Heads up, Heels down…

Date: 28th November
Riders: Rich; Roy; Dave; Andy; Mark2
Area: Holmbury and Pitch

A lovely day for a ride as I slowly drove the van up through the picture postcard Abinger and idyllic Holmbury area, the sun shining though the trees as the morning mist slowly cleared….. only to be shattered by wide boy Andy in his wicked new white 5-10’s standing in the middle of the car park gassing with his homeboys on his phone, owning the place, sorted

Joke aside, welcome Andy to the world of flat peddles and 5-10 shoes which come in many styles, ironically none of which have any style… but who cares as 15mins into the ride all our shoes looked the mud covered same any how.

The Ride.

This is where I lack the knowledge, so bear with me and use your imagination to fill in the gaps. As a warm up we wound our way up the fire road from the car park, eventually coming to the lookout. All our minds were on the new and improved “Barry Knows Best” so we didn’t hang around to enjoy the view and got straight on down “an unknown muddy tail” to the top of BKB where Richard gave us a quick briefing prior to launch one.

BKB best was executed in style utilising all we learnt from our training session two weeks prior. Especially on the lower half which was awesome. So good in fact we barely stopped peddling before heading back up the bridle way for a second go which for me was even faster and smoother then the first. I’ll mention here that at no time did Richard point out his and MarkD’s sacred berm. All of them were good though.

Before heading to Peaslake café for tea and cake, Roy to the opportunity to take a rest on a soft part of the road!? Must have been all the excitement?? Who knows?

A nice cup of rosey at the café where we bumped in to Richard “second half of summer lightning is s**t” Bishops best buddy Ben “I built the second half of summer lightning” Tudor. Still onwards.

A long climb up to Pitch hill checking out some (on my part) poorly executed jumps. Down “an unknown muddy trail” or two and onto the steep Huggy Bear where yet again skills recently learnt (weight into the frame braking technique) was duly employed to great effect by all but me. With the chicken s**t in me surfacing, I decided to walk down but my 5 10’s stealth rubber failed me and all that stopped me from sliding to the bottom were my Endura Humvees which then ripped. Luckily for me it’s the Christmas season, so a new pair will have to be bought.

Onwards to another ”unknown muddy trail”, a quick stop for Richard to misdirect some fellow lost MTB’ers and some how, after much peddling we ended up on Telegraph. We rode Telegraph giving it the opportunity to coat us in one more layer of mud. Down the steep switch back trail to the car park and home for a date with the hosepipe, nice.

Good weather, Good company, Great ride.