Brightonmtb.org

"...this is where the psycopath's brain was inserted..."

A great ride with plenty of singletrack, laughter and more than a few tumbles. St Leonard’s forest is a regular haunt of ours but this time we went for singletrack rather than an epic. The trails were lovely and dry with just the odd muddy patch of fireroad to remind us of the recent heavy rain.

The climb straight out of the carpark was tough on my aging legs but once into the singletrack we into full swing. Brian was complaining of illness and describing the previous nights bodily evacuations but it didn’t seem to slow him down, in fact if his performance was anything to go by he needs to publish his ‘S**t yourself Fit’ guide immediatly and he’ll be a millionaire.

A couple of recently cleared trails were great fun with not a sign of mud, the twisty bit through the christmas trees was lovely the dip at the end claimed a few casulaties but most got back on and cleaned it. Next up was the latest creation ‘Death by Merino’ with two lovely bomb holes at the entrance the first of which has a step down close to the bottom. Plenty of tumbles but laughter ruled the day and we continued on twisting through the woodland over and around tufts and tree stumps. 

As we emerged from the ’Natural Thing’ trail I realised I had no back brake. Using only their bare hands, a fence post and some multi-tools Pete and Alec gave an awesome display of how not to repair a damaged brake. Two bent multi-tools and a pair of broken pliers later the brake lever was zip tied to the handlebar leaving me with only a front brake and about 10 miles of singletrack to go. The steep descent to the stream crossing was cleaned by everyone except me who braked and ended up in a holly bush, the steep descent to the log bridge was cleaned by everyone except me who braked and ended up hitting a tree. In fact at every technical challenge when I braked I was off.

There was no contest for tumble of the day, Alec romped it.  He went off the side of a bridge and somersaulted through 5 feet of fresh air to land upside down on his back in a stream. We jumped down and helped him up, despite our concern he was unhurt!  

The fast flowy singletrack was next, while wizzing along my front brake failed and I was off. During the unsuccessful rear brake repair Pete and Alec were fiddling with my front brake a fact that didn’t go un-noticed. Undeterred Pete swore a lot but finally got the front brake working. The stream trail and ‘the tree’ provided much laughter while the final descent was a blast for eveyone except me as by now both my brakes were totally dead.

Highlights of the ride were too many to mention, it was a great day out. The many tumbles and constant laughter stick in the mind from this ride.

Brilliant!

Check out the photos and video.