At this Sunday I rode to Shunuth for exercise, preparation to competitions and for adaptation to clipless pedals. At morning and day weather was changeable : rain downpours alternated with bright Sun, a couple of times I drenched and then dry on the wind and Sun; after rides at Winter, drenching at temperatures above zero do not disturb anymore. The main thing is that there is warm and no frosts and there is ability to ride freely. Road to Large Lavrovka is still flooded, in many areas there are large puddles and soft ground; these clay areas, that seemed unrideable previous year, are rideable : somewhere there is ability to walk on feet, carrying bicycle on the shoulder and walking on more or less solid road sides, and somewhere to ride on the bicycle itself, moving on springs beds, washed clay off down to stones. After clay areas there is good ground-stone road, on which there is ability to ride even after rain, it leads up to field near Large Lavrovka and goes further North to village Krasnoyar; road to it is much better, than to Polevskoy.
Field is partly flooded, but road in some places is rideable on the bicycle, ground in the forest mainly still wet and soft and there is ability to only walk on it on the feet. On the fields up to turn to uphill to Shunuth somewhere there is ability to ride on the bicycle, somewhere to only walk on the feet, but after turn everything is flooded, crossing the road 2 m wide river flows, everything is flooded around it and from the mountain rivers flow. It seems, that not all snow is melted on Shunuth and these areas will be flooded and unrideable for around 2 – 3 weeks, somewhere at the middle of May there’ll be ability to ride to mountain and see what road is. Now even after rainfalls, if rivers do not flow from Shunuth, I’ll be able to ride to mountain through clay areas.
From this place I rode home, it is good to ride whole road from Large Lavrovka to asphalt under Sun light; by evening weather became more or less sunny, rainfalls downpours stopped and it became warm enough. Clipless pedals is a good thing : I can ride now on 1 gear higher on the whole distance, can support constant high speed, even into hills and on wet ground and stony areas, and do not tire, doing this, at all, much better control bicycle and my feet do not fall off from pedals on high speed. The main thing is to rotate pedals right and evenly, when one leg presses the other pulls up and this way load on legs is much less; also there is ability ( and necessity too ) to push forward and pull back, providing even pedaling.
Without problems and fast I managed to asphalt, on it to Polevskoy and then home. Soon competitions will start and there is already ability to ride to Yekaterinburg for participation in bicycles tours with other people, life begins again.
You can see additional photos here : Waterfalls to Shunuth.
