Ride Date: 25/04/2013
Riders : Jake, Ryan, Basil, Tony, Dan, Howard, Deley & Carro.
Been a while since the last post, but here goes...
Spring is here!!! And with dry trails appearing we opted for a couple of rides this week, the first was more of an investigation into Black Rocks & Riber in which we found some very promising downhill trails, but more of that next time when we do a full group ride out there.
Onto the second ride of the week, which took us to the very familiar territory of Ticknall & Robin's wood. Although it's been a while as most of the area doesn't ride too well in wet & muddy conditions, but with this outrageous dry spell it was excellent.
First off after some delays getting started with cheeky bike hiding & Carro forgetting his drink, we made our way into Robin's Wood with plans of having a good few goes on the trails. After a few minutes for Dan to get his bearings we were off down the first one, a nice rocky, rooty & twisty number which lead to the well known jumps on the bottom trail. This is where incident number one happened, with Tony proving that Hopwas wasn't a one-off and him leaping from his bike to hug a tree again! After some informative words of advice from Carro to help Tony improve his skills we were off again up a quick climb to find another trail.
This next one had some good stone jumps and was nice and fast, dropping again onto the bottom section of jumps & incident number two. As I passed Basil he swung a leg to get off his bike hitting my handlebar with a glancing blow and throwing me over the handlebars.
We managed a couple more runs down various trails, losing Deley in the process and Dan having a hidden stump collision accident, which left him with a nasty gash on his shin. We made our way back through the wood to the exit, where Deley left us to go and enjoy his wedding anniversary tea.
Myself & Ryan trying a stone drop off in Robin's Wood, filmed by Carro Speilberg
We then carried on via many bridleways and trails out towards Kings Newton & Stanton By Bridge, coming back round the top of Robin's Wood and off towards Foremark.
We lost Howard towards the end due to a slow puncture & the rest of us carried on to finish a good 18 mile ride and we didn't even make it to Repton Bottoms or Bretby!
An enjoyable ride, with some good Robin's Wood action and a very good pace over the remainder of the ride you certainly knew you had been out there.
I'll finish off with a huge welcome back from all of us to our long lost friend "dry, dusty trails".
Let's hope we see a lot more of you this year!!
See the full route here http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/181307172/151189
