first hilltop rest
Always surprised me just how steep the riding around the Long Mynd is. The cimb out of the car park is a classic example. Once you have gone through the stream a couple of times at the bottom it just keeps on going on a fairly wide track with drainage ditches every 10metres for added hardship.
Not sure that Rich and Pod were helped in dealing with this by consuming pre-ride cake, though it did look good. The changing weather meant getting the right temperature when riding was a bit of a black art that I don’t think any of us mastered.
Once at the top of the first climb a slight downhill took us to the glider club for the fist time where the first puncture of the day was experienced.
The next downhill was steeper and in these modern times of full suspension could be “hooned” down at speed. Unfortunately in keeping with the old-skool xc nature of the ride I was riding a fully rigid bike. This meant that even a fast doubletrack descent with relatively small rocks gave the bingo wings a good workout.
steep road climb
At the bottom of this descent the fully rigid nature of the bike came in to its own. To get back up to start the Minton Batch involved a steep road climb. This was quite a long slog up but was certainly the quickest way of getting up there.
Once up there it was the Minton Batch descent down. This is a proper cross country decent which is pretty fast and narrow in places and is certainly the highlight of this ride. Pootling along country roads followed to find a lunch spot before any more climbing.
A surprisingly manageable climb (in sections) took us past the Glider club for the final descent of the day. This fun grassy descent should have been but it had been decided to push back up a grassy hill for a really not worth doubletrack descent through the middle of a golf course.
Once back at the car park a lovely piece of cake and coffee were most welcome. As well as the classic English views we were treated to on the ride we also got the most English of Morris Dancers and steam engines. Though I missed the dancers as I was packing the car.
picturesque
All in all good to ride somewhere different to the usual with some stunning views and top quality cake.
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