That’s it, right there. Documenting the maiden voyage of the good ship “pointless-niche” had me gloves off camera in hand. It was with great care the soul stealer was returned to its’ padded pouch, which may explain the lack of available ‘what the fuck have I left this time’ brain capacity to solve the difficult equation concerning a lack of hand shaped fabric and cold fingers.

I worked it out of course. Eventually. About a mile down the track. Which developed into a three mile round trip attacking the original location in some kind of frenzied pincer movement – as is the plight of the navigationally challenged man. Desperation even caused me to flick the GPS to ‘map‘ where all manner of symbols and lines randomly lit up the screen.

Moth like was I transfixed right up to the point where it became apparent I had absolutely not a single clue how this was going to help me. Or even what it might mean – “green probably trees/looks up/yep lots of those/white probably roads/looks down/nope none of those/excellent let’s go *rimmer red dwarf salute* THAT WAY”

Otherwise a successful outing measured by if you first do not succeed, redefine exactly what you mean by success. Which starts simply by stating that riding bikes on a school day* is always a good thing especially if your friends are torn between office window looks of longing, and the email ping of some smug bastard serially sending you photos of dry singletrack. If and when I’m sent down to hell, I’ll probably not bother to appeal.

The bike though was a tremendous success despite Halfords finest efforts to sabotage it with cunning incompetence. Take tyre pressures as an example each rated at 75 PSI which – if you have a special kind of mind – equals 150 for the pair to be metered out as you feel fit. Say why not 90 in the front, 60 in the back? The headset was almost tight enough to stop the fork falling out, but the threaded slack had been taken up by the brake callipers leaving both wheels shorn of any motion.

No matter, we were soon off to test the efficacy of the ride more/drive less ultimatum I delivered to myself about a week ago when crafting new buying bikes angles. First impressions were excellent, road bike stiff, adequately brisk on the road even with knobbly – if still terrifying thin – tyres and brakes that did something other than fire up your imagination of head on collisions. 15 minutes later we ‘had wood‘ where my guess at tyre pressures was exposed first by a wet root and then by some swearing.

A quick hiss and prod returned some grip to the strange experience of riding off-road on what looks like a road bike. It doesn’t feel like one tho, nor does it ape the characteristics of a mountain bike. The best way to describe it is – well – spaniel.

A bar width track carpeted in Winter’s colours of dead leaf and live mud must be investigated and RIGHT NOW. A choice of an easy line or some ambitious slick root complex is no choice at all. The bloody thing is possessed by an irrepressible spirit of fun, it’s going to get you into trouble and while you might come out bleeding, you’ll most likely be laughing all the way to the fracture clinic.

Going home isn’t as rewarding as going long so best just hang on for the ride, close your eyes when your inner accountant screams “I can’t get over that, I don’t have a£500 suspension fork”, open your mind to the possibility of direct simplicity. But don’t be fooled that fun is analogous to immortal.

Riding cross bikes on woody singletrack, hanging onto the drops, carving lines by thought alone and remembering to breathe is, of course, a splendid way to spend your time, but it’s also transient.

One ride doesn’t tell you much. But it’s a ride that wouldn’t have happened on any other bike. And for that, we’re already into the positives. Soon – oh God please let it be soon – Winter will be over and there will be sun-hardened singletrack ready for an early morning raid, a lunchtime skive or a post work blast.

A few more rides like that and we might have found ourselves a new Rog 🙂

* I am sort of on holiday this week. Which so far has seen me spend 17 hours working in London on Monday, and about the same here yesterday. This is because nice people want to pay me to work on my days off and I want to make sure the family are not rendered destitute. It’s a virtuous circle. Only not round. or very virtuous.

This post is sponsored by the Order Of The Mong, of which I am both a certified practitioner and disciple, first class. Eleven years man and older man dutifully returning to the shrine of stack, the crack-cocaine hit of damp earth and hard stump. Clicky ankle, wonky shoulder, much stitched knee, partially repaired elbow, broken nose (twice) and various bone pieces floating about in a fully organic game of Operation.

It’s barely worth donating my body to medical science, there really isn’t enough left.

