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Tales From the Trails
After two very stressful weeks at work which have left me with little
spare time, Tales returns with a special report. As you may be aware,
twelve of us are off to the Alps in a few weeks to take part in the Free
Ride, an event in the Alps where the emphasis is on riding downhill as
fast as possible over nine set stages, using cable cars to get to the
trail heads. Sylvain and I competed last year and thoroughly enjoyed
ourselves, and this year we've talked a lot of others into joining us. All
together, we'll be out in France and Switzerland for a grand total of
eight days; one to race, one to attend the Free Raid picnic and the rest
to ride the excellent trails, downhill courses, duel courses and of
course, get as drunk as monkeys. With the trip ever approaching (and the
fact that after doing the Karrimor last week, the last thing I wanted to
do was a long XC ride), we thought that it was about time we had a day of
messing about doing big drops, fast downhills and general larking about to
improve people's skills and just to put a smile on our faces. Don't get me
wrong, I love huge rides and all that, but just messing about, sitting
around and encouraging each other to do daft stuff on bikes is (to me,
anyway), much more enjoyable.
So, with two rides set for Sunday (an XC on from East Croydon and
ours), everyone had their choice of which to turn up on. For our ride, we
met up in the quarry at the top of Leith Hill which just happens to be
near the car park - none of this riding uphill malarkey for us then! With
the exception of Adam (whose Isis is in bits), all of us were on freeride
/ downhill bikes. I was on my Bullit, Jon was on his Heckler, Martin on
his Stinky, Rik on his beast of an Iron Horse, Twelve Stone Tony on his
FSR Enduro and Adam, as mentioned before, on his Stumpjumper hardtail. As
soon as we got to the quarry, we headed for the steep drop-in. I, as per
normal, rode straight into it and flew out of the bottom, wishing that my
new disk pads had bedded in a bit better. Tony, hot on my heels, was
having no such trouble and came to an abrupt halt in the bottom, chuffed
to bits that he'd rode the slope after being put off by it the last time
he was out, all those months ago ;o) Next, it was over to the jumps. There
is a lovely set of jumps and drops through the quarry which starts with a
smooth pedally section, a drop into a rocky bombhole and straight into a
large jump which throws the rider skywards at an alarming rate. If ridden
fast enough, it's possible to cover some distance and land on a down
slope, greatly improving the landing. At first, I wasn't getting far
enough and was landing flat from a height, sending shocks of pain coursing
through my arms. Tony, an ex-BMXer, had it nailed from the start and was
managing to cross-up the bars before landing perfectly on the down slope.
From here, the trail continues downhill for about fifteen yards before
the rider needs to turn to the right and into a drop-off which at first
sight has you slamming your brakes on. The actual drop into the landing is
only about three to four feet, but in between there is a large, deep hole
which must be cleared if you don't like pain and broken bikes. I cleared
it fine, landed and stopped, turning to watch Tony take off. His flight
through the air was graceful but on landing, his front tyre blew out with
an incredible bang; that's what comes from jumping with thin XC tyres and
tubes on. Once mended, he went back up and had a second go. Once again, he
flatted and after a squirrely landing, decided it may be time to put sone
thicker tubes in. At this point, Jon turned up and the three of us
continued to ride the section for a while, following it by pedalling flat
out through the middle section of the quarry and into a third drop-off
which when taken fast, sees both bike and rider airborne for about ten
feet before landing and turning sharply to miss an unfortunately placed
tree. Whilst the others were practicing their jumping, Jon beckoned for me
to follow him and led me to this banking in the woods with vertical walls
ranging from four to six foot six in height, onto a flat surface. His
challenge was to ride off the drops which I was a bit unsure about,
especially when he showed me the run-in to the top - about four pedal
strokes at best. He lined himself up, pedalled as many times as he could
and launched himself off the four foot drop; the gauntlet had been thrown
and it was my turn. Panicking about not being able to lift the front wheel
enough, I set off, launched off the edge and to my relief, landed smoothly
on solid ground. We nipped back to the quarry, met the rest and decided it
was time for a change, but not before Jon had led us all back to the large
drop-offs; he wanted to ride the bigger one. After a few minutes of us all
telling him he was mad, he lined up, pedalled like mad and launched
himself of a six foot drop onto a flat surface. He managed to land, but
unfortunately damaged some rather important equipment on the landing which
may hinder his chances of producing an heir to his fortune!
Our next section was a smooth drop which we always head for when we're
on Leith Hill. Over time (and because it's so well ridden), it has become
much easier than it once was and after a few goes, we were all bored and
longing for something more adventurous; the drops and jumps near the log
ride were beckoning. This section is another old favourite and has a large
drop-in, a pedally section and a large natural jump from which it's
possible to get a lot of height and distance from. The first go through
and a few of us were showing a bit of caution, but as time went on, we
were getting more and more adventurous and jumping higher and higher each
time. Twelve was pulling off perfect cross-ups each time and Jon was
mastering one-handers before we decided it was cafe time. After we'd
refreshed ourselves at the caff, I led everyone off behind the tower to a
section that Adam and I had found at Easter. It starts with a twisty
trail, over a log-drop and into a very large drop-in / slope which goes
vertical about half way down before easing out again into a hip-jump.
