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Tales From the Trails
After an absence of two weeks, the Tales from the Trails returns, as
for once I wasn't too hungover on a Sunday morning and actually made the
station complete with bike, helmet and the energy to actually move more
than three feet without having to sit down for ten minutes. My reputation
for missing rides due to my drinking on Saturdays had grown to such an
extent that when we were at the Bike Show on Saturday, none of the lads
would actually believe that I would show up, expecting me instead to go to
the Cricketers on our return and drink well into the early hours! To prove
them wrong, I actually got up at 8:30 and fettled with my bikes before
heading out (so there!!!).
I arrived at the station in glorious spring sunshine to find only two
other peole waiting there and my first thought was that we'd have a small
turnout because of the good weather - if the sky is laden with rain
clouds, it has seemed recently that everyone wants to get out on their
bikes. My worries were unfounded though and by the time we set off, there
were twelve of us and the promise of meeting another person at the foot of
Rachael's Downhill. We rode out through Park Hill and up into the Park
where for once we didn't manage to lose anyone; for some reason, the place
is like the Bermuda Triangle for Sunday rides and on a few occasions
people have mysteriously disappeared without a trace there, never to be
seen again. They'll probably all re-appear in 50 years time looking
confused and talking of bright lights. Once through the park, we followed
the tram lines over Shirley , cut off into the singletrack at the top
of the hill and descended into Forestdale along the surprisingly bumpy and
twisty cycle path which puts some offroad trails to shame. From here, we
followed another cycle path out along Featherbed Lane and met Spencer at
the foot of Rachael's Downhill. It turned out that his cassette had
decided to explode half way to the station and he's had to nip home to fix
it.
Rachael's downhill (or uphill in this case) is usually a twisty, muddy
slog but the recent heavy rains had cleared the topsoil away, leaving hard
packed flint which offered loads of traction and enabled us to ascend to
Farleigh Golf Course in no time. It must be the only trail in the area
which is made better by terrible weather. We pressed on, linking the
bridleways through to Warlingham and then followed the road out to Titsey
Hill, somewhere I'd heard a lot about but never been to. In fact, that's a
lie as I have been to the top before. Last year, when the country was in
the grip of Gob and Trotter, Pete Adams and myself had set out there in
torrential rain to ride the descent. We rode all the way there in the
freezing rain and high winds to find that it was still closed, and on the
way back suffered from punctures too numerous to mention and a road
accident which forced us to make a five mile detour; the after-ride beer
tasted particularily good that day!
The Titsey Hill descent is on what is classed as a byway, meaning that
it is open to all traffic (some chance). It is on a wide track which cuts
straight across the contours of the hill meaning it is very steep in
places and incredibly fast. The surface is a mixture of mud, chalk and
flint which are all in different and non-uniform patches meaning that you
could start a corner on fast hard packed flint and half way round find
yourself out of control on wet and slippy chalk. The best thing of all is
that from half way down, there is a two foot deep gully which in places
has you sliding up bankings and clinging on for dear life in order to
avoid slipping into the abyss. Unfortunately, not everyone managed to
avoid it. Martin had an impressive rolling crash, Mark tumbled into the
hole and Elliot had a bit of a scrape too. Luckily there were no injuries
and everyone was in agreement that it was a spectacular downhill. From
here, we crossed a road, said goodbye to Mark (who was pretty tired after
doing the road ride and the 10 mile TT the previous day - a personal best,
well done mate) and climbed a well defined trail into some woods where we
came across a steep banking. Marco offered up the challenge for people to
ride it and without thinking, I started to scramble up through the bushes
to get to the top, followed by Jonathan, Sylvain, Joe and Martin. I
personally think that the best way to ride things like this is to not
think too much about it first and not look for too long at where you
should be going as it'll just put you off. With this in mind, I rode into
it blind, picked up a decent looking line and made it to the bottom
safely. Next was Sylvain, who took the descent a little more cautiously
but made it down in one piece. Left at the top were Joe, Jonathan and
Martin, and all three were looking at the descent, trying to work out the
best way down. After what seemed like an age, Joe decided to give it a go.
He came round the first corner, into the steep, loose section and instead
of turning.... went straight on and ended up hanging from a branch with
his bike dangling precariously beneath him. We were still having fits of
laughter when the branch gave way and Joe tumbled down the banking into
the undergrowth. This seemed to put Martin off a bit but not one to give
up, he gave it a go. Unfortunately, today was not to be his day and he
came unstuck in the same place as Joe and decided to call it quits and
walk down. Jonathan, with a look of horror on his face by now, decided to
walk the whole thing!
