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Combe Raiders Swanage Weekend

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For the second weekend in a row, I was off to Swanage for a riding trip.  To make a pleasant change, I had the short drive to get to a Combe Raiders ride – fifty-five miles instead of the normal hundred to Taunton.  Arriving early due to the afternoon off work, I quite happily passed time in the local bike discussing bike-packing & my next bike.

The ten others turned up in dribs & drabs; once settled into the dormitory/bunkhouse & John had dinner prepared we headed out for a quick ride before it got dark (after being told not to bring lights, I forgot to pack the small ones from my commuter).  Most of the trails in the area I was familiar with from the SSUK 2013 events of the previous weekend, although we did find a nice little descent off the other side of the golf course.  Up onto that ridge again, I had to walk about twenty metres as the headwind was gusty & it was just too much on a singlespeed.   The downhill off the ridge & back into town was just as good & is even better when someone has opened the gate on the blind corner halfway down.

I think this weekend away had been booked well before this was decided, but somewhere along the way it turned into a bit of a celebration of D’s fiftieth birthday – but perhaps that’s just what the guys with wives had to use as a reason to get away for a weekend of biking. Either way, there was special Combe Raider cider, whisky that I actually found palatable & a very enjoyable Friday night. Somehow I managed to avoid the rooms with the chronic snorers – snoring stories are much funnier the next morning when it’s not you that has been kept awake all night.

It would have been too much to expect two glorious weekends in a row – but Saturday was reasonably nice as we headed out to the lap that John, Rich & I had done last week (except they’d wizened up & brought bikes with gears – I was the only nutter left on a singlespeed).

Near the start of the ride – a pub we didn’t go in (well, I had the week before).

“If you’ve got time to hold gates open – get to the back & ride up with the stragglers.” Up the first climb – Isle of Wight just visible in background.

Rich standing in front of Swanage.

As this was the same ride as I’ve already detailed last week – just without the two-hundred odd singlespeeders – I’ll spare you the details, except I rode everything again. Normally, when riding around those with multitudes-more-gears-than-me I don’t mind getting off & walking if I have to; but this time I knew I could ride all of the big hills, so made myself do so – my knees weren’t so happy about that. We stopped in Corfe Castle because someone said there was a good bakery there – I had a great pasty & danish again. The climb up to Kingston was a bit easier this time around  & soon enough we were back at the Square & Compass – nice ale & I convinced myself I deserved another pasty. Back into town via Priest’s Way & time for ice cream by the seaside.

Come Sunday, we’d done most of the trails of note (or so we’d been told) & were looking for a slightly easier & shorter ride before the respective drives home. Somehow, it fell to me to cobble together a route using two photocopied OS maps; I’m not sure that was the best idea for those looking for a cruisy Sunday ride – after all I was riding a tank of a singlespeed (I still can’t believe how heavy it is – that had conveniently escaped my memory before I brought it back from NZ last year) & could not be thought of as taking it easy. Pleasingly for a group of eleven, we only had one mechanical for the weekend – & that was only a puncture on Sunday morning when we weren’t pressed for time. Coming off the Priest’s Way (this time riding up it) we found ourselves in the middle of a Wiggle sportive for roadies. For the next fifteen minutes we had a great time chasing down those ever-cheerful breed of cyclists that wouldn’t even smile or return a greeting as they whizzed past us. I don’t think one of them was overly impressed by being tailed by mountain-bikers – although the icing on the cake was when I managed to pass one up a hill.

I think this photo was taken to show the niceness of the countryside – very pleasant to ride through, if not as spectacular as some recent photos.

After we got over the hilarity at being sworn at by irate roadies that couldn’t handle knobbly tyres passing them, we found a descent we hadn’t done yet. Down the side of a ploughed field, where I was filled with my usual trepidation of riding parallel to barbed wire fencing, we were in between hedgerows and all of a sudden the trail got really rocky & absolute great fun. This was the part of the weekend I most wished I was riding the bike I had in Moab. We joined the main road back into Corfe Castle, joining up with the road contingent before stopping at the bakery again.

More new route took us north of Corfe Castle where we discovered a nicely wooded section filled with bluebells, other flowers & mostly-smooth fun trail. Up & over another ridge & we could see the village of the lunch-pub in the distance.

I had one more nasty surprise on the map – what turned out to be the steepest climb of the weekend.  Unfortunately, we could all see it coming – I was pretty sure that I would be walking up that as it looked like loose boulders at the bottom of a continually high gradient.  To get to it, we had a reasonable climb on the road where we passed more of our road friends again.  I was pleased to clear the whole climb – somehow I negotiated all the rocks before settling down to slowly push the pedals around & get to the top.  From the top of the ridge, we could see the weather closing in – there wasn’t much to see from the lookout, so what else to do but head to lunch in Kingston.

We finally got rained on, for the first time of the weekend (not bad going), sitting in the beer garden waiting for a delicious lunch.  The bonus of the beer garden was we (well, D – he who got sworn at) could boo every roadie that went past.  Then the road got slick & they started crashing on the corner in the village & it would have been funny if they had not needed medical attention.  With the rain set in, we took the easy fast route back to our cars in town.

