CLWYDIANS

19th August 2007

Only five hardy (maybe foolish) souls arrived at Chester services. Jamo, Clone, Tyrekicker, Roger and Newboy. It was raining and at 9.15 we gave up waiting for anyone else and jealous at the thought of those b*****ds, lying snug under their duvets, set off for Clwyd. It was raining more heavily as we pulled into the car park (no further geography as I don’t have a clue where we have been all day).

We prepared ourselves and set off already wet. “Puncture” shouted Jamo, before he’d even left the car park. He’d been too zealous inflating his tyre and split the inner tube. This was an ominous sign for the day ahead and at this point we should have packed up and gone to the pub.

New tube fitted we arrived after 200yds, without further incident, at he first gate. Through the gate and off we go. Clunk goes Newboy’s bike, “oh no” says Jamo looking down. One snapped chain. Again we should have called it a day, but no! Clone gets out his speed link and 10 minutes later off we go again. Up and down a nice trail and then down a muddy stream (the mud theme continued all day). Jamo stopped in the mud and gently fell sideways. Uneventful for the next 10 minutes at least, until Tyrekicker remarked, on an uphill road, that someone had recently cut the hawthorne hedge. Yes, you guessed right, a couple of hundred yards on and Jamo had a puncture. This was fixed, whilst Tyrekicker carefully checked his tyres for thorns. He didn’t find any – yes, he missed it. Ready to go again and we had another puncture to fix.

As you can imagine, we set off in good heart. It was raining during this entire ride and cloudy, so no view of Snowdon. We made it at least 500 yards, before Jamo found a 3 inch nail, or I should say his back tyre found it. Another inner tube change and off we went again in even better heart.

We then did a nice uphill singletrack climb, with lots of mud finally coming down a long grassy downhill. Tarmac climb and then track back to car park. Long debate over bananas and energy bars as to whether we should call it a day or continue. Jamo’s lack of wet weather gear, made his mind up for him. (More paper rounds required). The rest of us set off for another dose of mud and rain. Newboy managed to break his chain again, which again was fixed in quicktime. The only other event of note was Roger’s standstill fall as he failed to unclip his shoes quick enough. No falls for Newboy today. Ha – no OTB hat-trick!

3pm saw us back at the car park. Still raining as we peeled off our muddy clothes. And then off to the pub. Don’t tell the other lot, but Tyrekicker and Newboy had heated seats in the car, so arses nicely toasted by the time we hit the pub.

We think a few records were set: 3 punctures for Jamo, 2 chain breaks for Newboy, raining all day and mud up to our knees at times. Having said all this, we all enjoyed it, a great ride and what a laugh!

Newboy

It would have been easy to call off todays ride what with the weather & a poor turn out ( shame on you lot ) but the forcast was for brighter at mid-day & a challenge is what spured us on to complete  Rogers ride delayed from earlier in the year.

If you like mountainbiking Raw & in your face then the volume of water flowing off the hills was amazing to see but blimey it filled all those tyre ruts to the brim & the fast down hills took on a new dimention; er just staying on the bike.

Jamo made a brave call to sit out the last loop as I'm sure he really wanted to carry on but if your wet through top to toe & cold your asking for troble in those conditions.

We bumped into the Guys from Singletrack Mag who were doing the same route as ourselves  I think but we didn't stop to chat as the conditions never relented all ride.

Ok so some rides are not fun fun fun all the time but we did it & great training was had by all, we will certainly appriciate the dry sunny rides after this one; Phew!

Will it be raining on Thursday?

Big thanks to the crew; Roger for leading, Geoff for the heated seats  , Jamo for making a mature decission & Clone for dishing out the cake.

Tyre Kicker