I did not expect so much ice this morning.

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Dave
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I did not expect so much ice this morning.

Post by Dave »

This morning before I kitted up I popped outside to get a feeling of the temperature…not toasty but not that cold.
So I decided to take the bike.
When I switched on the bike the gauge said the air temp was 7 deg C
50 meters into my run down the driveway I noticed the gravel track did not look soft and wet, but solid and icy, so I tried to stop using a heavy right foot on the peg to sus out the grip...while the ABS was doing its thing I guided the bike towards the verge as I could see grass and knew that was ice free.

Nice !
Now do I try and do a 180 degree turn on the nice smooth wet solid ice and ride uphill back to the bike shed, or ride the few hundred metres downhill to the tar road knowing that at least there will be some grip on the sloping muddy verge and the wee stream which had cut a groove thru the ice hopefully to the gravel.

So I switched off the traction control and headed down the Luge run.

It was not as bad as I feared, but still not what I expected.
I have not don’t that much mud/ice/offroading fafing about with the Tracer, which is fitter with road tyres.

After a few miles on the road to the big city the air temp was reading 10 deg C, but there were still a few miles with snow/ice on the verges, slowly melting and flowing across the road.
This was ok most of the time, but there were a few places where the water was not flowing but standing still in …which looked like the potential for a micro climate sheet ice location thing, which prompted me to reduce speed quickly and get the bike upright just in case there was a bit of sheet ice under the water.

I did not really think there would have been ice on the road, but I did not expect my driveway to represent a Luge run either.
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al
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Re: I did not expect so much ice this morning.

Post by al »

We are still in winter so I would never take it for granted that even though the temp reading is above zero that there aren't still patches of ice around.

Even just walking my dogs in the field at the back of my street there can be significant difference in temperature between the area imediately outside my house and the corner of the field where it can be baltic with persistant ice.
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