obligatory hombury hill view shot
Ride Report(s) – North Downs 14 and 15 January 2012
Forecast of a cold crisp and sunny weekend drew a lot of mountain bikers including a few cakeriders out to hit the north down trails…2 days of riding and very little mud in January has got to be celebrated.
So with that in mind we arranged 2 days of riding in the north downs/surrey hills. Day 1 was an up and down on Holmbury Hill. We concentrated on the known trails like Barry Knows Best and Telegraph Row as we weren’t sure when we would get to ride them again during winter in such good conditions and also when not been on the bike for a while it makes sense to start with trails you know.
cathy on bkb berms
Arriving at Peaslake it was noticeable just how busy the car park (and benches) were. We both had a slight concern about congested trails but once we were out riding it was not too bad at all.
In fact the only real problem we encountered was due to user error…note for the future less than half recommended air in forks does not make for a controlled ride.
Remember in future to check once in a while.
Apart from this the riding was superb and day was ended with a superb cheese straw/cake/coffee combination. Spot on!
Day 2 involved a bit of trail foraging on Leith Hill. Myself and Ali had talked about this for a while and agreed that the winter sun was the perfect opportunity.
Things did not start off too well when our combined sense of direction meant we could not even find Leith Hill, that is to say we could not find the car parks. After a bit of a tour round this was rectified with only about 20mins of riding time lost.
To get our eye in we did a couple of trails above Deliverance that we have done before. Heading up to the Tower we went straight past to a network of trails we have only ridden a couple of times and found some quality singletrack. One particular trail was a long over camber rooty sweep across the hill which was entertaining to try and keep going. More trails followed with some interesting options that are definitely worth another visit.
jumping ali
Another climb to the Tower for tea and cake and then off down some heavily overgrown singletrack full of blind corners and dips. This seemed to go on for an age and was superb for keeping your concentration levels up.Somehow we ended up back at the aforementioned off camber trail which we just had to give another go and neither of rode with any more style and grace than the first time.
Our overall riding time was about 3 hours on about 70% or so new trails. The good ol’ memory map electronic gadget was on hand so we should be able to find them again.
Another couple of trips in the first few months of 2012 and we may even be able to put them in to a coherent loop.
Also managed to put together short little video of clips from the couple of days. If every winter weekend was like this then riding in the colder months would be far less of a slog than we all brace ourselves for!!
(video done on Windows Live Movie Maker but title and whistling wasn’t hence slightly squint but have to live with it for now)
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