This was my 4th maybe 5th time out with the welcoming BrightonMTB crowd on their regular Thursday night ride from the University so I’m finally getting to put names to faces, to bikes especially now its gotten lighter. The guy who gets punctures is Graham. Mr Rohloff and Specialized Man, have become Pete and Rich. We were down on numbers tonight so I could name them all which was a first. The sky is totally clear, it’s not too hot, and there is that orange low light streaming through the trees.

After the usual few minutes of banter and tech talk in the car park we make our way across the grass and up hill toward the woods, as ever my legs are unhappy about such a rude awakening from the slumber of the day job. But its only a few minutes before we settle into a steady cadence and start threading our way up the first of the singletrack and things become more comfortable.  The trails have dried up nicely and are proving super grippy so we make progress fairly swiftly snaking through the trees. From previous experience, I am expecting to spend the next 2 hours avoiding cracking my knuckles on passing saplings, chatting, negotiating roots, grinning into corners, being handed Tangfastics, and wondering how it is possible that this lot manage to weave so many quality sections of trail together and not ride the same bit twice. I am not disappointed.

Mark is out front, he leads us past a group who seem to have set up camp in the middle of the forest for the night. We joke about them being city types working wirelessly from the woods. We cross the A23 over toward Brighton onto a new trail to me that tracks parallel to road, fast in sections and noodley in others. Graham is out back, on “Official Sweeper” duty making sure no one gets left behind. Next it’s back across the main road up to the upper lodges and down to a section called Tea & Cake (for reasons unknown to me) but by the time we are done with it thats just what I fancy, that or a pint.

Its over an hour into the ride so the next long haul of double track up out the back toward the Downs is harder than usual. Chris is on a single speed. That single speed is considerably faster than the rest of us and he is soon a speck in the distance. But hang on what’s this, I’m being over taken, quite quickly too. It’s like the Tour De bloody France all of a sudden! Someone’s broken ranks and is off after Chris, Its Graham the “Official Sweeper”. Shouldn’t he be staying at the back ….If anyone punctures now they could be stuck here for weeks!

Regrouping at the top we string together a whole bunch of shorter trails wheel to wheel before attempting a newer steep, loose and off- camber section. Its technical and vegetation rather than soil in places, more like adventure riding than XC. Graham gets attacked by an unruly young tree… Ronnie can’t stop smiling. The light is now fading and it’s time to head back, on go the helmet and handle bar lights. We speed back carving down a fast trail, my eyes are watering, this is seriously fun stuff. We pass the camp again this time downhill, now there is a fire raging, singing and laughter. They don’t seem to be getting much work done. One final steep bit of tree lined switchbacks and its all over and we are back onto the grass not far from the University.

All rides are good but this one was a cracker.

Steve – The bloke with the loud freehub.

A versatile term which might reasonably be used to refer to when Mark has his video camera attached to his helmet, it’s rolling and he’s
getting great trail footage.

Well tonight Mark had his head- on….but the video was nowhere to be seen.  Shame really as it could have been some spectacular footage…….or a spectacularly smashed
camera.

Six of us set off from the car park roughly on time having not let
Ronnie’s new toy distract us too long.  Well it doesn’t take long at
all to realise you can’t just hop on a unicycle and get going.  I look
forward to seeing Ronnie juggling firesticks while slaloming round

our parked cars at the start of a ride in perhaps a few weeks (I mean years don’t I?).

Our route took us through upper and lower Stanmer trails with every
last one of them proving bone dry and fast rolling.  It was a mix of
increasingly familiar single-track but laced together in a different
order.  Add in the ever extending daylight and it seemed like a fresh
new ride.  Maybe this is what got the adrenaline flowing but one way
or another we were in attack mode and eating up the tracks.

Tucking into the ‘nadgery’ section that Mark has called T&C he commented that he’d been using this trail a lot recently and was getting very familiar with it.  He then missed a turn enabling me to take the lead.  Congratulating ourselves at our
speed we continued on aggressively, Mark back in front and flying, literally
flying……..a major front flip over the bars, between two trees and
slapping down on his back, the bike pivoting around the front wheel
which appeared to have stopped dead on the trail for no apparent
reason.  It was pretty high speed and violent so the fact that man and
machine were ok was lucky (actually I’ll bet he’s feeling it a few
hours later).  Turns out he’d got just a few inches off line and hit
a stump hidden in the undergrowth head-on.  It might as well have
been a brick wall.

