Ride report: Sunday 29th November – Backwards to Newlands
Dom and Karl on the NDW
From my bedroom the morning looked windy, grey and grim, not a promising day for a ride. With Dave C giving in to the lure of the duvet, five hardy Moles assembled at Bocketts – DDub, Elliot, Karl, Dom (all the way from Putney) and me.
No route had been planned and although not raining it was very windy, so we settled on the unusual plan of doing a Newlands Loop, but anticlockwise along the Drover’s Road to Newlands, then back along the valley past Abinger. That would give us shelter in the woods when heading into the wind and more exposure when the wind was behind us.
Avoiding The Admiral’s Swamp with the now standard ascent of Ranmore via View to a Kill and the track up to the church, we decided it was dry enough to take Wire in The Blood and Collar Bone, then Short and Sweet along to Drovers Road. Although there were plenty of puddles and a few muddy bits we generally made quick progress to Newlands.
Moles at Newlands
In view of the wind we thought an indoor tea stop would be best, so we parked up the bikes at Tillings Corner House. Although it was well filled with mums and toddlers there was room for five slightly muddy moles, and later on some roadies.
Water Lane was good fun downhill from Newlands, and after the well ridden tracks through the woods behind past Shere and Abinger, the west wind blew us along Deerleap and up High Med to Ranmore.
Karl’s wheelie good on a bike
We decided to finish off with Ricin Beans, which I had enjoyed for the first time on the Wednesday night ride. We had soon got deep into the woods and were trying to decide where to go next when I remembered Dandy’s directions in the dark “Turn left at the big tree” – which is exactly what we needed to get us onto the delightful slippery twisty trail down to the Youth Hostel and on to Bocketts. Overall 26miles and 2,000 ft were covered in what was a much nicer ride than the morning had promised.
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.
There are 8 comments on ‘Ride report: Sunday 29th November – Backwards to Newlands’
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Karl says:
Super quick ride report with piccies JR, nice one!
You’re quite right about it being a much nicer ride than expected. I really liked doing DC’s Moles classic in reverse.
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Posted on November 29, 2015 at 10:15 pm
Colin says:
Nice. Karlos in something other than a tshirt? Must’ve been cold then!
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Posted on November 29, 2015 at 10:57 pm
Karl says:
A 1/2 T-shirt ride.. quite warm in fact Col. 🙂
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Posted on November 29, 2015 at 11:14 pm
Elliot says:
Pah, I saw your measly 2000ft of climbing JR. No wonder you looked sprightly on the climbs when I was suffering up an extra 500ft!
Made a nice change doing the route in reverse 🙂
It was interesting coming down off the sloppy Ranmore ridge and hitting the dry sandy stuff. Bikes were almost clean last week but plastered today just because of different soil.
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Posted on November 29, 2015 at 11:02 pm
Matt says:
I’ve done that kind of route on occasion and it does make things quite different. It’s surprising how quickly you can get to Newlands along the Ranmore Ridge as it all trends gently downhill so you can bowl along quite happily.
Coming back is a bit more of an effort, you have to remind yourself when you stop for cake that you’ve only just done about a third of the effort despite having covered half distance.
I was stuck at home re-routing a kitchen waste. It would have gone a bit quicker if the otherwise excellent Tool Station had provided the right gauge pipe for the task! But not much if I’m honest. Hope to be out next weekend anyway after a wet week ahead.
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Posted on November 30, 2015 at 10:22 am
Tony says:
After not reading correctly the Rolling Dynamics route message from MarkyMark I ended up riding 75miles in the wind and 5000ft climbing. At some points I had wished I was on the MTB. I fell asleep on the sofa in the afternoon
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Posted on November 30, 2015 at 11:05 am
Kev says:
Tut .. Shakes head at Road Moles latest senior moment! 🙂
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Posted on November 30, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Tony says:
I know! Although see the abuse Big Al has got on strava for posting a road ride and you will see that I have got away lightly!!
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Posted on November 30, 2015 at 2:32 pm