So a great weekend, where the company was the highlight, the riding was good, the food & drink plentiful and I didn’t blow my knees apart – well organised John.

bikes, combe raiders, GPS, MTB, UK

Exmoor coastal route

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The idea after such an intense riding holiday was to have a week off the bike & get back to normal life.  That didn’t last long when I realised that the weather in the UK was a huge improvement on that when I left for the States.  After a day of surviving work & jetlag, I was out in the forest the day after surprised to see how much drier it was.

I got my singlespeed rear wheel back from the shop (new freehub) later that week & promptly went to Somerset for a Saturday ride that was supposed to be hilly with some of the Combe Raiders.  I was still quite excited by Moab (heck, I still am & it’s over two weeks later), so John & Anna got the undoubted pleasure of sitting through a lot of photos as I tried to contain myself – Anna probably got bored & John really jealous.  Getting out the door early Saturday meant I didn’t get to see much of the twins, but hopefully they’ll still remember me.

We met at Dunster Castle and the four of us headed to the beach for a bit of a sandy seafront section.  It was almost warm & definitely sunny.  The ride was a good mix of nice downhills and some big climbs – one of which ended up defeating me on the singlespeed & I had to walk a little.  As always riding with this small group the put-on West Country accents abounded & there was much amusement.

There’s the Quantocks behind – our more usual riding destination

We’re all still quite pleased with the shirts

After a slight detour for a much lauded plate of ham, egg & chips and a pint, we were back on the loop for a nasty climb – close to 15% for much of the first half. As this one had a slightly more reliable surface, it was just manageable – although I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to keep with John on his 29er fully rigid singlespeed (actually the bike is not important – John will always be a stronger rider for me to try & keep up with).

Eventually we ended up back in Dunster for ice creams

There was a castle – although we didn’t get much closer than this – note the map of NZ in the bottom right

A good ride to get back in to UK riding, pleasantly dry & much fun. I was glad I made the rather mad effort to get across to Somerset on the roundabout route to London to visit a NZ friend & his new wife as they were finishing their big European trip/honeymoon. Unfortunately, my car cut out just as I reached the M25 junction on the M3 & I ended up waiting three hours for breakdown assistance – I was a little cold, tired, hungry & fed-up by the end of that. I never made it to London, limped home exhausted & have sent that rather problematic car back to the dealer – I now wait patiently for an acceptable replacement.

bikes, combe raiders, GPS, MTB, national park, UK

A Dartmoor Hail Ride

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A long-since arranged weekend staying with family in Somerset happily coincided with a later-planned Combe Raiders ride on Dartmoor.  Still trying to build up a bit of bike fitness and always keen to explore new places (my only other visit to Dartmoor was on the way back from Cornwall and consisted mostly of Devonshire Cream Teas and a short stroll), I was looking forward to what promised to be a full day of riding.

When we turned up at the meeting point it transpired that the leader of the ride had some sort of horse-related emergency at home and wouldn’t be making it along.  As I was the one that had found the gpx of the route described in a local guide book, Muggins Me ended up leading the ride.  It worked out reasonable well – with aonly three or four quickly corrected misdirections; no eight kilometre detour this time, as on the last CR ride.  It was a little difficult to set a good pace on the only singlespeed in the group – as there are really only two speeds with such a bike: walk & whatever-the-legs-are-capable-of-at-that-instant.  With a lot of decent climbs I think everyone walked more than they should have with gears as I was quick to get off & push when 32:16 just became a waste of energy with diminishing returns.

Enough of that, we had a thirty-two kilometre loop to look forward to as the sunshine & cloud quickly alternated on what was not too cold a morning.   We started off with a big gravel track descent before following a river upstream briefly and then being hit with a big climb out of the valley.  Things flattened out a bit as we had our longest stretch of country roads.  As the seal ended it was time for the first of many well-earned snack stops – most of which were taken hidden behind big stone walls.

Still smiling at the first stop in the relative dry

Through a monster puddle, a brief coats on or coats off stop, through a farm yard and it was straight into the second proper big climb of the day.  This one was past some old open mine shafts – which I’m guessing were for tin way back when.  As we were starting to get towards moorland proper this climb was not on such a firm surface and strangely as we got near the top the grass got wetter and wetter – as did our feet.

There was another great big stone wall to hide from the wind behind as we ate again – this time almost mobbed by rather inquisitive sheep (“heard of chickens?” – sorry small NZ in-joke).

The view opened up a bit over to where we started from

On to some more moor-like terrain

The sun is out – for now

With a fun, but sodden downhill we were at our furtherest point and after I ummed & ahhed a bit of where the trail actually went and my rear wheel fell out of its stays (QR bent, I may have over tensioned my chain a bit) we found the sweetest bit of singletrack that we had encountered up to that point.  Which was just as well as that little bit (more than forty-five minutes) wasn’t in the book – but was on the trail I had found online.

