The Easter weekend is over and there are already some tired legs from the Monsal trailride and the Rother valleyride. 100-mile biking in a week is definitely a massive challenge for the kids. A more reasonable challenge is probably 100-mile over the Easter holidays. This is day 3 of the kids 100-mile biking challenge.

As its a work day for us adults we decided day 3 should be an evening trip to Kings Mill Reservoir near Mansfield. Its not to far to travel and its a simple loop around the reservoir to rack up some miles in an evening. The plan was to do as many miles around reservoir as possible until we couldn't do anymore, but boy did we get a shock.

The reservoir has a main car park which we left the van in. Its about 1.3 miles all the way round on a flat smooth tarmac track for most of the loop. The lake is full of water birds and is used by the small sailing club and the activity centre on its edge. However, most traffic around the lake is pedestrians either walking the dog or taking a break from the nearby hospital. When it’s busy it can be slow passing people on the narrower sections of the loop.

This evening it wasn't very busy at all. Ideal for a few laps. One thing different to day one and day two was the temperature. The weekend had been warm and sunny. This evening it was remarkably the opposite, cold and dull.

We unpacked the bikes from the van and wrapped up as much as we could. With it being April I hadn't brought too many warm clothes. So, we were all cold from the off. I kept encouraging the kids to keep pedalling as we would get warm but to be honest, I wasn't getting any warmer, particularly the hands. We had long gloves, but thin summer gloves.

Then it happened, the most bizarre thing. The sky got really dark and started dumping snow on us. Yes, you heard it right, Snow!!!

At this point we'd done about one lap and being in the snow was a novelty and fun. It didn't last though. It soon became really cold and wet, which made it worse. The snow became a blizzard and visibility started getting low to.

The kids did really well and kept going but we were never going to get 10 miles in these conditions. We called it a day after lap three, just over 5 miles into the ride.

What a bizarre turn of events. Biking in shorts and blazing sun one day, and then snow and freezing conditions the day after. At least we managed a small increase in mileage to the over all target. A job well done in the circumstances.

With 13.95 miles at Monsal trail, 11.38 miles to Rother Valleyand this shorter ride of 5.4 miles, that’s a great total of 30.73 miles in three days. A really good start.

Check out the what happened on other 100-Challenge biking days:

Kids 100-mile Challenge: https://www.mickc.co.uk/kids-100-mile-challenge

Day 1 (Monsal Trail): https://www.mickc.co.uk/day-1-100-mile-challenge