Erewash Trail

Half way stop to eat our cereal bars

On Sunday the 1st of January me and my family decided to go on ride around one of the nearby cycle trails, the Erewash Trail. This was also a good ride to test out my new mountain bike. The full trail was thirty miles, but as we had my younger brother with us we decided to about fifteen mile, taking one of the designated shortcuts located along the trail. The first couple of miles were on the road, and then we switched to the dirt paths. Most of the red was alongside the canal, which meant it would be fairly flat. The ground was quite wet, although the canal towpath ad been recently improved by concreting it and the poking lots of tiny pebbles into it, which made it a mud part the trail. Although, unfortunately, there was one area on the trail which went under the M1, and had huge muddy squelchy hill on the other side, and my chunky tyres lost all grip, meaning I had to walk to through the mud to the top of the hill. To get back home we had to leave the trail and ride alongside Toton sidings. By this time it had started to rain, but to get to where we wanted to be we needed to face a colossal, muddy covered in slippery muddy clay hill. Once again, my tyres started spinning meaning another walk up a muddy hill. I stood at the top, hoping that my Mum, who was following in her cyclocross bike, would topple into the wet mud. But alas, she did not. The rest of the ride was down hill and wet, much like the weather, with a coffee stop at my Grandmas house. It was a great ride, despite the weather, and my bike performed beautifully.