As we climbed up to Grimspound the clouds rolled in and then all of a sudden the temperature dropped and the hail slowly started.  Up on the ridge it really started pelting us and it was amusing (for me at least, as I was sufficiently protected) to hear yelps of pain as various riders’ ears were struck with the little balls of ice.  Due to it not being too cold, it was quite good fun riding through a hail storm.

The ridge top was a lot longer than we were hoping

With the hail returning we hid under some trees for more food – with no leaves on, the trees weren’t all that much use for shelter.

Just before Hound Tor, we stopped in the relative calm at the Hound of the Basket Meals food van for welcome hot chocolates and tea.  The hail started again as we rode up to Hound Tor and most of us had at least one part of our extremities that were proper cold – for me it was my feet from all the walking across wet ground.  Dropping off the back there was a nice technical (considering the not-quite-peak-state-of-alertness most of us were in) descent before the climb back to a short section of road.

Half the group took a shortcut back to the cars as they were keen to get back for the rugby – I was quite happy that the other half had enough left for the last four kilometres of the route.  The first part of that was very singlespeed friendly terrain – somehow I was still at the front and I enjoyed using up some of the energy I’d held in reserve through a nice reasonably-flowing quick bit of trail before we plunged down to the river and then back up to the car.  By then I’d well warmed up again, but pleased of course to get the wet clothes off & put dry ones on.

That was a great introduction to the so-called wilds of Dartmoor and there wasn’t a part of that wet, not too cold overall ride when I wasn’t enjoying myself.

bikes, combe raiders, GPS, MTB, national park, UK

Exmoor ride – a three year late return

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With February completely devoid of blog posts, it would easy to say that not much really happened.  No travelling & no mountain-biking due to the persistently wet weather & soaking trails in the Forest.  As it turned out, it was just as well I planned very little as all of a sudden I ended up moving house (other end of the village with more living space, bike storage in the garage, fewer flatmates and a lot more conducive to sleep – a slightly longer ride to work, but that’s good) and then my car comprehensively failed its annual inspection and I had to find another in a hurry (unfortunately using money I was setting aside for a new bike & bikepacking gear).

So with March rolling around, I was all too pleased to get away to Somerset and a ride on Exmoor.  It having been much too long since my last visit on a memorably bleak, wet & freezing New Year ride. I was pleased to be back in one of England’s smallest national parks.  My first ride here was on vacation in 2008 when I left Mum at her cousin’s & hightailed it down to Taunton for the first of many visits.

Apparently it was a warmer weekend back at home, but it definitely wasn’t in Somerset – grey skies and the mercury just breaking freezing made for extra layers at the start of the ride, as it happens they stayed on the whole way around.  With the brakes still squealing like a stuck pig on my 1×9, I was single-speeding again – generally not so bad, but there were a few hills that I had to walk part of the way up.  The eight kilometre detour on the road after a missed turning didn’t particularly help.  The ride proper was mostly bridleways, crossing fields and a little bit of singletrack and linking road – a good mix with ample variation.

The furtherest part of the 8 km detour

Considering there were only four of us, we astonishingly managed to extend three hours of riding (37 km) in to a six and a half hour outing!  There were four punctures – I found mine just after Richard had finished fixing the first of his three, a coffee stop (sausage roll for me), and a delightful lunch at a guesthouse – the local corned beef, large slabs of delicious Exmoor blue cheese, ales and pickled shallots made for quite the ploughman’s lunch.  Additionally, we had the dining room to ourselves so the banter and broad put-on West Country accents could keep flowing without disturbing those in the village there to look at the carpets of recently blooming snowdrops.

John heading off to take photos

Richard fixing his first flat under the watchful eye of a large & menacing flock – menacing if you’ve seen Black Sheep, that is

D trying to make a poor choice of photo location more interesting than it was

The only advantage of being out so long was that the day eventually cleared

Not having been offroad for seven weeks I was pleased with how my legs stood up to the punishment that 32:16 hands out after a few hills and a long day in the saddle.  Strangely, up one particularly steep grunt of a climb my chain slipped off as I stood on the pedals (bashed my knee good & proper on the crown of my fork) – I shall have to shorten the chain by a couple of links and bring the eccentric bottom bracket back around a long way. I’m looking forward to Dartmoor with the same friends & a few others in a fortnight’s time.

Back to John & Anna’s for the night – entertaining the twins (three year old Esther & Lydia), a good film, an excuse to cook wonderfully unhealthy French toast & bacon for Sunday breakfast and best of all teaching the girls to ride a pedal bike. Such delight & excitement manifesting itself on faces – & that was just John & Anna! By the time we were all worn out, as well as riding unaided in lines of varying straightness – there was also proper steering and braking action going on. Much fun had by all – even me who was just running up & down the sidewalk/footpath entertaining the alternating bike-less child. A great return to weekends of going places & doing things – just as well, because that’s the first of eleven (at least) in a row.