Festive 500 - Day 2

Day 2 – The Ice of Death

The following takes place between 7.30am and 11am. All events occur in real time (yeah, I have been watching too much 24/Jack Bauer during my trainer sessions).

Badass rider dressed in winter-bibs and merino shirt enters the kitchen. He looks confident.
Mother-in-law: “You cannot go out riding today; they have issued warnings on the radio all morning about the icy conditions on the roads.”
Badass rider: ”But I have to! The Festive 500 is up, and my reputation as a badass flandrian rider is on the line.”
Mother-in-law: “But you could get hurt!”
Badass rider: “I’d rather get hurt, than being a wuss who lets the weather get in the way of riding”

Pre-ride setup - early x-mas eve morning

Oh, maybe that’s not quite the way the conversation went. However I decided to check the roads out, and promised to return if the conditions were too bad. Not that that ever would happen, but at least I made a promise.

Icy roads - not slush!

I did not fall today

Another winter creek - or more like a icy trench

Lake Storsjön - frozen.

Some Swedish houses - red of course

Frozen shoreline of Lake Storsjön

Rapha logo and the beard of a badass rider - fits perfectly

The conditions turned out to be challenging. The temperature had stayed above the freezing point all night, and then going below in the early morning hours – hence turning every molecule of water into ice.

The sun!

The sun and a bike!

A thin layer of ice!

So today was not about slush, it was about ice. Apart from some 8K in the beginning of the ride and some 10K in the end (with frozen slush, really hard to ride on) it was actually most clear tarmac. Clear tarmac with a thin layer of ice on top of it. The Ice of Death!

But I survived, thus being able to add another 58K and 2h19min to the challenge.

These guys had to work today