We’ve suffered two months of trail conditions so dangerous I’m considering suing for attempted murder. Eight weeks when every ride has been more about survival than fun. It’s hard to know what is lacking the most; grip in the viscous mud or sanity for those riding upon it.

Not now apparently. Lovely and dry. Fast and mud free. Summer quick, joy bloody-well unconfined. Stacked full of happy texts- my phone greeted me as I lumpily scrolled through the messages. I wouldn’t know of course being sidelined with a rib somewhere between badly bruised and cracked. Sodding painful either way. Well I wouldn’t have known had not my riding buddies felt the irritable urge to pass on the happy news. More than once I couldn’t help noticing.*

I’m not sure which accident cracked my rib. I do know there were a few of them; crashes that is not ribs. For which I am quite properly thankful since while breathing isn’t optional, it’s certainly bloody painful. Coughing I’m trying very hard to avoid through the art of displacement. Which works to the extent that the I sneeze instead. And that’s eyes-squeezed-shut, deep breath (bad idea), forearm chewing unpleasant.

A week into the month of mong, a many-time ridden drop had been planted with an unseen obstacle of old fence wire. I say unseen, it glowed brightly in my helmet light during my post crash stumble looking for reasons why me and the bike were separated by a few feet and a sore shoulder. Ten minutes, and many metres below, was around the time it became apparent that search had failed to pick out my new and expensive GPS lying on the ground.

A tired retrieval called time on that ride. Two days of honest appraisal suggested this new crashing phenomenon was clearly not my fault. I refused to blame over-caution and lack of commitment instead pointing a grubby digit at Mr Slick and His Many Slithery Trails.

An omnipresent being with a sick sense of humour, he carpeted the entire Forest of Dean with sufficient danger to ensure barely a gnat’s whatsit between rider and victim. There’s many ways to tell this story, wandering off the narrative to point out my extreme bravery on some earlier jumps, a fantastic foot-out tank-slapper save and various acts of riding skill passing entirely unnoticed by everyone but me.

But in the end, I just fell off. Over a jump. Again. Not sure why, various explanations – none of them creating a time-shift to have another go. Over the bars. Again. This time with an obvious injury that was going to take more than a pint to shake off. Tried that anyway which made the next couple of mildly scary mid trail jumps pass without incident. Beer is indeed for winners. Or whiners.

We had many more to celebrate Haydn’s birthday. It wasn’t until three days later, when considering hacking my own nose off to prevent further sneezing, did I accept this wasn’t residual soreness. A quick visit to Rob-The-Prod** suggested I’d probably live, but it’d be a few weeks before aged bones were pointing in mostly the right direction.

There’s something to be learned here; it’s not something obvious around old men not being able to jump or treating conditions with some respect or some need to brush up on basic skills. No, because that would make this my fault, and the logical conclusion from that is it’s time to do something easier.

So I’m going with the alternative version. Firstly consider a pre-beer ride to boost confidence and consider any further accidents some kind of bike related issue.

Oh and investigate one armed activities until spring. I’m thinking Darts what with it being a) a recognised sport and b) held in the pub.

* Possibly in the same way they may notice their bikes custom-motif’d with a key scratched message “Yes, right you fuckers, I got it okay?”

** My unofficial doctor. MTB’r and proper quack; “ibuprofen and wine, go ride next week, try not to fall off, it’ll hurt“

… National No Crash Week. Which makes a nice change from “name a sausage week” or “staple a cat to your ear week” or whatever nonsense some worthy lobby group is pitching as the pointless-idea-de-jour. It’s instructive to understand the behaviour such initiatives drives in your average citizen.

National no smoking day generates four million grumpy people chewing fingernails and chewing out anyone within a no-smoke radius. Or consider a ‘drink applejuice not alcohol’ 24 hourmoratoriumand observe the car crash of the all-country 48 hour bender which follows.

Theantithesisis to offer a norm and pretend it is somehow special. Last week, riding and crashing became largely indistinguishable with them both starting at the same point and ending nose-down in theshrubbery. Except for the one which nearly happened and – somewhat nonintuitively- left me considerably more concerned than the previous face plants.

