Hi!
I promised a ridereport in another thread, so here it is. 🙂
I have my pictures posted in my gallery!
http://tinyurl.com/9s7at
Last night, i stayed up until 3 am, fixing the pedals for my muni,
because they had been lying there in molecules the past week, and i
couldn't use my trial-pedals, the pins are cut down on those, and they
get quite slippery in the snow...
Was so pose to get up at 9 or 10 this morning, that didn't happened,
waked up at 12:14..
There is not much sunlight this time of year, it sets about 2am i
think, so i had quote a rush getting going, ate my breakfast and warmed
1.5 litre of strawberry/dragon fruit-lemonade, wrapped it in a towel
and put it into my platypus hydration bag, tight fit but i managed to
get it in there at last.
First layer was polyester underwear, second was fleece, on top of this
i had wool socks, and another pair of thick socks on that, because i
have no good shoes for this, yet, i ride in my skateshoes with lots of
socks in.. a shell-pant and a lightly insulated jacket, a hat and a
scarf, a pair of gloves, and i'm ready to go!
Called my dog Kanel, took my muni and went outside.. My thermometer
shoved -14°C (7°F), the forecast had said -17, so i guess it was better
than expected.
I head of towards the woods, only ~1km away.
Riding snow-mobile tracks is awesome, it's quite smooth but still a
challenge when it's a bit softer, with small bumps on it! As i had seen
the day before, the tracks were “lagom” (Swedish word for “not to
little, not to much”) hard.. snow has the ability to get very slippery
when really hard packed, and it's really hard to ride on when it's
semi-rigid, this was perfect.
First i rode a small gravel-track, to get to the chosen track, when i
was about to turn onto the track, i saw a pedestrian coming towards me,
i was off my muni calling for Kanel, she was a good 10 metres away, not
the run-away kind of dog, but still quite curious... The pedestrian
looked funny on my muni lying on the ground, but didn't say anything, i
was busy taking a photo so i didn't interact.
Then taking my muni down the track, a good 2 km before betting to a
crossing road, crossing it and passed the local skiing-”stadium”, with
light up tracks for the skiers joy, these were not lit at the moment,
daytime! Passed one more road and taking the track out towards the sea,
still very nice tracks, took some photos on the way there, a really
spectacular view with the sunset over the horizon over the sea, when
it's this cold! Had plans to take a track out on a cape, but the tracks
weren't hard enough to actually ride it, sun had been on it the past
few hours so it were slippery too, change of plans. instead of heading
right i took a left turn which gave me lots of hard-packed tracks to
ride, first on a road near the verge of water (ice!), i heard a couple
of snow-mobiles coming up from behind, i dismounted and got Kanel under
control, they passed. Heading down the shore into the woods, passing
one small road and one a bit bigger, passing my old elementary-school
by 100 metres. I started feeling really tired and took a right onto a
crossing trail, to get to a place to rest.
I drank quite a lot of my lemonade (still warm!), i tried to ride into
the woods by a trail where no snowmobile had go, really really hard, i
was a bit to tired and not that happy with upding every few metres..
headed down the path i had come, taking a right again, and i was back
on to the trail i had left to rest, continuing in the same derection as
before..
I got a creek (that flows 20 metres from my house by the way, but
that's 2/3 km upstream), the tracks were crossing it, and it looked
safe, so i passed it to, no problems there, except the shore on the
other side was too steep to ride up.
Riding a bit more, coming out to the habited areas again, but only for
a 100 metres or so, i took a right onto a trail witch lead by the shore
round a bay, a bit more habited area, and then i headed right into the
woods again, took a picture showing the route of “Hörnefors Runt”,
witch i pretty much followed this day.
Now i was on my regular muni-track, i thought, but the tracks didn't
take the same way as i usually do when there is no snow, but it's still
good! I rode about a km before I had the same three snowmobiles passing
me again, no problems this time either. Headed to “Gråbolandet”, a
little cabin on top of a cape, with a nice downhill-session on the way
down, you get up with a bit easier track, met a friend who rode a snow
racer behind a ATV then on top, they suggested i was going down the
slope, i asked if it were lots of ice, they said some.. But it was all
right! A little blank spot witch i rode over like noting.. at the
bottom i did a rolling 180 raised my hands to the sky, they waved and
continued their tour, not down this slope, i did another 180 and
continued riding..
Came down to the shore, and met a very nice site, the bay half covered
with ice, the sun setting out at sea, and water-vapour coming up from
the open water, a magic sight!
The ride back to the community were really nice! Not much happened, but
it was fun tracks. 🙂
When i came out in habited areas again, felt a rush of joy to have
completed this tour, i started to ride back home, 1 km, from the other
direction witch i first started form home, a nice circle completed!
Conclusion: It is very underestimated to ride on cold weather, my toes
hurt a bit when i got in, but that's because i rode in skate-shoes with
double socks in, a better pair of shoes would have don it. I didn't
freeze apart from that! Riding trough the woods thinking it had getting
warmer, to about -2 degrees, just because i felt so warm and happy, had
a shock when the thermometer showed it was -18°C when i got home, the
opposite of what i had expected!
I have to do this again!
--
lleberg
I <3 my unicycle!
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