Roots and mushrooms

Moving me and my family to England to live presented many problems, not least was the prospect of being without my beloved mountain bike for up to 3 months, while it made its way, along with the rest of our belongings in a shipping container to the UK.  Thankfully, the airline we flew with allowed us a few extra kilos because we were “emigrating”, so this meant I could pack and bring my bike.

Having recently read a “How to” article in Australian Mountain Bike magazine about packing a bike for flying, I was armed and dangerous with a little knowledge.  The article said it would take about an hour to pack, so about 3 hours later my bike was sufficiently packed and padded inside a cardboard box, ready for its maiden flight.

After landing at Heathrow and clearing immigration, it was a nervous wait for my bike box.  I had visions of it coming out looking like it had gone 7 rounds with Mike Tyson.  It was the first piece of our luggage that came through, and from a distance looked like it survived the trip without a problem.  Closer examination of the box revealed that a crank arm had punched its way through the cardboard, but thankfully this did not pose any future problems.

Having arrived with the usual jetlag and suffering from being cramped in a tin can for 20 hours, it was great to unpack my bike, put it all back together and go for a quick blast on the afternoon we arrived.

The first thing I noticed on my maiden English ride was the amount of spiky things that just love to rub against you on the trails.  Stinging nettles and blackberries are common everywhere.  Rubbing against a stinging nettle is like rubbing against a hot iron.  And blackberries leave you looking like you’ve just tried to pick up a feral cat.  My legs and forearms were left bleeding, and my shins stung from the nettles, but it was great to spin the legs and fill the lungs with some fresh country air.

Since I arrived, I’ve managed to get out fairly often, and I have discovered a nice network of trails close to home.  It is a nice feeling to leave the house and be on-track within 5 minutes, instead of having to drive an hour before being able to ride.

Funky mushrooms

Which brings me to the title of this post.  Roots and mushies (mushrooms).  They’re everywhere around here.  I’m not sure which trees the roots belong to, but judging from the size of them, they’re from the maturer trees that line the trails here.  They stand between 5 and 10cm above the ground, and they generally face side-on to the direction of the track.  This is perfectly fine in dry weather, but even heavy dew makes these roots as slippery as the slipperiest thing on earth.  If the side lugs of your tyres slip even a millimetre on them, everything suddenly falls away from underneath you, and you’re on your ass.  As for the mushrooms, well, they are just plain funky (see picture).

So even though the trails around my house are not exactly extreme, or even that techincal, the threat of falling on your ass because of slippery roots, as well as the constant bombardment of stinging nettles and blackberries, means I still have to be vigilant on every ride.  The big plus with all the blackberries around is that even if I do have to change a tube mid-ride, I can get a decent feed of juicy sweet fruit, right where I stop.  And apparently stinging nettle soup is nice, but I’m not that keen to pick them, for obvious reasons.