First tho, Martin. The man who had fetched me out of a ditch earlier in the week, andpersuaded me a further exploration of personal hurtiness was something to be positively embraced. Which, as karma dictates, put him on a collision course with an accident so amusing to watch, it very nearly included me as well.

As can be seen, the final position quite clearly demonstrates Martin missing the perfect apex-clipping line he was aiming for. He picked a line which had many things going for it; ideal entry into a tight, steep switchback, away from the washed away main line and a rather raffish approach to late braking. What it didn’t have was any grip.

It’s beencruelly observed that the Orange 5 MTB Martin is riding makes a similar racket to a large filing cabinet being tossed down a fire escape. Those big hollow stays certainly amplify sound, but that sound was more ‘arrrghhh‘ followed by ‘ooooooomppph‘ as the bike dropped onto Martin’s prone torso from a vertical trajectory.

A further sound was a manic cackle and a stern instruction not to move before the moment could be pictorially represented for posterity, and a chunk of the Internet. Martin was entirely unharmed whereas my complaints of a sore ribcage from unstoppable laughter received no sympathy.

Two days later we’re at it again. This time into the teeth of a wind measured on the brisk side of gale force and a hangover measured on the mallet side of hammered. The previous night a chance discovery of ‘Butcombe Blonde’* ended in predictable messiness which even the repeated application of strong coffee and egg-based products failed to shift.

The plan was to bag the best three descents superbly described in this months ‘What Mountain Bike’** on the never-knowingly-underpointy North side of the Malvern Hills. Most of the climbs seemed to be pitched directly into a headwind whistling over the exposed terrain. Only when hidden by the hills’ muscular shoulders or hiding below the treeline was control and direction placed back in the riders’ hands.

Fun was had tho, hangovers fading, new trail options explored, new jump built but unridden. Excuses made, silliness andinappropriatespeed elsewhere passed a happy 60 minutes. The next 20 were less joyful climbing into the face of that bastard blow further enlivened with driving rain.

Decision point now. Turn for home on an exposed ridge, or traverse on edgy singletrack leaving no option but another big climb back out. I pulled out the Asthma card and we worldlessly battled the storm to the ridgetop, conversation being ripped away by the wind. Leaving just one descent with the potential of a granite facial, that’d put Martin out for months last year in similar conditions.

No surprise to see me sent out first then. The cross wind was blowing 30+ knots and love the jumpy-lumpiness of this trail as I do, it was clearly a wheels on the floor day. Except for a rock drop where rolling really isn’t an option. While 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of riding conforms to the throw-away ‘speed is your friend’ line, this line certainly does not in those conditions.

Opting for lower velocity, and a subtle weight shift to pop the front wheel over was the thinking mans stay-out-of-hospital approach. Which worked fantastically until the bike briefly pawed skywards at the exact same instant a mighty gust played man-and-bike in ascythingtackle. The view from behind tells of a one foot shift to the right between take off and landing.

A landing which ignored the relative safety of a loose rocky line and instead plunged me into some pre-cambrian nastiness full of organ slicing and spiking obstacles rarely troubled by foot or tyre. History says our hero stood tall on the pedals, fixed his eyes on some far horizon away from the horror between axles, and rode out the GNAR using a SICK riding style to the power of RAD.

History lies of course. What with it being written by the winners. My only mildly heroic action was to death-grip the bars what with the tyres having enough on their treads without me subtracting braking from a decreasing traction profile. It was a wild ride for a few seconds before spitting me out somewhat perturbed and largely a passenger back on the main trail.

I’ve said it before, riding is all about moments and margins. Some days you’re the slugger, some days you’re the ball. Somedays you’re just bloody happy not to peeling your nose from your ear. Too damn close. Too damn scary. Too easy to laugh off and get back out there tomorrow.

Except for me designating these seven days to be ‘no crash week’, If it’s successful, I might extend it to a month. Or a year.

Here’s hoping.

* A discovery which I kept on making. By about the fifth, I’d definitely found something. An inability to walk in a straight line for a start.

** Where the handsome yet modest guide appears in glorious technicolour looking slightly less handsome than he remembered.

