Tales of Trails: The Heat Is On!

Ride Date: 18/07/2013

Location: Cannock Chase

Riders : Jake, Ryan, Basil, Simon, Dan & Deley

It wasn't the hottest day of the year, but it was probably the hottest day we'd been out for an after work ride. Talk in the carpark was of a complete run of Cannock chase, both "Follow the Dog" & "The Monkey trail", so off we set onto the Tackeroo campsite full of energy!

Things started off well with a flying run down to Birches valley & a good pace through "Twist & Shout" down to "Stegosaurus". After that things started going awry, with Si coming off on some Northshore. By the time we had got to the split we had decided, due to the incredible heat we would do "High Voltage" & "Devil's Staircase" then back up the hill officially known as the "Bastard Hill" then back onto follow the dog.

The rest of the trail was uneventful, we even took some time out to practice some log hopping and wheelie-ing. All this got us back to the carpark much earlier than planned. Dan suggested we go and look at some more of the old trails out on the other side, more specifically a bomb hole he'd seen whilst out on a walk.

Off we set through a series of nice, fast single track, where Si came off again allegedly caused by a "hidden" tree stump, most of us missed the crash, only being alerted by Deley's laugh as Si left his bike. It wasn't too long before we found the bomb hole & had a good mess about before moving on to the smaller bomb hole with the jumps, where we had been on a visit earlier in the year. More fast single track over varying terrains led us to the jumps.

We started off just messing about, when I all of a sudden got a bit more adventurous than usual & started tackling things that normally only Dan would do (I blame the heat!). The first few jumps went well if not a little short of the target. However the "one last go" ended up as a bit of a disaster! Basically too much speed and a poor technique saw the bike twist in the air and me flip head & shoulder first into the ground and travel a few metres to a halt. Injuries were a lot less than they should have been due to my helmet taking the brunt of the impact, although the should is still a bit sore 3 weeks later.

See below for a Slo-mo of the jumps & crash!

A direct link to the video as it doesn't seem to show on iPads

http://youtu.be/je4ue2ROdns

That sort of cut the ride short, after some very much appreciated help and support from the lads, I was eventually back on the bike and riding back to the carpark, where much rallying round got me & the bike back in the car and on the journey back home.

Worst thing was missing out on a lovely cold pint at the Chase pub!!

The moral of the story is... well there are 2 really, never take that "One last go", also if Dan can do it, don't assume you can do it too, not without a lot more practice first anyway!