Well what a year its been so far. More snow than I can remember, more cold than ever and of course the seemingly endless rain. You would think its been a write off of a year so far as far as mountain biking goes but as it happens thats way of the mark.
Amazing as it may seem I have managed to cover more miles on my bike so far this year than ever before. Granted many of those 850 odd miles are accounted for by the daily ride to the station and back and a whole chunk more by the full work commute which involves a 20 mile plus round trip but I have also had plenty of 'proper' rides too.
Despite having suffered a servere lack of form at least I have still managed to get the miles in. This includes a Gorrick race, a Brass Monkey and of course the Wales trip. And its not only me as amazingly the Wednesday night rides have been holding up very well too with an average of 10 or so 'Cocks' making it out pretty much every week.
Again, it has to be said that on many occasions the rides are much shorter than usual and the quantities of beer consumed much larger but hey, our local pubs need us right now in these tough times so I see it as doing the whole community a favour by topping up the takings at the Plough, Kings Head, Abinger Hatch, Stephan Langton and Volunteer.
Peaslake stores, the tower and Newlands corner have also been benefitting from us so far this year. This weekend alone saw 4 of us make our way over to Newlands in the snow and freezing wind. Never have I seen so much mud and there are more puddles than ever. Getting a puncture was no fun thats for sure but the bacon butty and tea soon warmed my fingers up again.
The hunt for dry trails is getting harder and harder and testing the abilities of our most knowledgeable trail finders. The constant grinding of expensive parts is almost enough to make you cry and has certainly, in our group, seen a resurgance in fully rigid singlespeeds of varying wheel sizes.
Its certainly testing times for us mtbers but surely warmer dryer times are just around the corner. With the clocks changing next weekend over the Easter break and a weather forecast I saw on metcheck today promising temperaturs of as high as 14 degrees, surely we'll soon all be reaping the long overdue rewards of sticking at it through this past 12 months.
Dreams of dusty trails, long, light evening rides and Bivy nights must surely soon become a reality, roll on summer 2013, you can't come soon enough but in the meantime we'll all just have to 'suck it up' and enjoy the conditions as best we can and get out riding on whatever bike we have available. I'm looking forward to sitting in the sun chatting with other 'Cocks' as we discuss how awful 2012/13 was as we top up our tans.