Oh Lordy. That’s me back in 2002 equipped with “the best bike in the world, why would I need anything else?”. Cue hollow laughter. Also with hair. And none of it grey. I was already convinced that my best times had passed and that 40 was basically the end of the road. But no, here we are 10 years later still riding, still making excuses, still buying bikes.

And writing about them. This rather waffly piece was completed after my first proper ride in the Black Mountains. Led by Russ a year before his accident, it was a proper all day yomp that left me mostly broken and extremely humbled. I’ve left the text as is even tho some of it makes me wince a little nowadays. Not because I’m seeking some kind of redemption, more because I’m too lazy to do anything about it.

I dug this out after writing a piece for Singletrack based on the 2011 ride of that route. Less things have changed than expected. Even aside from rubbish grammar and spelling. It’s a proper 2-mug-of-tea read if you can bare it.

It did leave me with one enduring thought; riding for ten years and I’m still no better. I expect this also means I’ll have to accept that playing on the wing for England is probably out.

7am on a Sunday is never a civilized time to haul ones’ weary arse out of a warm comfortable bed. Even with the early spring sun shining on your tousled features and the prospect of an epic Welsh loop just two hours away, it was still an effort of will to drag oneself to the vertical.

Packing the car the previous day had been a good idea. Wandering out in shorts and a T-Shirt was not. A balmy 2 degrees at a mere 300 feet above sea level drove me back into the house for more clothes “ in fact as many clothes as I could usefully find and wear was my approach to potential hypothermia. Collecting a bleary eyed Mike fifteen minutes later, we were somewhat perturbed to find a decidedly energetic Andy cycling at our pre-arranged meeting point. Not only energetic but with the build and demeanour of an XC racer about him. Ah, we wondered, had we bitten off more than we could chew. Ah indeed.

The 36 mile loop with over 3500 feet of climbing had seemed like a damn fine idea when we accepted Russ’ offer to lose our Welsh virginity. The when for me was ensconced in a warm pub after a two hour ride on the Ridgeway and for Mike it was via a text message whilst he was looking out to sea on holiday in Copenhagen. Running out of excuses, we turned west and followed the A40 towards the border surviving on crap jokes and stories on how good we use to be. 120 miles later we arrived in Tal-Y-Bont meeting up with the rest of the riders easily spotted as they assembled their steeds in the shadow of Russ’ abandoned Saab.

And it was a worry quite frankly. Barely an ounce of bodyfat between the lot of them and some seriously pimpy hardware on display. 2002 Speccy FSR in front of me, TI lightspeed over there, Sub 5 glinting in the sunshine here. Fit riders and Fast bikes “ was it too late to pull a hamstring I wondered. Still we were half there fishing out the Superlights from the car and attempting to assemble them in some professional looking manner. Fast bikes, Slow riders. What’s that phrase too fat to climb¦ too gay to descend

Russ adjusted his GPS, checked his watch and after promising an easy pace set off down the high street like he was being chased. A six mile climb awaited us so it was hard to see why he was in such a hurry but follow him we must and away we went climbing on a good track out of the valley bottom with great views of Lake Lin being offered through the trees. The fast boys powered off up the hill leaving Mike and I to make sure no one was left behind (other than us). Tortoise and Hare we declared thinking that their short term fast pace would leave them with nothing left at the end. Ah again.

Half way up we called a halt for the obligatory photo stop with the lake in the background.

Two months ago it had been blizzard conditions but today the sky was cloudless, the wind no more than brisk and the trails were dry in the main. That would change a little as the route opened up but most of the guys who had been here before couldn’t believe the state of the ground so early in the spring. I couldn’t believe how high it was after the monster 300 feet climbs we puffed up in the Chilterns. The track became more rutted with evidence of four wheel drives and MX bikes clear to see. I’m not good in ruts “ well not entirely true, I’m quite good to watch as I bounce from side to side like a human pinball before the inevitable face plant into the verge. However, we emerged intact at the zenith of this climb only to be confronted by a quarry. Anyone tells you different “ call them a liar: Sharp flinty rocks of various sizes from medium to huge strewn across the track in a pattern most likely to rearrange your front teeth for as far as the eye can see. That’s a quarry “ no argument. Imagine my surprise when Russ grinned (a little manically if I recall correctly) and explained what a fantastic section this was and moreover the only way to get down with the same number of limbs as you started with was to attack it. What with pick axes and shovels I mumbled thinking this may make it more manageable. But no, off they went hurtling down the rock garden with little concept of personal safety floating over rocks and whooping it up big style.

