Sunday, January 22, 2006

Mud, Mud Glorious Mud. Andy gets off the hard stuff.

Well here is the game. Every week I have been having a play with the road boys and girls. But lately, there has been this growing band of people who disappear into the woods and emerge muddy and happy an hour or so later. They mutter something about no traffic and being at one with nature.
Anyway I decided to join in the fun. Pete Mitchell held the opinion that this would be easy, I figured that after hijacking the roadies last week by taking them over part of a the lap around Hungary Hill, that this could be a new game, and if the pace is to slow and these guys are slacking, I will do something about it and report back to Sergeant Pete.

So there I was on Saturday with a brand new MTB. Not a spot of dust on it. The roadies went away, with our new conscript Heather (welcome). While we set off on the softer ground. First problem is that the stupid gears are different to what I am used to. After a bit of fiddling I soon found a gear that worked and didn’t leave me with a gear so low that I hardly moved. However there are plenty of people on the ride with off road experience to advise cadence and gearing and position.
The only real fear I had was dealing with soft mud. If you hit this on a road bike with skinny tires, you normally come to a complete stop very quickly. Not so with the magnificent beasties fitted to my GT. You hit the mud and the tires just sink slowly in. Providing that you keep peddling you (should) soon find yourself on the other side. Of course if the person in front of you stops peddling and err stops, then you have to quickly get a foot down. But I soon found that restarting on very soft ground almost impossible. Some of the climbs proved interesting as the rear wheels struggled to get grip. Pete I can report that this is hard work.
We were just about to hit the next batch of soft ground south of Leatherhead when trouble occurred. Jens rear tyre had split along the sidewall. A crowd of scratching chins and furrowed brows soon formed, and eventually with a bit of British ingenuity a temporary repair was affected in the hope that she could continue. However after a mile it soon became apparent that all was not well and Jen might have to walk back. Fortunately we were not too far from Paul and Ken Days house. So Simon and Jen made their way there for tea, cake and a tyre to get home on. This left us with a problem, as we now had no run leader. Fortunately David Croggen took the leaders cap and armed with Simons map took our group onwards.

It was while we had stopped the first time that I had a call from our newbie Heather. Who had somehow got detached from the rest of the road ride. She had the instruction to follow the road straight on. Which she did not realising that eventually the rest had turned left in Cobham. Poor Heather had got almost up to A3 before heading back and calling me. Anyway well done Mark Mc for coming back to find her. Heather it will all be extra miles for you chart.

Eventually the Off roaders had found their way to Effingham, and a short tarmac ride to Café stop. We arrived as the roadies were leaving.

The ride back!

Ok what idiot gave me the map. As we were running so late David and a few others had to go back quickly. So I found myself the keeper of the map and run leader. Please bear in mind gentle reader that this is my first time off road. Accompanying me was Jackie, who was here because she has worn out her road bike, Grant and Chrystal. It seemed a good idea to head off into the woods. I figured that we would come out somewhere and only had to hold a straight line. The woods gave way to soft sand and soon people started to not pedal. Then there was this debate amongst the troops about me not knowing the way. “Not know the way!” I said to the mutineer, “I have the map”. What they didn’t know was that we were not on the map that I was holding. Eventually we found our way to the tower at the top of the hill. On the other side was mud road that took us on a little bridge over the M25 (it is not on my map at home). A quiet lane then took us across country to another series of tracks that eventually led us out to Stoke D’Abernon.

Not wanting to give up my new found hunger for all things dirty, I identified another path that would take us up towards Oxshot. OK we lost the path. But this very nice man with very fierce looking dog pointed out a path. Ahhh more mud and this time, styles! This led to a very muddy path that offered an equal chance of falling into fierce brambles or a barbed wire fence.

Sadly Oxshott marked the end of anymore serious mud and so we enjoyed a fast ride on Jackie’s wheel (boy was it fast!) back to the park where we had the last little taste of soft ground before saying our goodbyes

Next week I will find out about falling off.

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