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Tales Trails

Tales From the Trails

It's been quite a busy bank holiday weekend for the mountain bikers with three separate rides taking place, including a trip to Aston Hill, a mountain bike centre near Wendover in Bucks. The weather was brilliant for the whole weekend, the riding was spot on and everyone who was out enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

The weekend started with a trip to Leith Hill on Saturday, with the emphasis being to mess about, ride the downhills, throw ourselves off the big drop-offs and basically scare ourselves silly. With the weather being so good, most of the day was actually spent sitting around chatting, watching the others riding the drops and applying sun tan lotion to pasty white bodies to avoid turning into cycling lobsters. After the obligatory session in the quarry, we moved on to the log of death (which none of us rode it must be said) to see who could do the largest jump, with James urging us to fall off by pointing a camera at us as we launched into the air. Luckily, nobody ate dirt and we pressed on to the cafe for flapjack and a cuppa before heading off to the new downhill run - a twisty trail which leads into a log-drop and then into a huge steep banking which goes vertical for a couple of metres in the middle and leads into a hip-jump. After a couple of attempts to kill ourselves, it was time for the laughing downhill, unless your name was James or Rik that is, who missed the turning completely and went missing for twenty minutes - enough time for me to climb back up and have another go, so I wasn't too bothered!

After this, we headed off to the cricket pitch to ride the next downhill which starts with a fast singletrack section before turning and dropping the rider at top speed into a steep, rocky section. After riding it flat out, we noticed that James was taking quite a while. The rest of us set off back up and just as we reached the top of the rocky section we saw James coming round the corner sat down with one leg hanging down and a pained expression on his face. It seems that he'd set off and within a matter of yards had caught something, gone over the bars and hit the ground hard, the (heavy downhill) bike landing on top of him. He'd not only banged his already bad knee hard on the ground, but had also skinned his forearm; he's buying some pads for the Free Raid.

With James now in a state of pain, the decision was made to head back to the quarry for a last jump session before going home to eat badly cooked barbecue and drink ourselves silly, both of which we did to great effect - it took me ages to clean the house the next day!!

Sunday saw thirteen of us meet up at East Croydon station for the annual ride out to the Biggin Hill air show. Once again the weather was with us and once again the sun tan lotion was in great demand. We headed off through Croham Hurst, past the maddest dog walker in Croydon, who had called her Jack Russell Terrier 'Hitler' for some reason, climbed to the top of the hill and descended on a very steep trail which has a hairpin corner halfway down which caught Shaun out as he didn't make it and shot straight off the bike and landed in a heap. His first aid skills came in useful and after a while he'd bandaged himself up and it was time to press on. We took to the road for a while, riding through Sanderstead and over to the Selsden Nature Reserve where we climbed up the hill off road. At the top, we discovered that Rik's bike was a bit poorly - the freehub was making some awful noises and moving in directions it was not intended to. Rik decided to carry on regardless and we picked up a lovely singletrack trail which led us into Forestdale, where we climbed on more singletrack to the top of Rachael's Downhill.

After a regroup, we rode through the golf course, turned left onto Scotshall lane and through to the forty-eight mile an hour downhill which for once wasn't full of horses, meaning that we got a clean run through to the other side of the trail by the White Bear. We then picked up the road again and followed it through to our next downhill, a rocky, fast, narrow trail which deposits the rider at great speed at the foot of Biggin Hill. This was followed by a steep climb before arriving in Biggin Hill and stopping at the cafe to watch the air show for free; skinflints, us?? I don't know about you but after a while, watching planes gets a bit boring, especially when you've grown up in the Lakes and have spent twenty seven years of your life being buzzed by Tornados, Jaguars and every other plane that the RAF and USAF have. We decided it was time to press on again and headed for Keston Ponds. We flew through the woods, jumping over every rise in the ground we could see and arrived at the ice cream van where I was told that my Brother (Allan) had had a comedy crash just before turning into the woods - he'd ridden into a kerb and gone over the bars, right next to three packed cars, the occupants of which had laughed for a good long time. Allan was fine and after mending a puncture, rode through to meet the rest of us. From here, we rode through Hayes Common, down Marco's favourite downhill, over to Spring Park and back along the normal route to the Cricketers, only to be informed that every pub in Croydon had just been closed for three hours because of that wonderful bunch of people, football fans, who'd turned the town centre into a riot zone.

