themonkeysdidit

A leisurely start time today as both Warren and I wanted to catch the end of the Grand Prix before heading out to the trails. By the time we parked up it was probably gone 11 but this just meant the sun was out in all its glory and we had high hopes of dry and dusty trails.

We started out blasting down BKB and Reservoir Dogs. This is where our hopes and dreams of dust were dashed; anywhere under the tree canopy was littered with surprisingly deep puddles, ready to catch you out if you weren’t careful. After we were spat out back on to the road we began the climb up to the start of Christmas pudding. This was much drier (once you got past the first section) and by now we were flowing nicely. After eating the spray off Warrens back wheel as he ploughed through a particularly murky puddle we were back in Peaslake and I was picking lumps of – what I hoped were – mud out of my teeth.

Here we climbed back up to the top of Holmbury Hill and munched on some home made (cheers Gem!) breakfast bars* while we decided where to head next. As we still had plenty of time we decided to head out and pick a trail we hadn’t ridden before. This turned out to be a great plan as we found a nice new single track route that obviously hadn’t been ridden for a while as there were several points along it where you had to really crouch down the side of the bike to avoid the low tree branches. Following on from this we found another new track (to us anyway) that flowed incredibly well and ended in a nice and fast downhill section. I’ll try and find the name of this one as it looked quite popular. These new routes were so good, we climbed back to the top of Holmbury and did them again, this time we weren’t so reserved as we knew where we going and what lay ahead so could blast along much more. At the start of the second the trail we came across a fellow group of riders about to embark on the same route. They looked far more competent than us than us so we let them go first, and then had no trouble keeping up with them!

After a final climb back to the top of Holmbury we took the new Doc trail and finished down Telegraph road. This almost went to plan! The first minor problem was landing a jump at speed. We were flying pretty quickly towards the jump and I made a fantastic take off. However, the landing was more than my bike was designed for and I not only bottomed out the rear (oo-err obviously) but also the front. The rear wasn’t too much of a surprise as I ride a hardtail and the tyre preasures were low for traction. However, the front had (admittedly only) 100mm of suspension to go through before the rimms come into play and I used it all up! The obvious answer to both these problems is a new bike! Hopefully this year I’ll make the leap to dual suspension.

The final problem was caused by the colossal, herculean strength in my legs**. Powering up the slight slope at the start of telegraph road I ripped the chain in two, sheering one of the rivets. Luckily, I had a chain tool so we were able to make a quick repair and we raced off down the final trail back to the car.

*We use a recipe from Nigella’s Express book which are really tasty and give you the required energy kick, despite not being swimming in golden syrup.

**Obviously!