Well it was if you were mad enough to go that way (stole this pic from website). This is the bridleway from Wilbarston to Ashley, and thats one steep uphill and everyone who did it had to carry a very heavy mud-laden bike. ha! ha!
Me and Dave took one look, binned it and went round on the road and climbed up from the other way and still beat some riders there, even on singlespeeds. Oh yes we were smug.
It rammed home though why even though this is a very local area to us, we just don't know the tracks......because most of them are just places you don't want to ride for fun. Some good downhills and a few good hard tracks, but mainly poor. We did actully hit another yomp across a field section that must have took us 15 mins to clear,crap choice from me, spirits remained high though, proper teamwork.
Results link is below, it was a good day to be out in the countryside even if Dave was feeling ill. I'm quite suprised how well we did really because we really crawled round at times, and walked several hills, all credit to Dave for keeping going, he was on empty from 15 mins in and I had to physically push him along one-handed at times ;-)
Soup tea and superb cakes back at the clubhouse with the roaring log fire was a good finish reward, nice to see the clubhouse getting used (and dirtied..oops) by mountainbikers for once.
Checking the route we took and how we abandoned early to cruise home we would have picked up at least another 80 easy to get roadside points at our normal speed, so shows that a good route choice can defeat speed in these things, suppose that's why they are very popular with people who don't actually race.
Graham was out there too, and we even finished together in a flurry of spinning legs trying to follow him. you guys should look out for this next year, always a good day out and I'm always suprised how litlle club interest there is!
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