| The Background |
Real Mountain bikes are sturdy machines. Most are fitted with wide knobbly tyres, and the real ones come equipped with full suspension and special clip-less pedals designed to lock the riders feet in position, and more importantly allow the fortunate rider to quickly unclip in the event of a stall.
Real Mountain bikers are even sturdier machines, craving the constant adrenalin rush of taking dangerous muddy descents at break-neck speeds.
My mountain bike is different. Hell, I’m different.
Up until two years ago before I discovered the style, the grace and the speed of road-bikes, my only bike was an old MTB and one that had rarely ever been seen on rugged terrain. |
Getting older and wiser, I tended to avoid going in search of the rough dirt tracks and do more of my riding on the safer smoother grey stuff.
And in an effort to make the road miles an easier task, I’d ditched the knobblies and fitted slick road tyres, a pair of “Conti Travel Contacts”. They were great on the tarmac, not so great on the mud.
I’d also equipped the MTB with Look SPD clip-less pedals, normally only ever seen on road-bikes. As I say, I’m different. I assumed these would be a good investment if I was never to venture off-road again. |
| The Premise |
Having owned a road bike for the last two years, I had rarely blown the cobwebs off the poor relegated MTB, other than for the short family ride along some very flat and very safe canal towpaths. Instead, I preferred to join my riding buddy Jim on our road-bikes most weekends, clocking up the miles on the road.
So when that same riding buddy recently mentioned that his local village organises an annual off-road ride, I thought it was time for a change and to reacquaint myself with my rusting MTB and join him.
The premise was a simple one. We’d meet at his house for toast and poor coffee, ride a 10 mile loop then finish back at his for some excellent home made cakes and poor coffee once again. There would be around 15 riders in all; fathers, sons, daughters and a solitary brave and foolish mum. Ages ranged from 10 years to 45+ years and abilities ranged from ‘skilled off-roaders’ to one ‘not-so-skilled ill-equipped roadie’. |
A good weekend was chosen for the ride. After a week of mixed weather, the planned easy-going 10 miler would turn into a heavy-going muddy plod across an array of boggy rutted farm tracks. But then I guess that’s all the fun of off-roading, isn’t it?
Setting off in a group, I started out really well (mainly because the initial stretch through the village was on tarmac) and I was out to impress those younger inexperienced weaker riders with my super-slick super-heavy tarmac gobbling MTB.
After nearly missing the first left turn down a dirt track because I lost sight of those younger inexperienced weaker riders up ahead after they had effortlessly sprinted off, the road surface turned from dirt track to wet grass as the route then headed up a slight incline and over a field. This is when I realised that my bike and I were ill-equipped for the journey and my already slow pace really slowed. |
| The First Fall |
Riding as though I was on greased ice, I clumsily made my way across the field only just managing to keep the bike moving forwards in the upright position. With the rear wheel frequently loosing traction and spinning freely on the wet terrain, at times I was convinced someone had switched my MTB bike for a turbo trainer. Good job I have good balance.
However, never having fully mastered the track stand, I was soon to find out how long I could ride stationary without falling sideways. Soon enough as I rode slowly and carefully alongside a large thicket of thorns and nettles, I lost my balance and in what seemed like slow motion fell sideways into the bush. Luckily, the only witness was Jim who was following closely at the time, and was thoughtful enough not to laugh for too long. |
Carefully removing my bike from the bush and then even more carefully removing thorny parts of the bush from my arse, I was clipped in and back on the move.
A pattern emerged over the next few miles, where the youngsters would race ahead stopping periodically for the more ‘experienced’ riders to catch up.
Then we arrived at the top of a tree canopied descent. It looked like an ancient stony farm track, something that would ideally be more suited to the heavily treaded tyres of a tractor rather than the heavily un-treaded set of slicks I was sporting. |
| The Second Fall |
Again, letting the kids take the descent first (as they always seemed more eager on the descents), I started to carefully descend on the wet slippery rocky track. Gradually building up speed (which incidentally I put down to a lethal combination of gravity and poor brakes rather than courage), I was hurtling down the hill out of control. When I approached the clearing at the bottom, most of the party had already arrived and were looking back up the hill towards me.
Falling off earlier into nettles was embarrassing enough with only the one witness, but wishing to please the crowd this time, I fell off spectacularly in full view of everyone. The front wheel slipped from under me and I headed shoulder first into a hedgerow of nettles. |
Thankfully, the soft landing in the nettles had broken my fall once again and I’d not done any lasting damage to me or the bike (other than the stinging sensation to every square inch of exposed skin). I just wished I’d been wearing longs instead of shorts as I picked myself up out of the nettles for the second time. As it turned out, most of the party were in fact looking back up the hill purely for amusement, as that particular spot had caused a few other riders to wobble on their more controlled and less spectacular descents. |
| The Punctures |
As the weather was now making a change for the worse, we chose this exposed spot to have a rest and a refuel. One of the guys had got a puncture on his descent, and the wait enabled him to attempt to fix the same puncture twice on the same wheel. Two spare tubes later we were on all our way once again, and into the wind and rain. If that wasn’t unlucky enough, he clearly wished to show off his tyre changing abilities, and punctured his front tyre a few yards up the hill. So that was three punctures in nearly as many minutes for one rider (although technically he was a walker, as he’d hardly done any riding in the last hour).
From there on in, it was a fairly uneventful ride for us, with us all managing to stay both warm and upright for the remaining miles.
For the last section of the ride there was a choice of staying off-road or opting for the road route. As the road option featured a fast descent past Chieveley sewage works, the kids being kids all opted to go the road way back just to take in the ‘big hill’. |
I would have obviously preferred to stay off-road with the real men of the party and give further exhibitions of my unorthodox bike handling skills, but seeing sense and an easy way out, I agreed to go back via the road with Jenny and the kids ‘to make sure they all got back safely’.
We’d only cycled for a short stretch together when I looked ahead to see Catherine start the descent of the hill, veer to the right and then try desperately hard not to enter the sewage works. She’d skilfully managed to pick up a front puncture on her descent and even more skilfully managed to avoid bursting through the front gates of the sewage works.
I caught up with her and after discussing the fact that everyone else had thoughtfully ridden on ignoring her plight, I offered to walk her back the remaining half a mile in the rain. Remembering where she could have ended up, I might not have been quite so willing had she successfully managed to crash through the Sewage Works gates. |
| The Thanks |
Thanks Jenny for the delicious cakes. Thanks Jim for the coffee. If I’m invited back next year, I’ll try to remember to bring 30 or so spare tubes and more importantly look into getting stabilisers fitted to the bike.
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All in all, a great ride with some great people. |
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