After years of wanting to join Brighton MTB but being prevented by the combined complexity of balancing a job that demands too many hours, 2 kids and a bike that kept falling apart, Thursday 4th August marked only my 2nd attempt to get out on a Thursday night and enjoy the trails of Stanmer Park.

I had spent the day looking out of the window of my meeting at Brighton Town Hall, watching the skies empty themselves and wondering if I would make it. My last ride in the rain had been on my brand new Genesis Core 40 which had come equipped with Continental Mountain King tyres. These are without doubt the worst wet weather tyres I have ever used and I had come off quite badly ending up in A&E… nothing to do whatsoever with my general lack of skill on a bike and entirely the fault of the rubber! My ego was bruised and my legs were cut up but by late afternoon the rain had stopped and so there were no excuses. I got on my bike with its lovely new grippy Maxxis High Rollers and headed for the University car park.

Having failed to regain all of my confidence since I came off I was pleased that the ride got underway at quite a relaxed pace and that I wasn’t the only one taking on the slippery ground with at least a modicum of apprehension. We started by doing a portion of the Big Dog course and I can now be confident of a top 5 finishing position I am sure. (Actually I am only doing the One Dog and was not far off last place in 2010 so I might need to revise my goals somewhat nearer the time.)

The rest of the ride combined some trails that I am familiar with and some that I am not, but all of which are great fun. One of the things I really enjoy about the Thursday night ride is that the uphill bits are treated in the way that uphill bits should be… they are a necessary evil which are only tolerated because they inevitably lead to going downhill fast afterwards. As the evening progressed and the light faded my lights went on and I was particularly impressed by the riders who had forgotten, or not bothered, to bring theirs but who continued regardless. At risk of being accused of having rather traditional views I have always been firmly in the camp of riders who prefer to be able to see where they are going when riding fast over slippery roots and unexpected obstacles.

Nonetheless, everyone made it back and there were no serious injuries. Once in the car park Ronnie approached me with a friendly question; ’You’ve been a couple of times now haven’t you?’ What a nice chap I thought, enquiring as to whether I had enjoyed the ride and whether I will be back. ‘Yeah, great ride’ I answered innocently. Then, without missing a beat, he pounced; ‘Good, you can write the ride report then’.

Oh well, a small price to pay for some fine riding.

Martin Edelman

July 7th 2011 marked my first ride with Brightonmtb. I must admit I was pretty nervous, and rightfully so, as when I arrived I was by far the youngest attendee. After a few brief introductions and a casual ‘you’ll pick up names on the way’ from Ronnie, we were off and riding.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with regards to the riding style. I’m used to flowing singletrack and wide bridleways, uphill and down. But this was something quite different.

I would describe it as ‘Technical Singletrack’ as that was pretty much what it was. We worked our way up the hill whilst often looping back on ourselves down various manmade, but not obvious, trails, all of which had their fair share of drops, jumps, logs, corners, and close knit branches you’re sure to clip your bars on constantly. This made it incredibly fun.

The pace we rode it, well, we weren’t hanging about, and I was pushing pretty hard. Riding by myself I wouldn’t have done half the stuff I rode that night, just due to having lots of people behind me I didn’t want to upset by stopping. That said, when you nail something really tricky, it makes you feel pretty good, so I was fairly pleased by the whole affair.

I fell off just twice, which I was fairly pleased with, and, like an idiot, had thought earlier in the day that I probably wouldn’t need knee pads, it won’t be too intense. Well that was regretted the second I fell off onto both my knees!

But falling off just makes it more enjoyable, like you’re putting the effort in to achieve. Mind, lifting a hand off the bars to avoid getting stung by nettles (despite full arm and hand clothing coverage) is a bad idea, and will result in the bike falling off you.

Not been much of a story to these few paragraphs but I just have to get across that until you ride with people that are better than you, you will never get better, as when you ride by yourself there is limited motivation to push yourself, for obvious reasons. With others there it’s hard not to push yourself! Which will always result in improved skills.

On the whole I had a great evening ride and will be sure to return for another helping.

Will

So, for the second Thursday in a row I would be spending the evening with a bunch of guys in muddy woodland, last week 180,000 at Glastonbury, this week 20 at the weekly BrightonMTB meet.

The night began as usual in the car park at Sussex uni, greeting a few new faces and comparing new kit. Time to choose a ride leader, and after a little persuasion Rob was volunteered… I think he realised he wouldn’t have to ride UP as much singletrack if he was leading the group! This was the first night ever I had forgotten my pack, so I was half expecting to get a puncture before even leading the carpark.

Off into Stanmer park we rode, up the usual firetrails until we reached the first group of trails at the top. We warmed up with a couple of old favourites, before riding a trail with some nicely built features, first a nice log pile followed by some nicely shaped doubles and berms. The route out of here was a little narrow and more than one person suffered a “bike, tree interface”.

Next up, my “favourite”, tank traps, a rooty off camber section of trail. Ronnie as ever was doing his best to show the “easy” way in, but few seemed to believe him and took the better trodden path. Ronnie had helped me out a couple of weeks ago with choosing a line through here and it helped a lot tonight, resulting in riding it with much more flow.

To infinity and beyond, or just to Buzz Lightyear trail, with a couple of new features to roll over. As flowy as ever this was a great trail.

We now headed to the other side of the park via a nice fast section of downhill fireroad. Nerves were tested to see who would brake first, a couple of walkers making interesting trail features. A choice of routes uphill followed either the singletrack or the easy fireroad. Sadly I have to report that I was slower on the fireroad than the guys riding up the rooty singletrack. Next time hey…

The next trail led us to the “Sting in the tail” feature. This has been built up over a large fallen tree and after a few tales of somersaults over it, about half the guys hit the feature nicely including it’s shaper. Queue much goading of Ronnie who didn’t fancy it tonight. I didn’t either of course, but have since sneaked back on my own and conquered it, and indeed it is now nice and smooth.

“Lights are gay…”, Ali was chastised by the northern contingent for having the cheek to turn on his lights before 9pm. I mean, why would he, we could see at least 5m in front of ourselves by that point!? Ali wasn’t “so gay” though when he brought out the traditional sours sweets a couple of trails later…

A couple more trails, losing and regaining Ronnie in the process, led us down to the bottom of the Park and back to the cars. After putting the bike in the car I saw Ronnie approaching me, hopefully to complement me on a great ride… “Have you ever written a ride report Chris?!”.