Night ride blues

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Last Thursday I missed you all

I ordered an aperitif whilst sitting in the hollow restaurant of a standard euro hotel in Avignon. The contrast with the warm coloured ancient city wall outside the window was stark.
(I should be in the car park turning on my lights)
I ordered terrine as a starter followed by a forest chicken supposedly.
(First climb so I hope the pace makes for an easy warm up)
The Kir is nice so it makes for compensation but the pate looks uninviting.
(Warmed up now but the pace has made my glasses fog so I wipe the lenses and shed the gilet.)
The crunchy bread is tasty but the pate is bland and the pickled onion skins look stomach challenging.
(First trail, first obstacles, obviously a clean run in perfect balance with no slips or dabs and showing effortless grace.)
Leave the starter and try a glass of Chablis. Warm? No, just tepid. Tepid white wine in France just marvellous.
(Second trail is slippery and I need to time the lifting of my front wheel much better so I force myself to be braver, carry more momentum and it gets easier. My Trailrakers slip again. I need to try Bontragers soon.)
My forest chicken hops in front and happily it tastes like chicken. I have several phone calls breaking the loneliness of eating alone.
(At the top of Stanmer now warm and ready for a longer run down. I make skip a bigger obstacle if it looks particularly slippery or if a log is moved by the rider in front, but onwards and downwards.)
I select the ‘today special’ chocolate tart cautiously and order a coffee.
(Part way down now and I need to pedal briskly to link to a new trail which is really an old trail. My legs feel great at this point and have benefited from a day off the bike due to the lashing rain the day before.)
The tart is dry and unappetising but the coffee has been made carefully with love in an automatic machine.
(We need a quick breather to gather everyone back together for the next trail. All together? Allons-y!
I leave the tart and finish the coffee.
(Some extra bits now that is twisty but soft. This trail is tight and will be difficult to ride fast and clean when it is dry and hard in the summer. There is an obvious obstacle at the side of the trail that we should incorporate into the route. Make a mental note to do this on Saturday.)
I have not slept well since arriving in Euro land on Tuesday and I feel lethargic and have no appetite for food or even the demon drink. Without food I will, of course, have gained weight everywhere except my legs which will have atrophied as if I have been marooned on a desert island for months.
(Last trail, a whoop from behind, a slip immediately in front followed by a great recovery, someone makes it over an obstacle confidently for the first time with a small shout of delight. So a slightly muddy group of riders emerge from the dark and roll back into the car park with a few tired faces cracked by a smile.)
I amble up the empty corridor to my empty box but at least I enjoyed MY ride.

Close Encounters

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For many years strange lights have been seen in the woods on the darkest, mistiest nights.
Like a silent group of wraiths we peeled away from the sides of the cars and headed immediately into the nearby trees. Slurry tried to hold onto us as we fought for grip up the smallest of inclines. Even the fireroad that would take us deeper into the dark was soft beneath our passing. A low murmur passed through the air as precious breath was used to push a brisk pace on cold legs.
Really quickly the lights fell away below us as we appeared briefly through the gloom crossing a field top with any eyes below only seeing the ribbon of lights like a silver sliver against the night sky. We rode into the darkness again and wound away along a trail known only to the badgers.
The next twisting trail was soft, but firmed up towards the end, where Graeme despatched the last big obstacle with new found ease. The next track found us split into two groups, but no sheep were left behind. The mist was thickening as we climbed up and up, and then we stopped climbing to play hike a bike. Another unknown trail filled with twists and turns and trees and lumps and bumps and frustration. I should be able to ride this easily, I should be able to go faster and smoother, I should be able to miss that stump with my pedal and I should be able to ride all these obstacles without using every single chicken run at the side.
Oh well a trail for me to do better by summer!
A voice comes out of the darkness.
“Where are we?” Not telling.
“Have I been here before?” Still not telling.
“Where are we going now?”
“Somewhere else.” I replied not wanting to seem unhelpful.
“I think I know where I am and then I don’t. It’s like Pandora’s box in here.”
More Tardis than Pandora’s box I hope as I ride sweeper behind the conversation.

We try a different sweeping approach to a familiar trail and get held up by some bushes. Smugly I ride to the side and nearly fall in the nearest thing to a loch around here. I wait for the stragglers to fight through the brush and off we trundle and promptly ride into a tree with my handlebar. Skilfully balancing while disentangling myself from the branches I look as if I am wrestling a bear in the woods.
And losing.
Broken chain now, but a short faff later, Nik is up and running and through the next gate, onto the steep hillside with more gusto than brakes. He is first down, big turn, faster and bumpier, another big turn, STEEP, SLIPPY.

