Thursday morning was a very fuzzy one first thing, both in my head and apparently, outside too as I peered out of the window wondering where the rest of the village had gone. It was there when I'd gone to bed the previous night, but now all was a thick grey out. Figuring this strange occurrence out was obviously a job for a particularly strong coffee.
Sure enough, the coffee not only cleared my head, but the village re-appeared as well, which was a bit disappointing truth be told, as I'd decided to head out and get some photos in the fog that had blanketed (weather based cliche number three) all around just half an hour previously.
But, having decided to risk going for a ride, (and also taken some precautionary steps to combat my IBS with some industrial strength Immodium just in case) I thought I'd best carry on and gamely set out, once again on the Voodoo, with a vague plan to go round in a loop that would ultimately see me briefly flirting with the big city (Truro). Well that was the plan anyway.
I love this tree, (the one on the left), it is a rather splendid looking specimen at any time of the year, but getting it into a decent photo is very frustrating thanks to lack of space to fit it all in and so on. It's one of those spots that when seen with the eye looks good for a snap, but in camera looks drab and very mundane.
Another bugbear of mine clearly evident in this photo is dull but bright skies. Best to blow them out exposure wise then and concentrate on what lies below. In this case, a crappy bike and a recently surgeried tree.
The fog might have lifted, but all was still rather eerily quiet out as I left the village and crossed a deserted A39 and into the lane towards Lanner Mill - a lane I use a lot as it also leads to Idless Woods. Now with the hamlet of Idless being on my intended loop, I would normally head through the woods, lopping a big chunk off the mileage going via the lanes requires, and also giving a socking great hill a nifty swerve too. But we've had a lot of rain recently, and the woods would be a soggy, boggy, quagmire. Fun on Fatso, not so great on the Voodoo, at least not on the lower path anyway. So I headed round the lanes towards Idless instead.
It's best not to go too fast down this hill to Lanner Mill else you'll miss the corner at the bottom and go headlong into the river...
I do like the textures, starkness and general muckiness of the lanes in winter, it's how they really are for half the year after all, not just the soft focus havens of sunny and leafy summer tranquility that a Google Images search of English Country Lanes might produce.
Grrr... another fuzzfest of an upload. Right click and open in a new tab should reveal all.
The ugly little bridge over the River Allen on the edge of Idless Woods.
I'm glad I did too as just past the farm at Lanner Barton I heard the deep 'Bdddddddd' of a Woodpecker, the first I've heard this year. Either that or the farmer was using an Uzi on some 'they wuzz worryin' moi sheep they wozz' rambler/mountain biker cull. I stopped and after listening for a minute or so, identified which tree Woody was pecking and started to fish out the camera, despite any chance of getting a shot of the bird being slim, what with the bright grey sky behind and my limited photographic skills. Just as I was fishing out the camera, I saw the silhouette of a small bird leave the tree and head off over the farm, and the noise wasn't heard again. Woody, obviously a bit camera shy, had left the tree, and photographic embarrassment was avoided.
Arriving in Idless I found signs giving dire warnings of the lane I intended on taking being closed, but I was on a bicycle, there's usually room for a slim one to sneak by, if indeed any work was going on in the first place. So unperturbed, I climbed the long but gentle hill up out of Idless heading for the village of Shortlanesend. Well that was the plan...
Hmmmm... whichever the animal was that did this in an escape attempt shouldn't be hard to spot, it'll be the one looking sheepish...
Pfft! And Pfft again! I laugh in the face of your warnings mister Fred Champion...I am a hardy mountain biker and no such drainage based trivia shall interrupt my chosen course...
Sure enough, after blithely passing another set of signs ('Road closed!' 'Last chance to go back!' 'For a good time, see Ten Quid Tina by the phone box, Tuesdays afternoons'.) I reached the roadworks and ah... yes well, the road was indeed very closed. Not a chance of slipping past, but as luck would have it, the road was closed just beyond a turning to the right, which would take me back down to Idless again, but at least would mean not having to go back the same way I'd come. So trying to look as if I had intended on taking that turning all along (my approach had caught the attention of two hard hatted chaps who looked to be readying themselves for a barely disguised chortle as they told the dimwit cyclist he couldn't get past) I set off back towards Idless once more. Mission denied.