Tuesday saw eight of us meeting at Fairfield Halls, take half an hour to get the bikes and people into three cars and head off round the M25 and up the M40 towards Wendover and the Aston Hill Mountain Bike Centre, a Forestry Commission centre with purpose built bike trails open for bikers only, which means that there are no walkers, no horses and no dog muck. The centre had a cross country loop, two downhill courses and a duel slalom course, all of which we rode and some of which we rode a lot! We started with the hardest of them all, the downhill black run which starts with a large sign explaining that the course is extremely dangerous! The course shares it's top section with the XC loop and is therefore relatively tame, with a tabletop, large bermed corner and singletrack section before it splits. As soon as the two courses break off, the downhill course gets a lot trickier, a lot bumpier and a LOT steeper - it basically drops straight down a steep hill. There are tight corners which are littered with braking bumps, roots everywhere and then halfway down you come to the man-made drop-off which hurls you down the hillside at an alarming rate into another berm and series of corners before levelling out slightly and into a fast singletrack section, before depositing you at great speed onto a fireroad and the inevitable walk back up the (very large) hill.

All down safely and back up the hill, we moved on to the other downhill course, confusingly known as Downhill 3; there are only two of them. This, in comparison to the Black Run, was longer, slightly easier and much faster, and came to be our favourite part of the centre judging by the amount of times we rode it. It starts with a fast pedally section before hitting a twelve foot long tabletop, which required the rider to hit it at great speed to clear it (although it could be ridden). This was followed by a bermed right hand corner before hitting another tabletop followed straight away by a three foot high jump, a corner, another two jumps of the same height and a pedally section before turning sharply left into a tabletop/drop-off into a large right hand berm. From here, there were three more jumps, a left hander, a steep banking onto a fireroad, a huge drop-off followed by an off-camber left hander onto a second fireroad. From this point on, the nature of the course changed. There is a drop from the fireroad, another berm and then a fast pedally singletrack section with fast corners, lots of off-camber roots, more drop-offs and switchbacks. It ends with two very tight, loose corners in succession before the rider is deposited once again on the bottom fireroad in preparation for that long walk back up again. The whole course took about three minutes to ride which is a revelation after our usual thirty second downhills that we have around here. On our first run down, we were all a bit dubious of the off camber rooty sections and were taking them cautiously but after our second or third runs, we were taking them flat out after discovering that they were easier to ride at speed. In the many times we rode this course, not many of the group survived without a crash, although none were serious. Martin had the most spectacular one, going over the edge of one of the berms and ending up four yards down the banking in a heap. In every crash of the day, the merits of body armour shone through; it may be heavy and hot, but it sure does save your skin.

In between riding DH3, we spent a lot of time on the Duel Slalom course and even held our own race series on the course, albeit a pretty disorganised on. The Duel course started with a start ramp with a proper gate, dropped into a tabletop or double (depending on which lane you took), a bermed right hander and another tabletop / jump combination, round a left hand berm, through a series of stutter bumps, into a large tabletop, round a right hander into another tabletop with a drop on the back, over a drop-off and into a large bermed left hander which led into the final jumps. It only took about thirty seconds to ride, but was action packed and a great deal of fun. After the first couple of attempts, a few of us were clearing all the jumps except the first ones and the speed was increasing greatly. Once again, there were a few tumbles, none too serious though. It really wasn't Martin's day however, as in a race with myself he managed to get his rear mech jammed in his newly built back wheel, which had the unfortunate effect of wrecking a number of spoke, buckling the wheel, snapping the mech and bending the mech hanger. He returned to the car whilst the rest of us rode the course once more and had a blast down DH3.

By now, everyone was beginning to get tired so Martin, Spencer and Sylvain headed off home. The rest of us decided to give the XC loop a try, which probably wasn't the best idea as many of us were on big, heavy downhill bikes with single chainrings and chain devices. Still, the downhill was great fun, with tight switchbacks and flowing singletrack. Attempting the climbs was a different matter though; I managed to get up the first one with a lot of effort but it nearly killed me, so we returned to the duel track for a final few races, did DH3 one last time and returned to the car park. The last run down DH3 was a frightening affair, as by now we were tired, hungry, out of energy and losing concentration; not what you want on such a technical course. After finishing, most of us decided that we'd had enough although Rik and Joe decided that they'd do the black run one last time. The rest of us just couldn't face the climb back up! Once they'd got back, we started to pack the cars for the journey home, only to discover that Rik had mislaid the car keys. After a search that saw us unpack everything in the car, pick through the grass and take forty-five minutes, Rik found them in his shorts! We were all seriously exhausted by now and faced with a long journey home, one which would take us hours. We got back into Croydon at Eleven o'clock, twelve hours after we'd left but all of us were raving about the day we'd had and planning the next trip.

Aston Hill Mountain Bike Centre is definitely worth a visit and caters for all off-road riders; the cross country loop is on man-made singletrack and has swoopy downhills and rideable climbs. The duel course is a real laugh and the downhill courses are awesome, especially DH3 which was simply stunning. Hopefully, the next time we go we can get a much larger group of us together.

Cheers,

Jason.