Nik slides to a stop, still upright, feet down, using his crossbar to hold all his body weight. It may work for him but…


Road climb up and Graeme slips off the front as he always likes hills. He gains a big gap so I drop to a big gear, build up speed and flash past him. He cannot catch me up so I slow and try to catch my breath as everyone else catches up.
Graeme moves in front again, but checking for lights this time so that I do not catch him unawares. Mark cheats, turns off his lights and turns on four lungs and maybe four legs and catches up the gap in a blink of an eye. Graeme is caught by surprise again but Mark just slows to match Graeme’s pace.
Ride through another trail and swoop back for another. I pull off down the fireroad to take some pictures through the trees as they approach. I wait for ages alone in the pitch dark. I cannot see the anything other than the faint l.e.d. of the camera. Slowly strange lights wink through the timber.lurk2
I hope it is them because it does not look like a line of riders. The lights disappear in a rainbow haze.
Then crack! They appear immediately right in front of me from the darkness and silence, without warning, in a cloud of mist illuminated in a rainbow glare from the different lights. I take pictures as quickly as the camera can recharge and in a moment they have disappeared.
I am alone in the dark again. How can they have disappeared so quickly into the night. Silence. I pack the camera in my pack, find my gloves, turn on my lights, and trundle out onto the fireroad again. Lights twinkling ahead means everyone has waited so I do not need to kill myself to catch up.
Another trail. Should have used the new extension. Never mind, more photos are calling. I race down the adjoining fireroad to get ahead again. Where is the turn off? I sweep my headlight backwards and forwards. I should find this easily as I must have ridden this bit a hundred times but I ride past it. I turn around, quick, they must be there by now. I pull off the pack, gloves, glasses and extract the camera.
I wait for ages again in the dark and the silence. Again they explode out of nowhere. I desperately try to point, focus, frame and shoot.
Rubbish, cannot see, missed him, got him. Perfect.
Mark, Nik and Sam peel off into the night to ride home. The rest of us carry on for one more trail. It will be fine. A bit steep perhaps but probably not too slippy. I hurtle off again to get in position at the bottom of the hill. I can see lights flickering as they try to find the start of the drop. It looks steeper from the bottom looking up. I wait at the exit where they should drop down the hill, turn and drop slowly to the fireroad.
The first light careers down, straight down, not turn, where are you going? Freeriding in the dark down a steep hill in the dark without a trail. Slip off. Rider number two then. Slip off at the bottom. Bit of a pattern here. Even the last rider negotiating in the darkness slips at the drop to the fireroad. Maybe better to be the one with the camera.
Another last trail but the batteries have died so we all run down. That little wall is hard enough in the dry but in the mud Graeme and I cannot make it over cleanly. Oh well there will be another chance next week perhaps.
We roll down into the carpark. Two hours, lots of trails, some new, some old, some easy and some testing but a good ride for all I hope.

Why don’t you join us next week. Bring some lights, a helmet and a sense of humour. There will be other new faces trying the trails for the first time in the dark so you will not be alone.
That’ll be me trying to get one good picture of the night.

Scudo

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Having had a full size backpack for years it seems that everyone else is moving to a smaller size but still managing to fit everything required into the smaller pockets. I use a slightly smaller size for summer evening use but as it is not waterproof it needs a cover in rain or in muddy conditions. It is orange though.Looking at all the new models being launched my criteria included dry back and waterproof. Lots of pockets would be nice but the critical factor would be colour. Anything called camo, skidmark or brown would not make the list. I liked the praticality of the Wingnut, waterproof and dry back, but starship trooper silver….
Camelbak had the Mule as the forerunner but everyone else including Decathlon seemed to have reasonable contenders too. After much ado I could not decide on anything with certainty so eventually I resorted to Plan B.
I would buy another pack as an interim solution and as it is interim solution it does not count so I can then buy another pack later. Seems logical and reasonable. So this is a review of a possible or a probable but not a definite choice.
The Scudo is one of the new lightweight packs with a better padding arrangement for a less sweaty back then previous Camelbak product but maybe a trampoline or the equivalent is better still. Multiple pockets make for easier sorting and finding so this single main pocket waterproof pack is not the best option.
It has a single main pocket with separate bladder pocket, a front pocket with two net pockets and a key loop and a central open section for a helmet or waterproof.
It does not have a sunglasses pocket, a zip pocket for money, waist strap pockets or any harness pockets but it does have a rain cover. The bladder section has a full length zip which makes it really easy to fit in the full bladder and two options for hose routing.
It is very light, it is less sweaty and everything can be fitted inside. The straps need careful adjustment but it rides light on your back even when full. The central net section is very useful for tubes and spades but a karabiner or two stops anything bouncing out.
A smaller lighter pack is a considerable advantage on both short and longer rides due to less weight on your back but you may need to pack carefully. Even on a short ride the weight advantage is very noticeable and I do not struggle with a full day pack filled with extra layers and sandwiches.
Overall then the Scudo is a nice lightweight pack but with less pockets then you might prefer and is a great interim solution.
Most importantly it comes in orange.