Uphill – Whitedown at its best

“Great ride”, shouted Dandy as he peeled off, “can you do the ride report.” So, six days later, here it is – short and sweet. I’ll blame a long busy week in a safety meeting.

DDub, Elliot, Lloyd and Dandy, were waiting as I rolled into the Bocketts car park. Lloyd had a basic plan of riding Petrol Pump down to Tillings for tea, so we took advantage of the dry sunny conditions to ascend Yew Trees via Hogden Lane and Pamplona. We continued onto Wire in the Blood, with the gnarlsters plunging on into the valley, while Lloyd and I split off for the more civilised Landrover descent.

After the unbridled joy of an early Whitedown ascent we headed west along Trouble in Paradise to Short and Sweet, which is now running pretty well after the disruption of winter logging. After Abba Zabba we avoided the road, heading instead along the ridge to the Drovers Road then down Petrol Pump to Tillings. The top half of PP had been pretty much obliterated by the recent logging operations, but it is now rideable and a clear trail is now re-emerging, with the bottom half below the bridle way as good as ever.

Many of our wives wonder what we talk about when we are enjoying a coffee and cake, and on this occasion it was the implications of brake pad choices, and midget porn – purely from the existential perspective. And of course the pros and cons of the cake choices – carrot cake was particularly good today.

The Colekitchen climb took us back up onto the ridge with Elliot and I opting for the quicker direct ascent along the side of Colekitchen farm, and then we all enjoyed Wonderland and Bingo Bongo Dave before heading back via Orestan Lane.

Getting home I had clocked up over 21 miles and nearly 2,500ft climbing.

More photos are on Flickr.

About the author

John has been biking in the Surrey Hills since the late 1990s but only started riding with the MuddyMoles in 2008. In the couple of years since then he has learned more about mountain biking from the Moles than he learned in the previous ten.

Having remained loyal to his vintage pale blue and orange Stumpjumper hardtail since the last century, he has recently explored the limits of his storage space and his wife’s patience by adding an On-One Inbred Singlespeed and an Orange Five.

John is usually wearing or riding something blue and does not eat any raw fruit beginning with the letter T.