More circumspect, Mike and I checked, in no particular order, our wills, our valuables and our bravery coefficient. Finding them lacking in similar amounts, we gingerly embarked on what I certainly felt would be my last journey. From three feet away, every rock was my personal grim reaper, scythe in hand, waiting to grip my front wheel and hurl me headlong to my doom. Bounce, Boing, Swear, stall and swear again was an approach that saw us plunge down the track rigid on the bikes like we had already contracted rigor mortis. And then in a shift that was 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} mental and 10{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} physical I decided if I was going down, then I was going down in a blaze of glory rather than some innocuous pratfall brought on my a lack of momentum.

Off the brakes, things improved rapidly as the trail became less threatening and infinitely more fun. This is where full suspension bikes earn their corn; four inches of travel is a whole shit-load and as a pilot your task is to simply point the bike downhill, take a deep breath, relax and wonder at the clever mechanics happening underneath you. Bounce, Boing, flow, giggle replaced the previous mantra and the rocks stopped being a singular threat and started being just another free ride to the best drug in the world “ Adrenalin.

Happy and exhilarated to be in one piece at the bottom, I explained to those who had been there waiting a while that really the technique was to let the brakes off and let everything hang out. They smiled politely enough before pointing to a ribbon of tarmac that was our link to the next challenge. These fellas were fit pushing out the road miles in pelaton style, draughting each other and then breaking away just because they could. It’s a funny way to enjoy yourself I thought taking the last but one place but hey if it floats your boat, go with it.

Mike was struggling a little now. Having been on the bike but once since our return from the Andes, the pace was a little too hot. And he wasn’t getting on at all with the rocks much of which was down to his SIDs providing a total of 1.5 inches of travel and no rebound damping. The efficacy of these forks was entirely of his own making with the only maintenance in 1,000 miles being a wave of a shock pump in their general direction once a month. Even so, you couldn’t but feel sorry for him. Well a little bit anyway.

Pausing for a food stop at the bottom of a Roman Road leading up to the gap, most of the group broke out standard trail food comprising of bananas and energy bars. Peter, an old hand at all this, magic-ed an entire brown loaf from his back stuffed with cheese and assorted chutneys. Either he was milking the cows on the way up and fashioning his own diary products or the marketing hype surrounding the capacity of camelbaks is actually the truth.

The track to the gap was less than entirely smooth. Flints, Rocks, Sandbars and the odd localized river destroyed any rhythmic cadence. Cleaning each section with the minimum of energy was the name of the game and just when you thought you had the technique some combination of geography would throw you off line, off balance and occasionally off the track completely. To add spice to an already relatively spicy accent, a bolder strewn drop tending to the vertical lay in wait for the unwary. Building on my crusading attitude of before I set off down it with arrogance far outweighing ability and so it was no surprise that after cleaning the steepest section my lack of technique saw me jam my love plums into the saddle at a reasonable velocity. As I lay winded but waving to show I was still alive at the side of the track, the others shot past and up the other side. Once Mike and I had remounted (not a painless experience for me) they were mere specks in the distance.

We regrouped on the windy summit of the Gap taking deep breaths and in my case, refusing to listen to Russ’ tales of impending injury on the next downhill section. And what a section it was. Rocks the size of windows stood between you and the base of the hill with the dismount option tending to the painful. So trusting the bike and occasionally closing my eyes, we perambulated down the track clinging to the side of the mountain. 100mm forks are where it’s at here with the bang of the inners hitting the stops signalling these were real mountains for real mountain bikes. The group in the distance were not getting any more distant so a combination of improving technique and a might-as-well-die-young attitude was clearly paying off. The lower section was smoother (but that’s a relative concept on this ride) and hurtling down it at speed was the most fun you can possibly have outside of the bedroom. The bottom of the track was populated by the onset of mild hysteria and tall tales of which I added my own. Absolutely bloody fantastic.