Unfortunately, I forgot to tell people that this was there, which in the
end turned out to be the best thing to do. Those who would not normally
have ridden it were suddenly presented with the slope and had little
choice but to do so, and found that it was easier than they first
suspected. Two of the group said afterwards that if they'd have had chance
to look at it first, they wouldn't have done it. As soon as everyone was
down, we went back up to do it again and once down, carried on the trail
to the foot of the hill before climbing back to the start again. By now,
everyone knew what the trail was like and it was time to mess about and up
the pace a bit. With Adam and Twelve on camera duties, the rest of us took
it in turns to ride the section, gaining more and more speed every time. I
managed to scare myself silly by hitting the top at speed, which had the
effect of throwing me out; I landed near the bottom of the slope and
smiling (and shaking), asked if anyone had got that one on camera. As is
always the way, nobody had!
Next was a long, incredibly steep slope that Adam and I had discovered
a few weeks ago. Basically, there was no trail down what was a steep
hillside littered with trees, but that wasn't going to put us off. As soon
as we got there, Jon set off down, managing to get a full fifteen foot
before sliding off. As soon as he got back up, I set off and somehow, with
both brakes on full, managed to get to the bottom of the slope in one
piece and with both feet on the pedals. Martin decided that he wanted a
go. His first attempt started well, but before he even reached the tree,
the loose surface had him slide off. Not one to be beaten, he climbed back
up and set off again. This time, he looked like he was in (some sort of)
control, sliding the back end round the first corner and pointing the
front of the bike in the right direction. Unfortunately, disaster struck
and his front wheel caught on a root which pitched him over the bars,
through a bush and into a roll which carried him off down the hill with
all his kit flying from his pockets. Laugh, I thought we'd never stop.
Dejected, Martin sat beside a tree for a minute whilst the rest of us
tried in vain to control our mirth. After Martin had sorted himself out
and retreived all his kit, Rik mentioned that so far, we hadn't actually
done any downhills, so we set off for the laughing downhill, so called
because the first time we rode it, it was so steep and slippy that we were
all laughing ourselves stupid. As soon as we got to the start, we all set
off pedalling as fast as we could along the swoopy singletrack, over the
drop-ff, into the jump and round the corner into the steep section. In the
wet, the steep section is incredibly loose and slippy but on this
occasion, it was dry and grippy, meaning that brakes weren't needed at all
until the bottom. I arrived first, followed by Jon who reported that he'd
nearly run over Rik, who'd crashed on the jump at the top. Apparently he'd
ridden into it flat out, not knowing it was there! Tony was next, followed
by Martin, who asked if anyone had seen that bloke on the ground at the
top; he hadn't realised it was Rik! Once Rik had picked himself up off the
ground and ridden down the banking, we continued down te main track with
the intention being to climb back up to the tower again. At the bottom,
however, we changed our minds and climbed up the other side of the valley
to ride the rocky descent which is more like a Lake District trail in
nature than a North Downs one (apart, obviously, from the length of it).
We climbed to the very top of the hill, turned and set off down at top
speed, jumping off every rock, root and grassy tussock that we found. It
was only when the first three of us were at the bottom when we heard a lot
of shouting. We turned round to see Martin, who was talking about a horse
and it's irate rider. All three of us were completely puzzled by what he
was saying as we'd seen no horse at all, but it turned out that a horse
and rider had emerged from the bushes just as we shot past at warp factor
nine, throwing rocks up as we skittered past. The horse had freaked out a
bit and the rider was losing her marbles. Luckily, she only managed to
capture Martin, Rik and Adam, who all got an ear bashing. Once we were all
down, we made a hasty exit up a singletrack climb and back to the Log ride
jumps.
With our confidence levels now up, we started to ride the jumps again
with more vigour than before and in no time at all, were looking for
trickier lines into the drop-in. We found that with a bit of a dodgy
run-in, we could hit a ledge which would propel us out and down into the
drop so that instead of just riding it, we were now jumping into it which
gave a lot more speed coming out of the bottom. After riding this for a
while, we decided that time was getting on and that one last session in
the quarry was in order. After we'd had our final fill of thrills, we
headed back to the car, drank a can of leftover Karrimor Stella that Joe
had somehow let slip past his grasp and set off home, tired and happy.
Everyone had ridden things that had put them off before, everyone was
riding much quicker and smoother by the end of the day and needless to
say, everyone was smiling like mad. There will be a couple more of these
rides before the end of June, so if you've got a long travel bike, if
you've got a death wish or if you fancy something completely different and
challenging, why not join us. Even if you don't ride the drops and jumps
yourselves, it's always entertaining to watch the others that do. You too
could witness Martin's wonderful roll of death down a hillside!!
Jason.
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