Sorting

When I woke up this morning I thought, "bugger mountain biking, i'm going back to sleep" Thankfully I decided to drag my lazy tired arse out of bed and meet Stuart as planned.

We drove over to Scolty and headed out along the trial down the first short, but fun descent, I did however notice the effects of my heavy rucksack which contained tools, my camera and lenses, water, food and my waterproof coat, I intentionally took all of this with me hoping the extra weight and effort needed to shift it, would somehow help in getting some fitness and form back, and soon it proved true as we climbed the fire road up the hill.

We arrived at the Shooting Greens car park and were watched by 5 other guys who had arrived there before us, maybe the fact we were both on hardtails had something to do with it, or maybe it was my nail varnish pink bike that did it. We were acknowledged with a quick hello before they re mounted their full bouncers to climb back up the rooty trail. Once myself and Stuart finished our sandwiches we jumped on the bike and made it our mission to catch up with these guys, quite tricky considering the first section of trail is covered in roots and rocks, it has become my new 'no dabs' trail, something which I haven't managed yet.

We soon met up with the fire road and saw the 5 other cyclists ahead, so carried on with the high pace, we then joined onto the back of them just as we made or way back into the forest onto some singletrack, we all got to the same part of the climb and stopped for a rest and finally got speaking, from here on in, we rode as a big group.

The next section is then a narrow, tricky section of trail on soft muddy ground, I went mental and decided to ride it as quick as I could, once I got down I had a bit of a wait before Stuart arrived, he had had a slight off knocking his knee on a rock, and hitting the side of his head on a tree, he seemed fine so we all carried on to the top of Scolty.

Here is where the other group proved useful, they showed us a downhill section strewn with big rocks and bumps which we had so far missed when we went up there, this is where their full suspension bikes showed up the weaknesses of a hardtail as they headed straight down the trail over any obstacles which came their way, myself and Stuart had to pick our lines more carefully whilst still throwing caution to the wind to try and keep up, it was such a big adrenaline rush!

We all arrived saefly back at the car park, and even got an invite to ride some other local hills with these other guys, i might just have to take them up on it!

Back home I tried to sort through the hundreds of photos taken yesterday, I only managed to get through half of them!