Wet wet wet

phonebox
Originally uploaded by olly rob.

We (Joe, owain and myself) are tearing round (nant y arian, continental loop) at a nippy pace, in order to keep body temperature up, and dreading a stop, chanting 'no punctures, no punctures, no punctures,' when at the furthest point in the conti moorland joes mech hanger explodes into a ball of flames, shrapnel killing several sheep and a nearby llama having walked to bont goch, we decide to phone in support form a housemate, Owain sets up camp in a phonebox to guard bikes, and me n joe head for home, to get a 3 bike bikerack, joe has gone to retrive bikes and owain nowneedless to say, i throughly enjoyed myself up to this point, and we dominated the nice clean coffee shop. so wet when we left there were 6 puddles where our shoes drained through the cleat bolt mount holes.
ive been colder but never seen nant that wet, more time riding in streams in the tracks, than in the dry. so much water it was harder to ride in bits. like a bloody gorge walk, but on bikes, obviously.

Hellish you may think, but no! having not ridden 'Alice' properly since last summer due to a monged up foot, it was the first proper outing for the new suspension and xtr mech. She floats of the rubble, and shifts gears like butter, due to the forks being 20mm longer, the geometry has been changed just enough. Its a Joy, and dealing with shitty issues like this, is one of the many reasons we ride, Single track in torrential rain is awsome by the way ;-) There is no where else i would rather have been.