This lane though is a proper beauty. It drops down hill with a wood to the left and fields to the right and I don't think I've ever met a car along it in all the times I've ridden it. A chap could let off a thermonuclear device down this lane and no one would be around to hear anything.
Many of the lanes bore very recent signs of a different sort of digging going on, as the banks and hedges were riddled with freshly dug holes.
I don't know what flavour of hairy arsed critter lives in this hole, but I don't expect it wants this shoved in his front door. I see this a lot in the lanes, old bottles and cans shoved in critter holes, and it pees me right off. Fishing it out was a bit of a faff involving a stick and much cursing, and I don't suppose the animal was overly concerned anyway given how much room is evident in there, but still.
Meanwhile, on the other, wooded, side of the road, some rather strident colour was dotted around in the form of a number of Lesser Periwinkles. A welcome splash of colour not immediately visible from the road, I only found them due to having a good old nose around.
This is where the otherwise excellent Canon G1 X Mk 1 lets itself down. The macro really is proper pants. It's the bigger sensor than is normally found on a compact that is the culprit apparently, but getting close ups of items such as this is an exercise in frustration and muttered profanities. The minimum focusing distance is measured in furlongs I think, rather than the millimetres of the macro setting on other cameras.
Now back in Idless I decided against going towards Truro along the lane I had intended coming back along, so opted instead to return home, this time via the woods, and the middle path, that is used by forestry vehicles and apart from the last half mile or so, is mostly hard packed and mud free. It's a low gear leg burner of a slog though as the path climbs steadily, but at least bike and body would remain fairly mud free.
Just off the better surfaced part of the main track in Idless Woods, and about to drop down a very muddy and rutted, stony, rocky, descent where dignity was nearly lost...
It was dropping back down the other side of the hill, and on the less well surfaced track, that my anti gravity powers nearly suffered a fail and I nearly came a cropper. I can ride carefully, but confidently, down this hill on Fatso quite easily, as it's not just going up hill that fat bikes have good traction. Going down on the brakes also sees them exhibit good levels of control and decorum.
So I rounded the bend at the top of the hill and started the descent without giving it much thought, but soon remembered I was on the Voodoo when things got a little untidy as higher pressured and skinnier tyres met stones sticking up with muddy bits in between. A dab of back brake to bring matters back under control was met with a rear wheel lock up and forward motion unrestrained. Letting the brake off saw me speed up to rather unwise velocities as bike and I had differing opinions on the correct course to take. I knew that on that particular slippery slope the front brake would require very careful application to avoid some unplanned Break Dancing, but the situation was escalating rapidly (condition red - bale out and face planting the scenery imminent) and I had to arrest downward motion somehow. So I gingerly squeezed the front brake, and grabbed a heftier handful of back brake which again resulted in a rear wheel lock up. Swerving round a gert rock that would've spelled certain disaster should I have hit it, I ended up pointing towards the bank on the left of the track and a spectacular gymnastic trip over the bars now beckoned. Quite how I don't know, but somehow I managed to turn the bars to the right just in the nick of time, and with an almighty dab of my left boot onto the bank, heaved the bucking, slithering Voodoo to a back tweaking, bum trumpeting, halt.
I sat there for a moment, breathing heavily and letting my back calm down while pondering how the Immodium had done a good job of preventing the flow of adrenaline that under other circumstances would surely have resulted in trouser traumas of the laundry related kind.
All this of course would've been immensely funny to any of the normal mountain bikers who inhabit these woods on occasions, and who can be encountered spearing through the trees at maximum attack and hurtling gleefully down slopes such as the one I'd just chaotically and near terminally, descended. But I'm old and with a dicky spine, so have to try and maintain control, and dignity, at all times, so this was a bit of an unwelcome episode, and I can only blame Fatso for spoiling me in the past with its easy riding manner leading me into trouble when mounted on the lesser machinery in my stable.
Thankfully all was well back wise again within a few minutes - just a quick tweak, and I continued on my way home, a little frustrated at the morning not having gone as planned, but otherwise a not bad escape from the stress of waiting for a Government department to 'urgently' make a decision. I hope their building never catches fire as they'll never get out alive - their definition of 'urgent' is clearly very different to everyone else's. Meanwhile stress and anxiety levels go through the roof every day as the postman approaches, but there we go, moaning at them makes no difference at all, so neither will moaning on here!
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