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Tales From the Trails
You can tell that the weather has got much better of late, not because
of the trees blossoming, the rise in temperature or the trails being bone
dry, but from the fact that less people are coming out on the Sunday
rides. What is it about awful conditions that brings everyone out from
their lovely warm houses to wrap themselves up in funny looking waterproof
clothing, to subject themselves to hours of riding in cold and wet
conditions, to plug through thick mud that needs cleaning from the bikes
upon arrival back at home? is it because we want to be perceived as
hardcore, to brave the elements and show the World that we're not just
fair weather bikers? Whatever it is, the sun seems to scare a lot of
people away. Maybe we're a bunch of bad weather bikers! Saying that, we
did have twelve people turn up which at one time would have been seen as a
pretty large group but after having over twenty out a month or so ago, it
somehow seems a small group now. Bizarrely, the night rides seem to be
growing hugely in popularity and we had a record number of nine people out
last Thursday. Once again though, is it the challenge of riding in the
dark that encouraged so many out?
This is the first Tales I've done in a couple of weeks and I apologise
for that, but the amount of rides which have taken place over the last few
weeks would have taken ages to fully write up. In brief though, they were
as follows:
Tuesday before Easter - two of us on a night ride (my first this year,
not counting the Croydon to Brighton trip) upon which the pace was pretty
fast and left us tired out, using one of the old loops from last year
taking in Croham Hurst, Farleigh, Selsden Nature Reserve, Spring Park,
Foxes Wood and Shirley Hills.
Thursday before Easter - afternoon skivers ride which three of us
partook in. The weather was superb and we took in a route which used all
the best bits of local singletrack.
Good Friday - James and I went to Thetford to camp out in preparation
for the first day of the MTB Easter Triple Challenge, a three day
endurance event which was based in three locations - Thetford, Aston Hill
and Checkendon. We expected to find a field full of people camping and
partying but were a little shocked and disappointed to find that there was
only one other tent there, and that was one of the oranisers. There were
three caravans (cheating in my book) but as they were all family groups,
we suspected that they wouldn't want to get hammered with us. Still, as
we'd planned to get drunk and have a laugh, we bought a load of supplies
(a lot of beer, a bottle of single malt and a bottle of wine), went to a
pub in Thetford for some food, a couple of pints and to be stared at by
whatever species were drinking there that night, returned to the camp site
and introduced ourselves to John, a bloke who's been organising mountain
bikes for years. We sat with him for quite a while (long enough to drink
about five cans each and half a bottle of whisky) and then noticed the
arrival of one Chipps Chippendale, the editor of Singletrack magazine. By
this point, we were getting a little worse for wear but that didn't stop
us from consuming a couple more cans and two bottles of wine with him and
Sara, one of the regulars on the Singletrackworld.com website. It was now
about one in the morning, so leaving our companions to get some sleep, we
wandered off back to the tent, got the bikes out of the car and decided
that this would be a good time to check out the course, even though my
light's battery had gone flat an hour previously and neither of us could
balance too well. Not to be put off, we set off into the woods and within
five yards, I fell off, much to the amusement of James. I re-mounted and
within ten yards, was flat on my backside again, howling with laughter. In
total, I fell off about twenty times in our two mile excursion and found
that the only way to keep upright was to ride faster and pray that
gyroscopic forces would keep me aloft this contraption of such confusion.
Of course, none of this was aided by the fact that James's battery died
after about five minutes, leaving us in near pitch blackness in the middle
of a forest which is littered with trails heading off in every direction;
how we found our way back I'll never know!
Easter Saturday - forty mile endurance race round Thetford Forest. I
awoke to find that someone had replaced my throat with sandpaper and some
invisible being was pounding my head with a lump hammer - not the ideal
state to find yourself in when you have a forty mile race to contend with
in the next two hours. I found that the only way to take my mind off the
pain was to keep active so I decided to change the forks on my bike over,
which didn't go too well. With the original forks back in place, we
stumbled over to the signing on tent and bumped into Hannah, who was
looking very fresh and raring to go; she hadn't had a drink the night
before and in my book that's cheating! We handed over our money, filled in
the forms and moved over to the start line. Thetford Forest is up in
Norfolk and as I'm sure you can imagine, it's not exactly blessed with too
many hills. What it does have though is miles and miles of singletrack
which twists and turns through the trees, dropping into out out of
bombholes as it winds it's way through the forest. When we raced there
back in February, each twelve mile lap contained about five miles of
fireroad which did at least give you the chance to get a bit of a rest.
