Snow overnight and sleet Saturday morning prevented any bike travel on that day, and I got dragged around the hell that is Cardiff.
Anyway, Sunday was much more pleasant so we togged up and headed off.
Nice run through the lanes up to Llanvihangel Crucorney, then off up towards Llanthony and Hay beyond. There was some snow and ice around, but not much, though it was increasing as we passed Cwmyoy. Past the Priory turn off and the roads got a little worse with an increase of snow and ice in the middle. This section hadn't seen any sunlight yet and after negotiating a couple of humpback bridges and narrower roads the road was getting worse still. I decided that enough was enough and we should turn around, as we came to a stop the roads proved to be icier than I had thought and as the bike slid to a standstill I had to plant my boot into the verge to keep us upright. The worn down sections where cars had travelled were just like glass, and the centre snowy section was hard ice.
We turned around and headed back to the Priory for teacakes and a sneaky half in the cellar bar.
The Priory was quiet, only us and a couple of locals in the bar, and some walkers around the Priory. I took this which I think looks quite Escher like?
After a pipe smoke and wander we headed off.
On the way back there is a road which climbs up to some (closed) woods and someone's house, I've been up there before out of curiousity, and this time it was covered in almost virgin. Too much fun to resist. I had no idea if we'd actually make it up, bare in mind I'm on 95% road biased tyres and have a pillion.
Well we did, chugged up just fine in second but whilst standing up it was noticeable the difference a pillion made when the back end started fishtailing a little. We stopped at the top where there is a fork and I said to Michelle that we'd turn around and head back down.
Cue moving off, starting to turn and finding that we'd caught the sloped edge of the verge at which point the tyres said 'Enough!' and over we slid.
Whoops.
This is Michelle giving me the look that she repeated as "you're an idiot"
I hit the kill switch as we went over so then it was just a case of picking the bike up and checking over then firing back up. Of course I shouldn't have expected any help...
Then to get moving. The tyre was just spinning up so I walked it up and around.
before remounting and heading back down. Michelle had decided to walk back down. : blackeye
Then we headed back home where I gave the bike a full strip clean and waxoyl. Anyway, it was bound to happen at some point, and I'm just glad it happened on soft snow.
