Trigger's Broom

An eventful ride last night began late - I'm blaming Tom, he turned up at my house to borrow some old forks in his latest attempt to keep his Orange (or as we call it "Trigger's Broom") trailworthy for another few rides before the Orange 5 arrives.
On arrival at Coldharbour we were surprised to see that Andy wasn't clad in full lycra following his SDW exploits. Andy was nervous about the burn time on his lights (I told him not to worry, we wouldn't need them for ages - how wrong I was).
I was keen to ride Wave of Mutilation over in Redlands as there's a large fallen tree at the end of it which I wasn't sure was rideable but having seen some photos and reports on various blogs realised was. We hit the trail and immediately needed illumination as we went under the trees. Andy stationed himself between Mark and I with our bastid's on full beam and we were soon down at the tree. As I'd given it the big one I knew I had to go straight over, so I did, followed by Andy who took my barked instructions on the correct line and cleaned it. Mark got a bit stuck on the top but we all went back and cleared it again. One more technical challenge in the Surrey Hills under our belts!
We carried on to the end of Sweet Bulbs and then climbed back up to the road. Crossing the road we hit our favourite jump bombhole and were doing a few laps when I noticed that Andy had possibly the gayest accessory I've ever seen attached to his bike. I can only describe it as a red flashing spokey dokey! It provided a few laughs before we hit the short downhill. I went first and apparently blinded the other two with the amount of dust I kicked up behind me making the steep trail even harder. From there it was onto Summer Lightning and then up to the Tower via the bombholes. We decided to take in Windy Willows - I enjoyed the main jump in the dark but came a cropper at the end when, emboldened by my new found tree rolling expertise, I went for it on the fallen trunk, got it wrong and slid off!
Back to the Tower via the top of Donnie Darko, down the main descent and through the "Big Dipper" (Mark and Andy invented a new suicide line on this one but managed to keep it together) we then headed over to the cricket pitch via the unnamed trail. Pausing at the top of Deliverance Andy said he didn't fancy it so we all carried on to Crooked Furrow....or so I thought. We realised after about a mile that Mark wasn't with us. We shouted and then heard a distant "Yee Haa!" A couple of minutes later lights were spotted in the distance and eventually Mark caught up. Mark had decided to ride Deliverance, in the dark for the first time, but had neglected to inform his riding buddies - for good measure he took the tougher line!
Back together we finished Crooked Furrow and hit the Plough for a couple of pints. Top riding.
Rich