A few more bouncy moments saw us arrive at Brecon with half the ride done and no casualties no far. I’d been close on the last descent but somehow remained attached to the bucking bike and aside from a couple of punctures all was well. Whilst the group refueled on appropriately balanced proteins and starches, I was the proverbial kid in the sweetshop stuffing Yorkie bars in my mouth and camelbak ignoring the old bollox being talked about blood sugar levels. If lettuce tasted like chocolate I’d eat it. End of argument.

On the first bridleway out of Brecon, we had our first mechanical and it was a major one. I’m not mechanically minded but a derailleur lodged in the spokes is clearly not something you can fix with a puncture repair kit and a positive attitude. The result saw Jon, [I think] frustrated with his steed, call it a day accompanied by Mike who was on the wrong side of completely shagged. The rest of us headed onwards and inevitably upwards on good roads and bad bridleways. Russ had never ridden this part of the ride which showed with tracks deteriorating from slippy mud to unridable streambed in the time it takes to say are we going the right way?. My personal favorite saw us humping the bikes up the side of a vertical bank and throwing them over a tree where allegedly the trail started again. Ride a bit, give up, push, ride a bit more. Still the first three miles were the worst. After that it just became a dull and repetitive. Finally we cleared the last section bouncing over some pre-war farm machinery and were faced by our last challenge of the ride. And my it was a biggie.

Climbing out of the valley on the road, the gradient turned from ow that hurts to bloody hell that’s a wall. Amazingly in some sort of parody of fitness I found myself in the middle of the group and accelerating fast. Some small legacy from climbing the Andes I guess but it was extremely satisfying not to be at the back for a while anyway. Mutiny nearly broke out when Russ’ GPS pointed unerringly up a grassy climb torn up by 4 x 4s. So we pushed up there, splashed round the base of the hill and eventually came face to face with the last 500 feet of mountain above us.

I pushed as being overtaken was going to be too embarrassing and I was going to push at some time anyway. Andy and Dave rode most of it “ I have this horrible recollection that Andy cleaned the whole thing but by the time we crested the top Andy and Dave were already looking rested and restless but I refused to move from the mountain top until my heart rate dropped below 100. And what a place to rest with panoramic views through 360 degrees taking in the lake, the hills and the general lack of the South East!

Finally we set off back down the Blewch at the bottom of the valley with thousands of feet of descent between us and the village. And what a descent it was with the track following the side of the hill descending steeply in places and shallowing out in others. Jumps if you wanted them, straight line speed if you didn’t. Russ waited for me and we took a small detour seeing us drop onto the road via a rock garden attacked with contempt for the consequences of getting it wrong.

Breathless and exhilarated, we made tracks for the car with every little incline in the road burning our legs. Once reunited with our group (sorry lads!) it became clear the epic was a real epic totalling 37.5 miles and 6.5 hours. And my word did it feel good.

I missed two turnoffs on the drive home with 15 foot green highway signs having little or no effect on my rapidly tiring body. Abandoning my car with the bike still in-situ, I returned to the pit abandoned some 15 hours earlier and dreamt of laughing the face of 10 foot drop offs and beating Dave and Andy up the hills.

(Originally published on BikeMagic April 2002 – GULP)

The only conclusion that can drawn from my advancing years and hardening opinions is I am increasingly an unreconstructed Mountain Biker. This despite a magpie penchant for anything marked “new and improved” and a constant low level whinge when faced with distance or difficult. Especially if it’s muddy. Or cold. Or wet. Or – as is generally the meteorological joy handed out by our storm battered island – all three at the same time.

Early in 2010 a calling to convince trail-centre conditioned mates of an awesome mountain experience nearly put one of them in hospital. I’ve dragged dubious friends over very large hills generally immersed in clag and rain only to disappoint them with “on a clear day, you can see for absolutely miles” and “Today? Not so much”. I’ve poured over maps*, planned multi day epics, carried my bike in all sorts of interesting spots and generally loved arriving in high places to worried smiles wondering “how the hell did you get here on a bike?”

