Ride Report – Sunday 17th June – 1 week to go…
So with less than one week ago before the forward Mole team burrows it’s way to Eastnor Deer park the Mole team seemed strangely depleted of racers as we met at Bocketts today.
Making a welcome comeback was JamesS, not seen since our last ride to Swinley, having just reclocated to Ashtead! Hurrah! Good to see you again James. Kev, BigAl, JonH, JohnR, DaveW, LordOnOne and Karl made up the rest of the starters. Al was playing diplomat today wanting to find some gnarl for Karl (maybe GnarlyKarly is the correct nickname?) while heeding my warning of anyone breaking anything a week before Mountain Mayhem would get the other side broken by me! Hence a cross country ride to Peaslake via nothing more taxing than BKB was agreed on.
SO off we headed and with the two bridges descent looking abit congested we headed for Hogden Lane and maybe Pampelona. And that’s about as far as I can write about this ride as I pulled over just before Pampolona with a rear flat. Kev stayed to assist and I soon worked out there was a tiny hole right on the bead of the Mud-X that was letting air out. I didn’t think A plug was going to work there so I put a tube in and listened to air hissing out of that. Slapping of forehead, schoolboy error of not checking for thorns. Bah.
Kevin kindly suggested we head back to my place and then do another short ride once I’d swapped tyres and we headed off with Kev taking the quick route to try and get some phone reception to ring Al. At the top we ran into Graham and Nick who were heading towards Peaslake/Holmbury but after a brief chat we needed to head on and get things sorted.
I pulled the reserve Mud-X off the shelf and demonstrated the benefits of a compressor in the garage so we were soon heading off again. Our revised plan was to head towards Newlands and if we felt fit to do the Pond Lane climb. With tow of you I always find the pace quickens as you try to stay in touch and egg each other on. TO be fair, Kev is a much faster rider having put in some serious road miles this year but we stayed together well and we were soon picking out way toward AZ which we passed to the right of and opted to take the descent into Abinger just after a cross road that makrs then end of the C1 climb from Abinger roughs. This is a fast, flowing down that had only one left, right dog leg in it to impede the steady progress. Once across the railway the nettles were growing with a vengance and even two small Jack Russells looked at us with silent bewilderment.
Standard stuff from there to the top of Newlands with a good steady speed and the revised gearing on the Kona working well. At the top of Newlands we ran into……Graham and Nick! Apparently they had run into someone who has said that Holmbury/Peaslake was super busy and had decided to ride to Newlands instead. Apparently they had been speaking to some “Peaslake boys” who were also racing in Ledbury next week…..so good luck!
Feeling good and fit we decided to taking in an Effingham return leg to up the mileage and we soon set off to keep the ride flowing. Things went well until we entered what I think is the Lovelace estate, the bit with all the small stone bridges, only to find the stone bride we needed to go under shut, I assume for repair. A small detour entailed and we rejoined the bridleway slightly further on to take the long, sweet descent to the A246.
We finished off our ride with the tramp across Effingham common and then onto Bookham common where the mud was as it always is! Close to 36 miles and I could string a sentence together!
Hopefully there’ll be some comment form the other riders as to what happened after we split!
About the author
Dave's been riding seriously since about 1997 and is one of the founding Molefathers — along with Matt and Mark — that came up with the idea of a MTB website for Mole Valley riders.
He's had several different bikes but it's now mainly 29ers in Dave's stable, apart from an Orange 5.
Current Bikes: Orange 5, Salsa Spearfish and Kona Big Unit
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KevS says:
Well it was a ride of two halves as they say!
Better to have got all your tyre, tube issues out of the way on this ride rather than MM next week!
The early adrenile of a Moles big ride was still coursing through the veins despite a long stop for puncture faffage, head scratching, muttering, cussing and finally the decision to cut losses and head back for a pit stop tyre change at base. Luckily I managed to get Big Al on the mobile after grinding back up to Polesden to find a mobile signal and tell the rest of the group to head on off as we were returning to base.
As it turned out we had a good thrash on the classic Newlands ride with the lovely Water Lane climb back up to the car park where drinks and flapjacks were scoffed in quick time.
I had a nice 33 miles on the clock and all good at the end of the day!
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Posted on June 17, 2012 at 7:55 pm
Andrew akak says:
Missed me off the list 🙂 was a good ride – nice and relaxed. Peaslake was only really busy around the cafe…
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Posted on June 17, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Dave says:
Doh, sorry Andrew!
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Posted on June 17, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Karl says:
Very pleased that Muddy Dave and Kev ended up having a fab ride, but you were both missed, shame JR had to whizz off so soon too..
Well, Big Al. JonH and DaveW pretty much kept at the front, following the departure of MD and Kev after the flinty slicing up of Muddy Dave’s Mud-X, closely followed by Lord on One and Andrew, while James and I followed as best we could. Once James had decided to split, around Holmbury YHA (?) I became the backmarker..
I didn’t have the legs or the spirit for anything special today it seems, and was just relieved to keep the others in sight… Was the brake rubbing or was I just rubbish?
The standard of riding from the others was very high indeed with Big Al sharing Top spots (1) with JonH (2) on Telegraph bottom half, and Al’s scorchio 2.10 on BKB.. DaveW not only put in extremely quick times on both the above too, but also kindly put in my replacement tube in my Mud-X in the fastest time I’ve ever seen it done….
Andrew thoroughly enjoyed riding his shiny new Beefy Cotic, as did Lord onOne on his big rigid Singular.. No worries either, about stopping dead right in front of me in the sea of mud on Dearly Beloved, m’Lord. I fancied a paddle after all that riding.
So..
Good luck next week at MM fellas..
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Posted on June 17, 2012 at 9:49 pm
MuddyJohn says:
Enjoyed following the group to the A25, where I had to turn back from the joys of BKB and Telegraph although it was a shame about Dave C’s problems on Hogden.
On the way back to Whitedown I ran into Jem and his brother in law out for a Sunday ride – nice to see Jem out on the bike again, hopefully with the Moles again before too long.
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Posted on June 18, 2012 at 10:49 am
JamesS says:
Thanks for a great ride guys. It’s good to be local again so hope to be out more often. Sorry to disappear, I hope you didn’t hang around too long. I headed up the road track towards the YHA, figuring I could rejoin at the top, but on the way up my rear wheel reflector detatched itself into the deralieur. So I had to stop to untangle things and the result meant that gears weren’t quite aligned. I continued to telegraph but you’d headed on. I tried to call Dave C (but I’m not sure if the number is current – I guess not!) I was shattered at this point, being the first ride for months so headed back.
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Posted on June 18, 2012 at 9:57 pm