The mid-January fortnight of serious thaw has affected various outdoor-recreation groups in radically different ways. The winter climbers came close to dismay, fearful of a complete collapse of December’s wonderful conditions on everything apart from Ben Nevis and “the Norries” – the high northern corries of the Cairngorms.
For a while it looked as if the hills might be stripped completely – but while the snowline rose massively, and while much of the ice duly disappeared away down the rivers, the thaw slowed just in time and conditions stabilised as the temperature dipped again. What’s left is actually quite good: a high snowline (800 metres if you’re lucky), with plenty of very firm snow in the gullies, although dodgy cornices need to be watched.
Non-technical walkers will have welcomed the easing of conditions, at least in part. It’s no good the top half of the Munros being in wonderful nick if it’s lethal to drive there and if it then requires several hours of soft-snow approach-slog. Road-level snow tends to be entertaining for a couple of weeks, but any longer and it becomes demoralising if not downright knackering.
Again, the current set-up – summer-ish conditions below half-height, then a band of water-ice with decent snow higher up – is perfectly useable, provided one has the necessary kit. It’s not the weather for trying to get up and down Munros or even Corbetts without a set of crampons, as there is almost no soft snow – what remains is tending to be on the hard side of brick-like.
For the skiers, the wonderful early season conditions (Glenshee was going like a fair on the day before Hogmanay) have faded a little as the snow turns ribbony lower down. All five centres are still operating, however, with conditions sounding especially good at the higher ones, Nevis Range and Cairn Gorm
As for the paragliders – the jumping off big icy hills paragliders, at least – they’re just confused...
Among the people stymied by the severe weather were the road cyclists. Normally they are the most relentless and reliable of outdoor-recreationists, to be seen almost every weekend in club-sized groups or in ones and twos, covering huge distances then propping their machines outside cafes for a mid-run refuelling session. (At least one of the Fife clubs regularly trundles across to Corrieri’s café beneath the Wallace Monument before setting off back east.)
But when the snow is deep and soft, or hard-packed and skiddy, or when the roads are ostensibly clear but riddled with random patches of black ice – all of which delights were widely available during December – then it’s neither fun nor sensible to head out for a road-bike session.
So what do the 150-mile Sunday trundlers do when it’s like that? Stay in and watch old Tour de France DVDs?
“Cycling has become an indoor sport,” said Alan White of Forres Cycling Club during the bitter late-December weather. “We are fortunate as we own our own club premises. At least six days a week, between four and seven of us meet and do a hard turbo session in the clubrooms. We are all working to specific training programs and would, even in reasonable weather, mix indoor turbo training with road endurance rides.”
“It’s down to personal choice really,” said Ian Condie of Dunfermline Cycling Club. “Some stalwarts went out and stuck to main roads and said it was fine. Others use cyclocross bikes with knobbly tyres and try to find snow-covered roads to go on. Unless you go for spiked tyres though, nothing really grips too well on ice.”
As in Forres, the Dunfermline club turns to indoor “turbo sessions” as an alternative. Condie runs two of these each week, with four or five club members taking part. “I’m fortunate to have a Tacx i-Magic trainer. I’ll pick a Real Life Video from my collection and cycle somewhere sunny – Italy, the Alps, Mallorca, etc – and do a couple of hours on the turbo.
“The resistance adjusts to the gradient you’re climbing, and it is very realistic when you play it through a large-screen TV. It’s a clever bit of kit, and as well as the Real Life Videos, if the computer is linked to a broadband connection, you can race other Tacx owners anywhere in the world on one of their virtual reality courses. It certainly takes the boredom out of turbo training.
“As well as the turbo and software, you at least need a laptop, although I have mine rigged up through a PC tower and a 46-inch LCD TV. It’s not cheap, though – but still cheaper than a mid-range road bike, particularly if you buy second-hand. And you use your own bike on it, too.”
The turbo session is also the fallback for Glenmarnock Wheelers, “Glasgow’s oldest and most active cycle club”. “We will try to go out in the snow and ice,” said Glenmarnock’s Garry Quinn, “but I find myself more often having to make a judgement call on safety. It is sometimes just too risky, and in that situation I would look for something else to do indoor on my turbo trainer – not the best, but my only option.”
Even in milder winters than these past two, there is also the unavoidable problem of lack of daylight. “We just try to be as visible as we can,” said Quinn on the question of dark-evening cycling. “The brighter the better.”
Winter-road cycling is a school of hard knocks – literally. “Personally, I don’t feel it’s worth the risk of crashing and potentially breaking something just to get out on the bike,” says Condie. “Having had a fractured hip, and a smashed collar bone which is held together by pins and a plate, both sustained in very slippy conditions, I really don’t want to go there again. But it is down to personal choice.
“As soon as the snow starts to retreat, and the temperatures scrape above freezing, we'll be back out in force. Even if it’s way below freezing but dry, we’ll be out. It’s just the combination of ice and snow makes most of us think twice.”
While none of the cycling clubs could ever be accused of lack of toughness, their members will have welcomed the milder spell. Had the coldest December for decades been followed by something similar in terms of January, there would have been countrywide outbreaks of severe cabin fever, Tacx i-Magic trainers or no.
But for now at least – it is still only late January, after all – the road-level snows have gone, the black ice isn’t such an early-morning problem as the daylight starts to stretch, and fast-moving huddles of bright-jerseyed cyclists can again be seen on the weekend roads. There’s a new peril to deal with, however – trying to avoid all the potholes.
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