So when a break for the mountains offered respite from the traditional Xmas <-> New Year lassitude, it took exactly no time at all to grab the opportunity with both hands and a happy smile. The break was actually the GAP – a route through the Black Mountains where my friend Russ broke his back nearly ten years ago, and I’d been making excuses not to return every since.

Without the emotional baggage, it’s an absolutely classic ride; the nearest to thing to singletrack is a canal path on the way home. There is a chunk of pushing, the chance of a carry, hours of exposed bleak glacial valleys howling with wind and a epic quantity of mud. No mid ride cafe or groomed trails await. Climbs that’ll run close to an hour, descents that must be tackled with bravery and commitment and the very real prospect of a proper beating – or worse – if you get cocky of frightened.

The joy of riding is split evenly between the place you go and and the people you are with. The seven experienced campaigners on our midweek mission packed two spare layers, a second set of gloves, endless tubes and tools, many rounds of sandwiches, a stout rain jacket and a big mountain attitude in their packs. Back in the cars were a change of clothes, a bin bag for their riding gear and money for beer. Exactly the type of riders to share a proper day out.

Which starts with big up. Six kilometres of increasingly technical climbing gaining you a 300 metre view of the valley floor. If you could see it through the low hanging cloud, which brought with it the prospect of rain but also silly spring like temperatures. We’ve all been exposed on this route in proper Welsh Wintry conditions, unprotected skin subject to icing, frozen gears and the not that outside possibility of hypothermia. Today was almost disappointingly easy.

Notice the careful use of the word almost. Early season snow buttressed by days of rain left the ground swollen, slick and mostly below the water table. Winter skills of balancing the power of the cranks against the traction of the rear tyre made those six k’s fun but tiring. Near the summit, a couple of climbing crux’s left most of us floundering and pushing onto the bleakness of the first ridge. Here it’s all about line choice – a choice that is either hub deep dank puddles or a desperate thrutch through clay/peat bog offering either something vaguely solid or a bike swallowing crevasse.

Been there, done that, got the trench-foot. First descent opened up over a million rocks peeping out of a stream, none of them attached to the bedrock and shaped somewhere between personal Grim Reapers and Mini-Headstones. I’m not a fan of trails that follow you down the hill, but killing velocity and hunting for lines is not a good option for the preferably unbloodied.

No, speed if not your friend is at least a shoulder-based devil that will see the bike hydro-plane over wheel chewing rocks. Five inches of travel on the fork beats six inch rocks every time even as they hiss and cackle when they chase you down the trail. Arriving alive and breathless, a quick limb count suggests no proper accidents although everyone has the look of being pebble dashed with a mud and shit mixture. Trail Food for the soul.

Now we can see where we want to go, and it’s up for miles. First on an old railway hewn out of the landscape to carry coal from the mountains. It’s a nice gradient to spin and chat before we hit the Roman Road snaking up the valley into the gap for which this ride is named. Before that tho, a sandwich stop – mouths full of Xmas leftovers and piss takes pointing out various bits of useless kit**

Colder now, wind whipping down the valley but for once mostly pushing rather than punishing, we head up for another thirty minutes of pitting your puny efforts against the majesty of glacial erosion to the power of a million years. I absolutely love this, a speck under darkening skies seemingly immobile against a backdrop of brutal peaks. Anyone with an ounce of self importance should be forced to stand here and work out their place in the world.

We tarried only briefly at the top with that chill wind whistling through. Just enough time to prod tyres, set shocks to fun and tell Nic again that no it wasn’t going to be rocky***. The top of the descent from the Gap used to be a steppy challenge over eroded rocks left from the last ice age. Now it’s a ruin of trail sanitisation, washed away aggregates and loose rock in wheel grabbing sizes.

I was rubbish. Not because of the worry I’d carried with me about how the descent that left my mate in a wheelchair was going to mess with my head, but just because I’m bloody useless at that kind of obstacle. After a while I man’d up, shoved the fear in the mind-box most of us use as a coping strategy, picked a spot on the far horizon and allowed the bike to be very, very good.