Later on we discussed disgruntled walkers attempts to booby-trap the
woods, dogs that bite cyclists and how tonight an eerie quiet had and
stillness to it…..oh and madmen with axes.  The fact that only 3
out of 6 starters arrived back at the cars wasn’t due to any of the
aforementioned thankfully, the others just peeling off early.

To reassure any newbie’s nervously considering night riding don’t worry,
a ‘madman with an axe in a wood at night’ is more likely these days
to just be an ardent trail builder, rather than a good old fashioned
‘madman with an axe……….’

MD

Last Saturdays ride was my first outing with Brighton MTB. We met at the car park in Sussex University at 9.30 for a 10 o’clock start. The weather was beautiful, cool but sunny with no wind, perfect for cycling. Continue reading →

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.
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.

My colleagues’ reaction when I said I was going to meet some people I’d found on the internet in a car park after dark did nothing to dispel my reservations about Thursday night. Continue reading →

On Thursday night six of us met up at Stanmer Park to ride the Gary Fisher “G2 Revolver” course, which I had raced back in August. However summer was a faint memory with lights, winter tyres and base layers replacing shorts, t-shirts and sunshine.
The first short sharp climb was a mess of fallen leaves and wet roots leaving a few of the group struggling to find that blessed grip along with their breath.

Getting back together at the top of the climb talk immediately turned to who was running what tyres and which offered the best grip. This would be a recurring discussion point for the rest of the evening.

Another sharp climb and more leaves and roots. We all knew it was going be “one of those nights” where staying on the bike was the biggest challenge, no matter what tyres you were running. But if you don’t ride in winter you don’t ride!

The first technical descent was more of the same but in reverse. I tentatively made my way down the trail, with every root looking as though it wanted its chance to slide the bike from under me or send me diving over the bars. I managed to get down in one piece with a combination of riding and sliding. The others all made it with their own tales of near misses with trees and branches.

Pushing on we climbed up the main trail and then back down the next singletrack. Fortunately this is less technical and gave everyone a bit of breather and a chance to relax, perhaps even smile. Riding up to the lodges we hit the first bit of flat trail which was a welcome break from the deep piles of leaves, but not the roots.

We came across another group, someone calling out in the darkness “glad to see we’re not the only ones!” There’s a certain Dunkirk spirit at this time of the year, in the mud and wet of Britain. Onto one of the fastest sections of the G2 course but in the dark and wet of a November evening it was also one of the trickiest, equal parts fun and fear as we sped across the roots and slid the corners.

Crossing over the A27 we got to my favourite part of the course, where the trail gets tight and technical. Increase the technical factor by 10 to account for what felt like 3 feet of leaves with evil roots lurking just below and became quite a test. But it seemed like we got through this part of the course quicker, which suggested everyone had found their own way of hitting the roots just right so they stayed on. Or so I thought.

Climbing out towards the footbridge back over the A27 the roots finally got the better of everyone in turn, and we all found ourselves walking as the sea of roots on the narrow trail left us no other options. On the climb back into the park the wet chalk presented yet another hazard like an ice rink, and I found myself searching out every blade of grass or stone to find grip.

We took a well earned breather before embarking on the last section of the G2 course. This is the part with half a dozen or so fallen logs to get over. As if the never-ending maze of roots was not enough we now had super-sized and super-slippery obstacles to traverse.

Riding down the last singletrack section and into the bombhole led us to the sanctuary of the grass and the end of the course, with not a wet root in sight. Discussing the night’s ride we all agreed it had been good fun despite all the slipping and sliding. After all what else did we expect on a wet November evening at Stanmer.

P.S – if any tyre manufacturers are reading this please, please can you invest some of those R&D millions on a tyre which can handle wet leaves and roots in winter in Britain!

Mark

Continue reading →