Chunky Mamil: Short but Sweet

Friday 4 November 2011

Short but Sweet

The plan for today was to hit the muddy stuff with Bonus. We were due to set off about one ish but then the skies darkened and it started raining about 12. I still fancied a blast and suggested we could do a route that kept us under the treeline. Five minutes before meet up I get a text from Bonus making his apologies but he didn't like the look of the forecast.

Well, I was all dressed up with nowhere to go so I thought I'd do a quick lap that would give me a lung bursting climb followed by a great descent. I set off up to Hopcott woods, its still warm and had to stop five minutes in to take off my waterproof, I was under the trees now and the rain was easing. The first part of this ride is along the road up through the combe. It would be hard enough on the road bike with 23mm of rubber but on a 40lb mountain bike with 2" inches of rubber it certainly gets your blood pumping. It's about a mile from my house up to the end of the road but the last bit ramps up gaining 200ft in about a quarter of a mile. I made it though which gave me a boost and after a quick search for my lungs I made my way onto the rough stuff and through the trees up to the top of the hill.

Autumn Colours

Its nice riding through the woods, peace and quiet and the odd spooky rustle, probably squirrels but you never know. Its great being this close to the trails, if I turned around now I could be back home in about two minutes. I made my way to the crossroads, put my waterproof on and headed for the top of Grabbist Hill and then onto Alcombe combe. It was wet down to the top of Grabbist and after a quick wipe of the glasses it was onto the combe. This is a great downhill when its dry but a little bit more challenging in the wet. There's lots of wet roots, leaves and rocks on the tricky bits so I took it steady. After making it down in one piece I hit our little track through the trees and through the stream at the end to finish the off road bit and hit the road home.