The 3 of us finally left Buckingham shortly after 2 pm on Friday the 13th and without a lucky rabbits foot or black cat to hand, we headed off "up North" (well North West). Luck was, as a result not on our side and despite the use of a road map and a Tom Tom we hit bad traffic and later bad weather.
We arrived at the camp site at 7.45pm and met a chap who needs to go on a people skills course. Had it not been late and raining, I have a feeling the usually calm Garry would have told him where he could stick his campsite rule book and we would have found an alternative site. When we unloaded the car, the rain had eased a tad and we quickly got the tent up, the now traditional "Speckled Hen" opened and Garry firing up the camp stove. After another few beers and some interesting chat it was time to get some z's.
The morning was overcast but at least it was not raining, in fact the weather steadily improved throughout the day. Following breakfast we "saddled up" and headed off down the road to the trail centre.
The first trail was a short one at just under 9k's called Temtiwr. This was basically a warm up, however the start is fairly technical for the uninitiated. Also the end of the trail was a hard fire road uphill and a fairly technical downhill back to the centre. This would be re-visited later.
A quick snack at the centre and it was off to tackle the Dragon's Back, 31k's in length and graded as Severe. The start was the same but after about 10 minutes into the trail it branched off from the Temtiwr trail via a bridge over the amazing white water rapids below. A section of the trail called "Beefy" was interesting as it was basically a stream. Half way round we stopped off for a cuppa and a cake at a Cafe. At this stage we took a short cut and both Garry and myself decided to walk up the extremely steep road, Bruce on the other hand spun that granny ring all the way up, so the fitness is back.
We then rejoined the trail at several downhill sections named after the Adam's family. We had missed out Gomez and rejoined the trail at Morticia which merged into Pugsey and this is the most difficult cycling I have done so far, in fact I along with 3 others we had met from Bristol decided to walk our bikes down, rather than risk broken bones. Back on the bike for Lurch and then Uncle Fester which was a man made section and rather like a roller coaster, and very enjoyable, and I know "Dave" would have had fun on this section of the trail.
The next part of the trail was called the Pink Heifer, and as ever I rode at the back and about half way down I met the other two and what looked like an incident. Garry had misjudged a jump and hit the bank with his right ankle taking the worst of it. We had a few k's still to go, mostly familiar territory as we rejoined the Temtiwr trail, and this was the hard slog uphill and the technical downhill.
We had a hard ride back to the camp site but had the beers and dinner to look forward to.
Saturday evening was fantastic, good weather, good beer, good food (even Bruce rustled up supper) and good company. Sunday was wet and Garry's ankle was looking like an elephants foot. Time to call it a day and drive home.
My highpoint from this weekend was the fact I did not struggle with climbing up the hills and I am pleased with my overall fitness level.
Can't wait for the next outing, and we really do need to take some more photo's !!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment