Wow! A high of 30 on Monday and anticipation for the Tuesday ride was almost as high as the temp. Tuesday dawned promising to be cooler which was kind of a relief, as the day rolled on it was looking peachy, then 3pm heavy cloud, thunder and torrential downpours, luckily it had eased off by 5pm but I was going to get soggy and dirty - nice. With thoughts drifting towards skipping the ride, a memory of something I had read quickly popped into my mind: "Mountain bikers don't depend on the weather", so off I went. Lately my legs have been struggling and every ride has been an effort, the plan was to go in search of some single track I had heard murmurs about and ride everything else in between as fast as my legs would allow. So heading towards Melford along Valley walk my first piece of exploration began, I had seen some track running along the side which looked promising and bit's were, with a bit of axe work and some clearing it could become a good way to avoid the dog walkers that have a habit of taking up the whole walk, giving you evils and allowing their dogs to chase you. "Don't worry he won't bite", yeah won't bite you, will bite a strangely dressed man on some sort of mechanical beast! Is it just me or do dogs hate cycle helmets? After blitzing half the Melford route I reached a bit of track that I had rode about a third of but had it on good authority there was more hidden around. Riding up the road my eyes were darting about looking for an opening to get round the back of the houses and into the trees, eventually it appeared. Once under the cover of the woods I started following a nice tight piece of winding track that appeared to get little use, stingers and sticks were slapping on my shins, stinging nettles are more vicious in the wet. The track split at multiple points mostly going off to dead ends leaving me to double back on myself, there were also some old jumps which could be fun with a bit of spade work. The track narrowly meandered down to a road crossing which then spat me back into the trees for the final third which I knew, it's not as overgrown as the stuff previously and has a lovely little jump at the end. Now I had figured out the path through the woods I belted back up the road for another run to hit it with more flow. The end of the second run approached and I could feel a familiar sensation on my shins, they were cut, whipped and stung to oblivion ( I couldn't get to sleep because of the constant itching and tingling). Realizing that time was pushing on and wanting to take my mind off my shins, revolutions upped in line with speed and everything felt good, no aching legs or back and even my elbow was feeling strong. With this I pushed hard for the last part of the ride powering up climbs and thrashing the downs grabbing air wherever I could, all the time generally grinning like an idiot. Stacey was less than impressed with my mud faced appearance at the back door.
Route here: http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/jgrB0R1EUL4
Reatin rides on.
