Date: 13th June 2010
Riders: Richard, Davebus, Tim, Rob, Keith and Mark
Newlands Corner and back
Weather: 19°C

Another mild and dry Sunday morning sees me set out shortly before 9 a.m. for the five mile warm-up ride to LOMAC to meet Dave, Tim and Keith. I'm riding the 725 Prince Albert today after a few weekends 'fun' riding on the SX as Dave has a long classic XC route in mind.

We are on a mission to day and there's very little hanging around as we set off at 9-28 a.m and we are off road within 500 metres and heading down past the BP offices before crossing over the M25 bridge then up past the A25 dirt jumps with Dave setting a storming pace up front.

We head down the back roads of Leatherhead to the bridge over the River Mole where we meet Rob and Mark who is riding his newly built up Sanderson 'Breath' steel frame with a nice Cane Creek headset framing the laser etched logo put in by your favourite webmeister).

Up the short climb to Hawks Hill and across to to Bocketts Farm and still there's hardly a pause for breath. Luckily I'm feeling good but Rob is struggling a bit as we head along Admiral Road, past Polesden Road and onto the road on Ranmore Common.

We cut in at the Scout Camp and along 'Collarbone' before heading down the White Down descent by the Picketts Hole track.

Crossing over the railway line we pass Deerleap woods and are in the Abinger Roughs which I had asked Dave to point out to me (I love the name but couldn't work out where it was. Turns out I have ridden it dozens of times).

We pass the Samuel Wilberforce memorial and onto Broomy Downs where we turn left onto Hackhurst Lane before crossing the road in Abinger Hammer.

Here we use various trails through Gomshall and Shere until we get to the final chalky climb up to Newlands Corner.

Dave has done a 'Wiggo' over the last few months and is looking svelte having slimmed down from close on 16 stone (220 pounds or 102 kg) to just over 14 stone (196 pounds or 89 kg) whilst losing none of his power and he flies up the the climb.

I start at the back of the pack but gradually leave Rob, Mark and Tim behind as I reel in Keith ahead of me. Finally all those commuting miles I'm putting in seem to be benefitting me and Keith and I battle it out wheel to wheel as we approach the top (don't worry sports fans, I won although I'm not sure I actually delared it was a race to Keith!)

We pause for a tea break at Newlands Corner and I stuff a few bars and bananas to keep my energy levels up. I also make the others laugh as I clean the stanchions on my Fox Vanilla forks with the banana skin. Well, it was the only thing I could find to wipe off the dirty oil collecting on the left leg!

We then head then back along the North Downs Way which is a much more direct route back and onto Drove Road. Down the Hogden track to Polsden Lacey and back onto the Admiral track retracing our route back through Leatherhead and back to LOMAC.

No-one had an odometer but it's about 28 miles covered from LOMAC (33 for me) and I can add on another five mile warm-down to get back home making it a thoroughly decent 38 miles and still back by 2 p.m. in time to do some gardening.

Date: 18th to 20th June 2010
Riders: Richard, Rob, Lee, Paul, Ross, Brett, Colin and Tony
Welsh Road Trip
Weather: 21°C

A long weekend away sees us visit North Wales to sample the delights of the Cli-MachX trail, Coed-y-Brenin and the Penmachno trail.

But that's not all, if you couldn't make the Welsh road trip then Davebus was leading a ride round the Surrey Hills whilst Cas was leading a 210km leg-burning road ride.

But back to Wales and Rob, Lee and I rolled up to my house on Friday morning and fille dthe Zafira up with 3 bikes, bags and plenty of other kit including duvets and sleeping bags for the four and a half hour trip to North Wales.

We headed first to the Cli-MackX trail which features the self-styled 'longest descent in Wales'. As we finally found the miniscule signage and rocked up in the empty car-park which was completely devoid of home comforts save for an honesty box we quickly got changed at at about 4pm set out on the trail.

I have to ssay that most of this trail didn't really do it for me. Purpose built singletrack which wasn't particularly testing save for the lat few kilometres when it became a bit more fun.

The descent was eye-wateringly fast and hair-raising although it didn't necessarily feel the longest I have ridden in Wales but it was good fun. About an hour and ten minutes of riding to cover 19km.

We then drove to the bunkhouse we were staying at and met the other guys who had kindly arranged the whole weekend for us. A few beers down the pub and a shoddy England performance and we were soon settled in.

The next day after a leisurely rising and a great cooked breakfast (thanks Colin and Brett) we rode The Beast, the biggest and best trail at Coed-y-Brenin at a shade under 40km.

We set off together at 11 a.m. and set a reasonable pace. On the first long climb the group started to break up with me, Rob and Lee out front. We didn't know it but Brett had a mechanical and had gone back to Summit Cycles for a replacement gear cable.

Rob, Lee and I decided to push on. We thought one of us would no doubt suffer a puncture and the rest would catch up. But it wasn't to be and as the sun rose and it got hotter and hotter and the trail went on farther and farther it felt as though we were alone in the great wilderness. There really were very few other riders out on the trail.

The trail is great although there are a few long fire road sections which do not much except rack up the mileage and height gained columns. I recognised these sections as part of the old Karrimoor trail from my first visit way back in March 2002.

Back to the cafe for a late lunch at 2-30pm and it was a long 80 minute wait for the rest of the crew to join us. But fair play to them, they were up for another ride and in the late afternoon we set out on The Tarw Trail which again I recognised as the old MBR trail. It was whilst we were riding this that Colin mentioned they had cut out the fireroad loop from the Beast, saving circa 10k. Needless to say, we didn't let them forget that for the rest of the weekend.

Sunday morning and after another great fry-up we headed to the Penmachno trail at Betwys-y-Coed. Again, it's not very well signposted but we turned up to a crowded car park. we decided after a long weekend to do the shorter 11km loop but after another navigation issue we ended up riding part of the larger loop.

After another short cut (this time it was welcomed by me, Rob and Lee) we ended up riding 19km and enjoyed some fantastically fast descents along narrow, rocky singletrack.

The trip home saw us pick up an e-bay purchase by Rob from Leamington Spa before being caught up in the Sunday afternoon traffic queues on the M40.

A great weekend and road-trip. It was really fun to ride the separate trail centres and do some new routes to normal.