Pitch Hill
Unsurprisingly it was a small group that formed at the top car park on Holmbury Hill on Sunday. Word of the ride had been circulated late and the weekends weather held little prospect. Indeed the day before I had ‘enjoyed’ 4 hours of winter conditions between the Dyke and Stanmer (joined by Gez for the wettest half of it). It was clear that even the good draining North Downs trails would still harbour a lot of wet roots waiting to sabotage us.
It’s amazing how quickly the art of wet riding is lost during a dry spell so we set off for an intentional baptism of fire through the twisty singletrack that carries us across telegraph onto the rooty off camber into the glade. It was clear by the end of this section that we were a pretty strong compatible group. It was also clear that this wasn’t really a day for a sessioning ride as jumps, drops and chutes were all pretty sketchy so we decided to just ‘rail the trails’. Relentless singletrack followed as we barely stopped, our reward being that we all found good ‘flow’ through yoghurts, telegraph, mutiny, end of telegraph, reservoir dogs, and bkb. By the time we were enjoying coffee and cake/cheesy straws/ samosas at Peaslake stores the sun had developed some power and the trails were ‘optimising’. This little bikers mecca is about to strengthen with the addition of a ‘bike shop’ just across the road from the stores. A lady told us her son was opening next week to sell all the useful stuff, but not bikes,…and not cheesy straws or coffee. He’s also looking at installing a bike wash!
Anyway, we continued onto Pitch Hill taking the tarmac drag up to the cemetry and then the relatively easy path to the near-top just beyond the Christmas pudding entrance to dip right into an excellent trail which roller-coasters its way down ending with a rollable 2ft drop onto a fireroad. The ever-enthusiastic Gez had built up quite a head of steam and realised some yards out that he wasn’t going to be stopping in time, he kindly started making shouty concerned noises loud enough to alert us all so we could turn our attention and enjoy the comedy of him flying over the trail exit, straight across the fireroad and into deep foliage. He disappeared out of sight down the other side of the fireroad blazing a brand new trail as he went. The density of foliage is all that eventually stopped him while a dose of good fortune kept him out of trouble with the chunky stumps.
We tooled around for a few minutes locating and pushing to the top of a truly dramatic feature (culminates in a 40ft log ride 8″ wide 4ft up slightly downhill..but you have to survive the steep roll into it first) we concluded that none of us could foresee a day when we’ll ride it. Into the chutes before dropping into carpark 3 followed by the severe windmill drop which none of us cleaned today. Back up top for the glorious and relentless Christmas pudding, straight into cemetry run, back to the carpark and down bkb before another quick coffee.
Nick was at his deadline, Sam flatted Gez’s rear tyre during a coffee-cake-and-testride and we were 4.25 intense hours in and a little fatigued BUT bkb was too perfect….we looped it a third time then dragged up to the cars.
Gez and I are trying to teach ourselves to ride when we dont want to (in anticipation of the 24/12) so we suggested a further couple of hours on Leith. Nick couldn’t, Sam gave way to Guiness and Jason……well, this guy is a worry! He was up for it, not having done much biking, never having done trails like todays, being on a decade old hardtail with maybe 80mm unserviced front end and v brakes…..he took on everything and never fell behind. The three of us were off again through yoghurts, telegraph, mutiny and then greensands way to the tower, through the bomb just to take on the rooty tower climb then the play area before robs bush into the rollercoaster , sessioning nutcracker and up to split tree, into the quarry to session a jump then down the back to make the worst mistake of the day. I missed the planned easy return via greensands and popped out of upfolds farm having to break the news about the 2 consecutive horror climbs that stood between us and our cars. We took them on and won though, and back at the finish with 32 miles and 7 hours on the clock I’m not sure we truly wanted to stop….just felt we ought to! !
After 32 miles of Surrey Hills singletrack at your speed….you would have killed me!!
Cheers
By: mike61 on July 14, 2009
at 8:23 pm
In the end I had Adams Broadside not Guiness, a fantastic post ride pint.
“Nick” is also sometimes known as Mark.
Sam
By: Sam on July 20, 2009
at 5:05 pm