Took the CX bike out on a mountain bike trail the other day. Probably ill-advised, to be honest, given the recent rains which have wrecked a lot of the trails here and covered them in debris (huge rocks, branches, fallen trees, etc).
As it turns out I got quite lost and took the wrong way down. Said descent turned out to be something like 20-30% average grade with 40-50% sections, greasy wet broken tarmac covered in loose gravel, rocks, branches and other fun. Coming down it on 32mm tyres and drop bars was... interesting. I had to walk a few sections because my brake pads were glazing over.
When discussing it with Peter (who races MTB and CX at a high level) today, he simply said "Oh god, you came down THAT way?" and looked at me all wide-eyed. So yeah...
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| What a view! |
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| Part of the descent... |
Certainly fun to see what you can get away with on a rigid CX bike with (relatively) narrow tyres. Apparently, not much more than this, though!
In other news, this ride was pretty much enough to put me over the top and complete my latest Strava challenge, the Vuelta Skelta:
Not a bad effort, and might get another ride in tomorrow to boost my elevation a bit more before it finishes.
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