Thought I’d get there early, to check out the first part of this ride, as the last time I rode it, it was dark and I wasn’t paying attention, Just after 9 I got there and blow me down with a ton of bricks, the Duller brothers and Kevin were already there, fettling with their steeds, keen me thinks.
¼ mile into the ride we stopped for our first photo opportunity, pretty impressive view it is too
This part of the ride I would be winging it, although id ridden it a few times it’s been at night in gopping weather, what could go wrong.
The trail gods were good to us today, the ground was relatively dry, which was handy as this section was a tad off camber and full of roots, (don’t look at the roots, don’t look at the roots) everybody made it through
Started to head over to North Nibley now, there is some real nice single-track through here, not over technical but you need to concentrate a bit as you can soon come unstuck, riding up toward the monument we went right, this is where the groovy kids have been building all the downhill tracks, I do suffer from all the tracks look the same but luckily I chose a track that didn’t kill us all and was a bit of fun, steep, twisty and bermy (if that’s a word), first climb of the day that made me change colour.
Back on the top we started to head back where we came from but in a slightly different direction, this was planned, honest.
I was amazed how dry the tracks were, especially after the rain we’d had in the previous week
I nearly lost a few in here, but plenty of loud talking bought them back into the flock
This track bought us back to where we parked the vehicles, but the ride wasn’t over, up the road and drop left into a tasty little track, that has seen many a good rider sat on there derriere , so well done all for not taking close inspection of the ground here, although I here Sean preferred to ride down there on his front wheel J, this part of the ride is familiar to those of you who have ridden Heaven of the South before, prone to being a bit muddy, not to bad today though, we got to the part of the trail where it starts to go downhill, it’s a tasty track that goes into a gully with a gate near the bottom ( there used to be two, my crash on a previous ride sorted that one out) I went on to open the gate and catch a few photos
We were now down in Waterly Bottom with stuff on our bikes that didn’t smell like your conventional mud.
Pretty valley this though
We were now heading over to Stinchcombe, to one of my favourite climbs in this area, words can describe it, we got to the bottom of the hill and I told the skinnier members of the group to wait at the crossroad of the tracks, when we got there they had gone straight on, unlucky, a bit of shouting and the racing snakes rejoined the group, off again on this delightful climb all the way up to Stinchcombe golf club, rode round the perimeter of the golf club and made our way over to Breakheart quarry. Small discussion whether we stopped for a break now or did the switch backs up and down and then had our break, we all opted for lunch later, this is a great piece of woodland to ride and fair play to the people that built it and maintain it
Switch back climb done we make our way to the shed in Breakheart quarry, this is a great service to use if you’re up this way, the shed has a log burner, table and chairs, coffee machine and a cool drinks vending machine, just put your 50p in the honesty box.
Rested we make start making our way over too North Nibley, which entails going down a steep gulley which was full of leaves, which makes for interesting riding, we all made it down and made our way over to the last climb of the day, this climb is straight up, dreaming of switch backs I pushed my bike up, at last we had made it back to the monument at North Nibley, a few went up the tower which is worth doing if you haven’t before, some great views over to the severn bridges and beyond
Just a short ride from here through the woods back to the vehicles
Thanks to Michael, Gary, Kevin, Jane, Dave, Kate, Steve, Martin and Sean for making it a great day out