This time however, most of the ten mile lap was singletrack and with no
hills, there was no opportunity for a rest of any kind. My first lap went
pretty well despite feeling like I should have been in casualty rather
than battling with hundreds of fresh faced lycra-clad fitness freaks.
Hannah and I set off at about the same time and battled it out for the
full ten miles, passing each other at regular intervals. Come lap two
however, and I knew that all was not well. I had already finished the
water in my camelbak and I was beginning to feel really bad. In addition
to this, my headset had picked this moment to start to seize up which is
not what you want when the trails are so twisty that you feell that you're
flailing your arms from side to side rather than steering. At the end of
lap two, I decided that enough was enough and gave up. I returned to the
tent and promptly fell asleep. Hannah on the other hand, went from
strength to strength and finished in second place. James was having a bit
of a rough time of it, especially as he was on a rigid singlespeed and
although he was the last person to finish, he actually did finish which is
a lot better than yours truly did.
Easter Sunday - day two of the Easter Triple Challenge for James and
Hannah, this time at Aston Hill with eight laps, adding up to 32 miles in
total. James retired after four laps as it's not exactly singlespeed
friendly, and Hannah did incredibly well again (I will check, it's just
that my internet connection is playing up at the moment). For the rest of
us, there was a Leith Hill ride, that is if anyone had bothered to turn up
apart from me and Adam. Lazy gits. We had a cracking ride, found loads of
new trails, rode down the steepest steps I've ever seen, nearly killed
ourselves in the quarry, visited the cafe twice and finished off with a
pint in a weird little pub in Westcott, although it was called The
Cricketers so we didn't break from tradition totally.
Easter Monday - day three of the Easter Triple Challenge at Checkenden,
42 miles this time. James and Hannah were still both going strong and I'm
happy to report that both finished, got the T-shirt (literally) and tired
themselves out in the process. Hannah also won; well done! As for me, I
was going to have a day off the bike but ended up going out for a quick
twenty miler with my brother.
Tuesday - night ride which five people turned up for (it looked very
good after Sunday's pathetic turnout). We rode out over Shirley Hills,
Pinewoods, Foxes Wood, Spring Park (including a trip to the jumps,
although nobody risked doing them in the dark), a climb up to the
wonderful New Addington to see the motorized ratboys simultaneously
pulling wheelies and hurling abuse whilst aboard their ladies shopper
bikes (scooters). We then headed out past the White Bear pub and to the
forty mile an hour downhill, where my lights decided they didn't want to
play any more, meaning that I had to follow the others all the way back to
Croydon, hoping that they took pity and steered around obstacles that were
obviously hidden from view to me. Still, we did return offroad and somehow
I managed to stay on the bike and not eat dirt.
Thursday - night ride which nine people attended. We rode out over
Croham Hurst, using the incredibly steep climb at the back and then the
singletrack which lead us right back to where we'd started from. From
there, we rode through Sanderstead, up past Selsden Nature Reserve, down
the singletrack to Forestdale, up the singletrack climb to the top of
Rachael's Downhill, down Rachael's DH, followed Joe on a bizarre route up
to New Addington (where once again we found the Ratboys on their ladies
shopper bikes), descended onto the Mad Mile, up through Spring Park and
back on the normal route. Of all the rides I've been on in the last six
months, I've never known one with as many mechanicals. We had five
punctures all told, which can be a bit awkward to fix at night as I'm sure
you can imagine. In addition to those, we also had one set of lights that
nearly didn't work at all (although eventually did) and a disk brake that
was making the most bizarre noises I've ever heard. All in all, we were
out for three hours and by the time we returned to Croydon we'd missed
last orders and three people's batteries had given up the ghost.
Sunday - Croydon based ride which saw twelve people lined up at the
station. The route we used was pretty similar to that of the night ride,
with the addition of an excellent technical downhill near Biggin Hill
which was littered with rocks and had a series of large humps at the start
which threw the bike and rider skywards at an alarming rate of knots. From
here, we rode up the trail which passes Layhams motocross Track and
followed it through to Keston Ponds where we stopped at the ice cream van
before pressing on and heading back past Coney Hall, Spring Park, and I'm
sure you know the rest!
I could go on about yesterday's ride and the daft things that happened
along the way but I've probably bored you to tears already and got
everybody around you at work wondering why you're reading a novella when
you should be toiling away. So, let's just leave it with the knowledge
that we all had a good laugh and were even back pretty early for once,
something which my girlfriend was very surprised about (in a good way, not
because she had the milkman round!).
See you all out on the trails soon,
Jason.
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