It started off well enough, great setting & weather, bit windy which suggested clockwise was the best route. As a generation team we have to balance a decent score with how hard the younger member wants to ride, but primarily we ride to both enjoy it. We decided on a sweep across the top half to the west side and out north onto the bridleway across the moor with the wind behind us. Say up to an hour for the forest and an hour for the bridleways. Yeh like !
Down to the rocky ford was a bit of fun to start with, except Sam who put both feet down, the climb out was anything but. 11 & 17 easy enough then in & out for 19. We rode, pushed, carried down and back up the hillside, apart from one other rider everybody else we saw ran it ! 18 was an easy in but slog out against the wind. Sam was going like a train at this point & we could possibly add another control into our original plan before turning north. Still for now, stick to the plan, in and out for 13, aptly named as it happens. Great bit of singletrack then the front just folded & off I went, on the way out the bike felt as if the quick release had come undone. No not that but a slow puncture, which explained the unexpected stack earlier. Plenty of time to change it, tyre would not move, then quickly realised my pump wouldn't work, fortunately Sams did. Well over ten minutes later off again to 2, time lost meant we no longer had time to go in and out for 29 so turned up the bridleway to 30.
This is where it went pear shaped. Very faintly on our copy was a bridleway hidden under the out of bounds hatching, angled very slightly NNNW of the correct track. Yep, heads down, trying to make up time we just kept climbing to the top, multiple bridleway posts and tracks but no signpost or control. Have to backtrack and then Sams younger eyes see where we had gone wrong, so over the moor to 30. Not too much time lost, then complete brain fade. We were now approaching 30 from the W not S, instead of going straight through the control & onto 16 we turned right [which is what we would have done if we had approached it correctly in the first place] we now blasted off S. Sam tore off in front and then I realised the forest was on our left it should have been on the right, riding in to the wind he could not hear me so I had to catch him up to stop him. We turned round and again had to climb the hill, through 30 and towards 16 & 26. Now we were up against the clock & the state of the bridleway after all that heavy rain was not going to help, still the views were spectacular. At a sensible pace especially as I now had another front slow puncture, we carried on as it was the only route back to the finish. A bit hairy at times but we were now just out for the ride.
Laugh or cry but there was a final twist to the time wasting. On the way to 12, the sheep dog trials which you should all have seen, were just finishing. As we got to the gate out onto the road we found 3 errant sheep, a misbehaving dog & an irate farmer chasing down the road after them. We daren't open the gate so just stood and watched while more time ticked by.
So what have we learnt:
BUT we did achieve our prime objective...we enjoyed the ride...till next time then
Ian & Sam