Bimbling on ice - 'Bimbles' ride 12 Dec 2010

Today's Sunday ride for me was another 'bimbles' ride i.e. a ride designed with the sole purpose of riding in heart rate zone 1-3 regions. The day didn't look promising from the start as looking out of my window in the morning revealed white roads and my car was all iced up with big globules of ice as if it had rained during the night and the rain had instantly frozen upon contact with the cold steel of my car, so meeting up at Stretton at 10 am myself and Steve set out gingerly hoping for the best. Setting off the roads were mostly OK but still a bit hairy in places, Steve on occasion felt his front tyre slip and that was on the busier roads, next came the side roads and then it got really dodgy.

Up till now my tyres had gripped admirably with no slips or slides but that all changed as we rode down a slight hill caked in frozen mud and at the bottom of the hill was a tight right hand bend and there I experienced a huge slide as trying to slowly navigate the bend my bike just disappeared under me and I was sliding on my backside on the ice, at the same time out of the corner of my eye I could see Steve also sliding along the road also on his backside - we were just like a horizontal Torvill and Dean and almost synchronised to boot.


Steve picking himself up after the spill - just look at that mirror in the road. (click on photo to enlarge)

Both of us got up ok, me holding my right buttock and Steve shuffling like something out of a zombie movie. Steve had a sore hip and elbow and I had the already mentioned sore bum cheek so after this horizontal dancing on ice we decided to cut the ride short to be on the safe side so did an about turn and headed for home.

Ride Stats (not worth mentioning but here they are anyway)
11.9 miles (42 miles planned), 49 min, Av speed 14.4 mph, Av/Max Hr 128/152 (Act Max 191)

Ridewithgps details

Home now and my right buttock is still very sore so I limp over to the Mrs and tried to get her to give me a deep buttock massage but she refused point blank, dejected I disappeared into the garage onto my turbo where I managed a further 1 hr 15 min to round out today's efforts to just over 2 hours.

Todays Stats - road ride + turbo
32 miles, 2hrs 4 min, Av Speed 15.2, Av/Max Hr 136/156 (Act Max 191)

Weeks Stats
5 hrs 5 min, 77 miles. 2 hours and 23 miles short of target for the week - blame the snow & ice...