We continued up the hill, onto another bridleway and pressed on through
a field and into some new woods. We climbed up through the woods and out
into a village green before crossing the road and into some more woods
which Marco promised us were littered with singletrack trails of high
quality. He wasn't lying. As soon as we were in the woods, Joe spotted a
narrow trail off to one side and we picked it up, weaving through the
trees like gigantic Sparrow Hawks in pursuit of lunch. The trail opened up
again and in seconds we were turning off again into more delicious
singletrack which swooped downhill and spat us out onto another fireroad.
By the time we realised that we'd lost a few riders (including Spencer,
who is the only person I know with a GPS), we must have covered every inch
of the woods. Once we'd regrouped, we were all getting pretty hungry and
decided that it was probably time for a spot of lunch. Luckily enough,
Westerham was only two miles away and the trail which led us there was all
downhill. We had got halfway down this trail when we realised that once
again, we were missing a couple of people. As one was Spencer, we thought
that maybe his GPS was on the blink but it turned out that Elliot's chain
had snapped and they were both fixing it. We all set off again but before
we'd even got 200 yards, Joe's chain snapped! Instead of fixing it there
and then, he freewheeled and got pushed into Westerham so that it could be
seen to whilst we were all resting in the sun and filling our faces in the
shadow of Winston Churchill (he was born there and his statue is placed in
the middle of the green). At this point, Jonathan and Tom decided to call
it a day and set off to ride home on the road. It was only after they'd
been gone about ten minutes that we realised that Jonathan had left
something rather important behind - his helmet. Apparently he realised
when he got to the top of Westerham Hill and noticed that the top of his
head was feeling a bit airy. With it packed in Elliot's rucksack, we
pressed on ourselves to tackle the biggest climb of the day, Westerham
Hill. Rather than take the road route, we turned on to the North Downs Way
and climbed off-road. Surprisingly, the climbs was a great deal easier
than we'd expected and we were soon at the top of the hill. After Spencer
had fixed a puncture, we pressed on and picked up a series of back lanes
which led us through to Downe and a scout camp which Marco informed us was
not exactly the most legal of trails (but you didn't here that from me,
right). We were halfway through when we realised that once again we were
missing a couple of people and once again, it was Spencer and Elliot - his
chain had snapped again!
We rode over to the back of Biggin Hill airport and followed the
surprisingly good singletrack trail which follows the perimiter fence,
turned out onto the road and followed it through to the Keston Ponds
trails. It seemed as though everyone took a different route through Keston
Woods but somehow, as per usual, we all ended up in the same place at the
finish - by the main pond itself. From here, we followed more singletrack
through West Wickham Common and regrouped in Coney Hall, only to discover
that we were missing someone - Rik. After a good long wait we rang him up
(the joys of mobile phones) and discovered that, yes, you've guessed it,
his chain had snapped! By the time he'd caught up with us we'd all cleaned
most of the muck off our bikes and turned a tarmacced footpath into a
muddy trail. We rode through to Spring Park, climbed up and continued
through Foxes Wood, Pinewood and onto Shirley Hills for the last descent
of the day through the Water Works trail, so called because it follows the
fence behind the reservoir on the top of the hill. The Water Works trail
is an extremely technical trail which dips and climbs through a series of
natural trenches which are littered with slippy roots and off-camber
bankings; it is very hard to do a clean run but somehow three of us made
it through without dabbing a foot once. Regrouped, we followed an
extremely narrow animal trail through the heather, dropped into a huge
bombhole and onto the last singletrack of the day, a recently found trail
which is narrow, twisty and a hell of a lot of fun (if it wasn't for the
amount of walkers that use it). From there, all we had to do was a quick
blast through Lloyd Park, down Park Hill and to the Cricketers which now
the weather is improving is the end location for all our rides. For me,
having a pint at the end of the ride is the perfect way to finish off a
day on the trails. It's a good way to wind down, gives everyone chance to
talk about the events of the day and because you've been exercising all
day, the beer goes to your head quickly!
So, in conclusion, another great ride which saw a good number of people
cover a decent distance (not sure how far, but over 40 miles) in decent
weather. I have only mentioned a couple of things that made it a great
ride above as I can't remember every thing that happened, but as per
normal with our Sunday rides, it was more a social and fun affair rather
than a keep fit marathon; I know that I was laughing out loud on many
occasions and was not alone in doing so.
I'm not sure what is happening over the Easter break but I'm sure that
there will be a ride on at least one of the days over the weekend. Keep an
eye out for the Digest later in the week and if I have any ideas, I'll
mail you all as well to keep you abreast of anything that is happening.
Happy riding,
Jason.
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