really open your eyes to the world around you.

Morgans school was closed again due to the snowy weather so I decided it wasn’t fair to make him stay at home whilst I worked. If school is closed due to snow then it should be a law that the children have to go sledging.

Unfortunately my car is broken and Anna had her car at work. However as the weather was bad and Anna didn’t want to get stranded at work she decided to work from home in the afternoon which meant Morgan and I could head off to find a suitable hill. We didn’t go far, just into Bow Street where we played for most of the afternoon.

I was on my snowboard and Morgan on a sledge, although he did use the snowboard as a sledge in the end as well. If only every winter was like this. Great fun all round.