Mountain Biking

Went off to find new trails on Saturday and found the ‘Theives Road’ from West Linton, up and over the Pentlands to the A70. Although there isn’t much linking in at the other end, I thought it looked like a nice enough route.

The trail is a mixture of tarmac; fire road; single track over moor land and then small north-shore style bridges... lots of bridges. Some really nice sweet bits and the climb up to the ridge is relatively painless; no nasty big climbs, just a steady plod. Dropping down the North side towards the A70 I started to get rained on - which quickly turned into a thunder storm, complete with very close lightning and hail. Nice....

A little bit of road (with your head down because of the torrential rain, it didn’t seem to last long), I linked things up with the trails around Harlaw and climbed up and over Maidens Clough, dropping down to Glencorse. Back on normal territory, up and back over the ridge, dropping back down Monks Rig towards Nine Mile Burn and home.

Nice 4 hour ride; about 50Km, probably about 60% off road; those bridges need a second visit as they go from easy to ridiculous in technicality!

Giles has offered up (i.e. found on the ‘net) some rules for faffing; as they seem to be difficult to follow and rife for abuse (in terms of people being allocated DHT points), they have been added to the Wiki @ http://mtb.maui.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Faffage and linked to the ‘Rules’ page.....

So, now you know there are rules about faffage!

Who?s there ? Certainly not Marty, Nora or Becs, as they either still trying to find the M56, or are taking the ?scenic? route from Penmachno to Llandegla.

It seems (according to the passengers) that the driver is responsible for not only getting there but also all the navigation - while maintaining a conversation with the other occupants. Nice to know that this isn?t a blame culture....

Once the panzerwaggen arrived at Llandegla, we managed to get a whole ride in without any mechanicals*; some opting for the blue route, some the red (by accident) and black for the others. It would be nice to say no one was injured either, but Bev decided to test the ?weakness? of the local gravity. Needless to say, it was a clear one-sided victory.

(* mechanical failures of bikes that is)

Saturday night in Chez Huckley was only slightly spoiled by some idiot trying to introduce the ?21? drinking game to the assembled bodies; then things went downhill even further with the introduction of mentally challenging rules. Wasn?t long before it was abandoned; but the male parentage of Mr Rimmer was once more called into question.

The group was joined on Sunday by Daffyd and DHT, numbers remaining consistent with Jean and Bruce heading off for a walk. Across the fields we trooped (on foot) to ride Penmachno; long variant. A damp day created some challenging rocky surfaces, easy to slip and take a tumble. Pilot error from Marty pitting leg vs slate wall. Another easy victory to long standing rules of physics; this time inertia and the conservation of momentum.

Good day of riding and good laugh (mainly at the expense of a lonely X3 driver regarding map reading and general directions based quips).

See some of you in Scotland for the next ?planned? ride; if you can find your way that is.....

And so it came to pass that four of us turned up at Glentress for a night ride. Nora and Cdek getting there first, allowing Nora some 'fettling' time to re-adjust a front mech end-stop. AJ had kindly brought a spare light unit for Nora too, so what could possibly go wrong............

Fettling obviously went well, as the front mech seemed to behave ok; we guess it was during this process that he also noticed the absence of his front wheel... Uni-cycles have been seen before, but as statuatory sick pay hasn't reached the Nora household yet, we got a call enroute to 'bring another wheel'.... Doh....

With a spare wheel (and indeed bike) picked up from Carlops, we arrived and fortunately for Nora, his consistency between bikes paid off. We also tested out the loaner light, only to find it wasn't the light unit, but the battery - and we hadn't brought the spare battery with us.... Just as well there was a spare head torch in the car!

With a very quick turn around, were underway to a glorious sunset backdrop over the Pentlands. Before long we needed lights, climbing into the snow line. April, snow... didn't expect that.

Spooky wood had patches of crisp snow - you never quite knew what was underneath, but no acrobatics reported. As we dropped down lower, the snow went and the trails were in fine form.

Fun and frollics all round. No idea what time Nora got home, but as we ended up searching the road for the GPS he had left on his roof as he drove off, no doubt his house keys were left in the front door and the engine in the car is still running.

Next time Nora goes for a ride with you, send him a check list beforehand....

With Cdek in town, we’ve planned a second attempt at a night ride tonight - hopefully Nora’s lights will actually emit photons on this occasion. The weather is still cold and the ground behind the house is very wet again, so it’ll be a Glentress visit.