It’s out here that you realise how astonishingly accomplished a modern mountain bike is. If you’ve got the balls, it’s got your back. Make a pact that’ll see the brakes being bypassed by a death grip on the bars, and twenty years of development will carry you into a place perfectly balanced between terror and exhilaration. If that place had graffiti it would read like this; Without risk, there is no life. Without the possibility of failure, there is no joy of conquest. Without the ability to replace logic with fuck-it-it’ll-be-fine, there is no reason to place yourself in danger.

This is what the mountains do. Most of us had donned a bit of body armour but it’s nothing more than plastic placebo. At 45kph careering over wet rock sandwiched between dry stone walls, a mistake here and the accident is going to rate somewhere between extremely painful and horrific. As my mate Russ found out all those years ago.

But you’re not a passenger here. It’s not hold on and hope you don’t crash. It’s one of the few times that all that suspension travel, all that engineering, all that riding in your past, all those times you’ve pushed it a little bit make absolutely perfect sense. 100{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} commitment, 100{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} faith in your tyres, 100{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} trust in your own ability to nudge and commit, to know when to push into the rock and when to launch off it.

3 minutes of nirvana. 300 metres where there is only black and white. A final kilometre that defines the simple difference between living and being alive. You’re not beating the mountain, it’s merely nodding you through to come back another day. There isn’t a lot of point in trying to explain this to your riding mates because it’s written all over their faces. On two wheels, this is about as good as it gets.

Show me that on a pay-to-play trail centre and I’ll sign up. Until then, I will be happy with my mountains.

* Wine generally. Said it before, maps are like a copy of Hustler to me – love the pictures, no real idea of what’s going on.

** The pinnacle being Gary’s ridiculous Commuter mudguard on his Spesh Full-Suss. It provided no protection but much mirth being favourably compared with “Donald Duck with Epilepsy”

*** A joke that never stopped giving. Nic was commendably quick on his hardtail, but I don’t think he’ll ever believe anything any of us ever tell him again

The 26th of December is the traditional day for me to bugger off riding somewhere for two or three nights away. This spookily coincides with an influx of relatives with whom my civil relationship is based almost entirely on abstinence. Which highlights both a lack of social skills and tolerance for which excuses are legion, even if reasons are not. I am just not good at being inside toeing the line when I could be outside nailing some singletrack.

It’s one of my many faults. I like to think it’s counterbalanced by honesty and forthrightness. Others may not agree. I’m generally over that fairly quickly

Carol cleverly sideswiped the issue this year by declaring the Leigh household a closed shop, and repelling boarders to anyone even vaguely related until 2012. An excommunication which instantly cancelled all of my travel plans, making for a more happy tribe not tiptoeing around a grumpy father.

Amazingly I appear to be getting even more riding in, all without the standard seasonal accompaniment of guilt. Today Jess and I mud-tested her new shoes and pedals, which started the ride in pristine condition only to finish it looking appropriately mucky and scuffed. Much like the pair of us – exactly how it should be.

Jess has some decent skills, a nice bike, a determined attitude, more than a whiff of inappropriate bravery allied to the stamina of a dead sloth. She is only eleven and the bike has only eight gears, of which even the easiest can become a bit grind-y on the steeper climbs. Which – apparently – on the Blue FoD trail “there are millions“.

I appear to have fathered a shuttle kid – this conversational extract makes the point “Dad is this the last climb” / “Yes” / “You told me it’s wrong to lie” / “Okay, no“. On the dowhills she’s a little flier tho, gradually getting to grips with berms again after meeting one earlier in the year head first having ejected from the bike. When she stands on those new pedals and looks through apexes, it’s astonishing and terrifying in equal amount the speed is carried through the corners.

When she’s tired and sat down getting buffeted and battered, she’s more a chip off the old block here. Although I’m not sure where the competitiveness and demand for where she stands against others here age comes from. Yet to learn the art of pretending not to care while fostering excuses on ones own inferior performance. The problem is her assertion that I’m pretty handy on a bike which suggests some way to travel before reaching any kind of reality.

The far more important thing – and this is one thing we absolutely do agree on – is riding mountain bikes with your Dad/Kid is just the best way to pass the time. Especially when your dad sorts out all your gear,loads and unloads the bikes, washing them when they are dirty and fixes them when they are broken.

It is a very, very small price to pay.