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Date: 5th July 2009
Riders: Richard, Davebus, Felix, Jason and Steve
Mickleham Downs, Headley Heath, Reigate Hill, colley Hill and beyond
Weather: 28°C

After being hit by two (yes two) cars this week on my commute into work it was nice to get back to the sanctity of off-road riding. The first was on Monday morning and I was riding along the narrow but busy section of the New Kent Road having just successfully negotiated the daily adrenaline buzz that is the Elephant and Castle roundabout complex.

For those of you that don’t know it, this section of road has the worst surface of the entire journey and it’s a battle just to keep moving straight. Nevertheless I was doing so successfully and at a reasonable 20mph with my hands on the drops when a purple fiesta accelerated past me and caught my right hand with its wing mirror.
Luckily I managed to keep the bars steady and avoided being flung to the ground in front of a stream of following traffic. I managed to catch up with said Fiesta driven by a woman in her late 20’s with a daughter of about 10 years old sitting in the passenger seat and motioned for her to wind down the window.


For the sake of her daughter I managed to remain calm and asked her to be more careful but I don’t know what was more worrying, the fact that she hit me or that she clearly didn’t have a clue why I was having a go at her.


The second occasion was on Tuesday evening in Clapham High Street. A builders van had already cut me up once and when it did it again as I swerved left to avoid it I stuck my right elbow out and ran it down the side of the van which created a nice loud sound but ultimately caused no damage (to me or the van) but made my point. A full and frank exchange of views followed and that was the end of that.


So back to today and a new ride for Davebus. After spending years riding all that the big red 'S' offers in the full suss department (Stumpjumper and Enduro followed by full carbon Stumpjumper) he has decided to give a good ole hardtail a go in the shape of dialled Mike's latest version of the classic Prince Albert frame.


A smallish group of us set what must be a record by all riding to the start point at LOMAC in Ashtead from our respective homes and then setting off a full three minutes BEFORE the planned start time. Let that be a lesson to those laggards out there who see the start time as a rough time to arrive in the car before spending another 15 minutes getting changed and fettling their bikes ;-)


We head off onto the dry and dusty trails covering the North Downs Way, the very overgrown secret singletrack and the fast, chalky Colley Hill descent taking in a decent chunk of the legendary ‘Big 8’ route which we haven’t ridden for some considerable time and it was great to be back on the old trails which are riding sweetly in this prolonged dry period.


Dave was finding the Prince Albert great fun on the descents and realising the benefits of all that direct drive to the rear wheel without the rear suspension sucking up most of his effort on the climbs as he motored up then (he's wasn't slow on the climbs to start with).


I felt good today and managed to stick with Felix at the front of the group on the climb up to Reigate Hill which is very unusual. No doubt Felix probably wasn’t aware of my efforts or even trying hard himself but its all about how I feel!


A fast blast along the fun singletrack section alongside Walton Heath golf club before a final fun descent down the rocky singletrack to the foot of Epsom Downs where the group split up and went their separate ways with a final tally of 32 miles for me but I felt great at the end and could have ridden another ten miles easily.


With the weather set to remain warm and dry for the foreseeable future roll on next weekend but more importantly here’s to a safe commute.

an authentic Thai (wan) build Steve in the middle of the overgrown secret singletrack Steve ploughs into the ferns Jason and the view from the North Downs Way

Dave Richard tries out Dave's new ride a pause on the top of Colley Hill heading down Colley Hill

steve on Colley Hill Jason Jason descending Colley Hill Steve watches Felix

Steve poses whilst Richard descends Richard on the stony trail paralley with Ebbisham Lane Dave

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Date: 12th July 2009
Riders: Richard, Davebus, Felix, Steve, Rob, Nick, Neil, Lee, Gazza and Mark
Holmbury Hill and Pitch Hill
Weather: 21°C

The whole world knows that all true Brits love to complain about the weather and as a British mountain biker I find myself constantly looking at weather updates throughout the working week in anticipation of the weekend.

I find that rain early on in the week is okay as the trails will have a chance to recover but a late splurge of rain always leaves you feeling nervous over what the trails will be like come Sunday morning.

So with some heavy rain experienced on Saturday afternoon and evening I knew today was going to be soggy and made a mental note on Saturday evening (that was soon forgotten in a haze of beer and curry) to affix my trusty crud catcher to the Prince Albert frame.

Being a glasses/contact lens wearer I rode for years with shades/eye protectors to avoid getting dirt in my eyes but over the last year I have been enjoying the freedom of “shade-free” or "bareback" riding bought about by one too many rides where my shades would constantly fog up and I would be unable to clean them.

I also ended up with all my shades scratched from numerous botched wiping attempts when my clothes and shades were full of the gritty mud familiar to these parts.

With the Youth Hostel car park having more riders and more cars in it than your average UK trail centre it looked like it was going to be a busy day out on the trails. One large group was waiting for some bloke who had forgotten to bring a skewer for his front wheel. Now I’ve forgotten or mislaid many bike parts or equipment in my time but a skewer, why would you store that at home separately to your wheel?

I got the Prince Albert out of the car and spotted that it still had a light patina of dust on it from the last few weeks dry and dusty conditions but it was clear that wouldn’t last for long.

But that’s the strange thing about the Surrey Hills, they are large enough with enough different trails for you to see very few other riders at all expect sitting or standing around outside the perennially busy Peaslake Stores. You know, from the cleanliness of their bikes and clothing on a day like today, I’m sure some riders just spend the whole day sitting there and posing and never actually get out on the trails.

We were focused on singletrack trails today and rode a twisting route over Holmbury and Pitch Hill’s with the only downside being Gazza not spotting a sandy bank on one of the steep roll-ins due to his dark glasses (another reason to add to the above examples of why I stopped wearing mine) and although he managed to avoid a total wipeout he jarred his lower back whilst landing on his feet and was in pain for the rest of the ride.

I did however have to pull up sharply on the Yoghurt Pots trail as a large lump of gritty mud flicked straight into my left eye: I told you I should have fitted that crud catcher.

A fairly short ride of 16 and a half miles but today was about smiles not miles!

any old iron?

dialled bikes Prince Albert Gazza just manages to save himself by grabbing a handy tree stump

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