Riding with Martin has always been more about the smiles than the miles. Our rides are measured not in kilometres covered or metres climbed, because such dry metrics cannot record the pleasure of hiking up unpromising trails, only to add a hidden gem to the map of cheeky.

But we’re worried. Worried about middle aged porkiness, worried over lost winter fitness, worried watching the “Malvern Labrador“* chasing his fitness goals with the kind of single minded determination we really don’t understand.

Decisions were made – cold smelted in mud – in an airy hand waving manner that we’d try a bit harder, ride a bit longer, drink a bit less tea and eat a lot less cake. No dicking about, plan a route and get on with it. So I did just that; bypassing the midday hoards and iced up peaks – a hard tramp through multiple peaks that just happened to orbit around two cake stops.

Important to ease ourselves gently into the new regime. Which probably excused an off trailexcursionall of five minutes in when a thinly disguised dirtrivuletheaded off in promising direction. That direction being directly into the abyss of the worked out quarry that has many fenced off entry points – all of which are vertical.

We made those fish-hand-movement indicating a ridable line before running away should any suggestion of attempting certain death be made. Conditions of mud and ice – both offering more grip than expected, but less than required – felt scary enough with sections ridden brakes off/eyes squeezed closed hanging on to the edge of scrabbling traction. Properly absorbing.

Martin had clearly solved the numbers game refusing – for the first time in living memory – cake and tea after nearly forty minutes of riding, instead shipping us back into the busy hills on a cheeky mission to access the “antler trail“. Named not formarauding stags fighting over gene rights, rather a branch/camelbak incident picking out the “holy horns” in a tight night-riding beam a few weeks before.

It’s not legal. Not even close. A footpath would be a paragon of trail virtue compared to this well shrouded tree lined bounty below the hills. What it is though is unique within the Malverns – loamy singletrack hard pressed by mighty oaks starting fast/steep but mellowing to a perfect trail gradient snaking on a flow of sinuous curves.

Come summer it’s a perfect test of weight distribution and tyre grip. Fast as you like if you’re as brave as you say. The rainy season pits your wits against slippy but predictable dirt and moist roots. Chasing Martin – for it is his trail and he’s bonkers fast in any conditions – I had both tyressimultaneouslybreak away which would normally trigger a panic/brake lever/crash process. This time I hung on and, for about the third time in a 12 year MTB career, drifted perfectly through an apex.

I’d pay good money to do it again. Really good money. Even some of my own. It was that good. The grunty hoik up the valley was made easier by fadingadrenalinespikes especially now tea and cake were definitely in the ‘training plan‘. This new regime ensured only half a pasty each washed down with hot tea knocked back quickly as the day rapidly cooled.

A final tramp over and around the hills finishing on a descent predictably full of people mostly incapable ofindependentmovement. I’m a huge advocate of shared trailetiquettebut if a mountain bike is heading down a trail you’re perambulating on some 15 MPH slower, it might be a good idea to move aside. My internal laser beams were fully paid back by karma when Martin received a free puncture half a mile from home.

Being a proper mate, I left him so to enjoy the remainder of the descent, dropping into icy steps, taking a deep breath, surviving that before freewheeling back to the truck. Martin turned up about a minute later which somewhat ruined my perception of just how fast I was going.

We had had a fantastic ride. Standard Al and Martin messing about and not taking it too seriously, But the GPS coughed up a nadge under 20k and quite a bit over 2000 feet of climbing. I toasted such amazing statistics with a beer or two. Softly Softly Catchey Monkey.

Training then. It’s just riding until your legs give way then is it? I’ll give that a go.

* That’ll be Jez, the third MalvernMusketeerwho has time trials on his mind and a training plan clearly dreamt up inGuantanamobay

which – whatever your non wiki’d history teachers may have told you – MarieAntoinettenever actually said. So 250 years or so later, the mantle of cake eating has been vigorously grasped, forked and shovelled by none other than “no not another slice, I really couldn’t, body is a temple you know, oh go on then, just a small one… er not that small” porky Hedgey here.

But first I had to earn it.

Today’s ride went something like, apathy, rain, cold, wind, giggle, cake, grind, giggle, cake. The longer version started with me motoring into the hills through a curtain of rain hanging from an endarkened sky. Further reasons not to leave the safety of the car were a swirling wind and biting cold that speaks far too loudly of the Winter to come.

I was only half joking on offering an alterative indoor beer serving location for the ride to Martin, but he is made of stouter stuff and off we trudged up one of the many steep, grinding climbs that define the difference between the valley floor and the peaks.

“Martin and Al” rides lack the discipline, pace, distance and general seriousness of the mid-week night rides. These worthy tenets are replaced with exploring, silliness, careless line choice and – often – thumps of rider into fauna. Today we had all of those in a smidge over ten miles, with even that short distance split by tea and cake at St Anne’s Well.

Cake wasn’t foremost in our minds what with survival filling all the available space on a descent from North Hill that was even more sideways as usual. Two key factors; one a sizeable cross wind cheekily punting us into a rocky void, and two my choice of tyres which are the “go to” excuse of any proper mountain biker.

“Yeah would have ridden that, but these tyres (point vaguely at rubber which looks suspiciously like everyoneelses) are rubbish. Wrong trousers as well. Bad egg for breakfast. Honestly lucky to be here at all“. Secretly I’ve always viewed perceived tyre performance as marketing fluff, but in the case of Ignitors, Maxxis really aren’t kidding in labelling them not suitable for mud. Unless you’ve a penchant to lob yourself off the trail into the nothingness of a semi-vertical drop.

I wasn’t. So installed Mr. nesh&frightened and his brakey/slithery descending technique. Which left the rest of me time to worry if those bloody tyres were about to explode having been wrenched on with the force of a million newtons. At least it had stopped raining, which would make it easier for the emergency services to collect me from wherever the fall line ended.

Fun though, oh so much giggly fun that ended near the cafe. Which was open. And Martin had cake funds. Never one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, we stuffed some chocolate cake in their instead. Suitably replete, the horror of a climb all the way to the Beacon was mildlyassuagedby a speed of ascent on a par with an oak tree. And quite an old oak tree at that.

Switchbacking to the Beacon, a rather wonderful vista opened up with blue sky backlit by a fast approach twilight. Views across the Northern hills down to a twinkling Malvern below wereuninterrupted by many humans who had long scuttled back to roofed safety. From the top we rolled fast, chasing the fading light with the kind ofunreconstructedjoy you envy your kids for.

Just a great flow down a brilliant decent chasing a fast mate knowing that 20 minutes away awaited a steaming cup of Tea perfectly accompanied by a slice of that rather fab cake mostly made by Jess. That’s a good a way to finish a weekend as I can think of.

Except possibly two slices.

This is about as much fun as a middle aged man can have armed only with a spade, a small bicycle, a wood with a status of “probably legal” and an afternoon running away from other stuff that is apparently more important.

More important than riding bicycles? A strange concept that resonates somewhere between “hollow” and “not at all” in my world. So armed with a mate, a foldingentrenchmenttool and a mental age of about 7, we set about clearing trails in a bijou landscape filled with bomb-holes, steep sided run-ins, leaf-fall and apparent abandonment.

For about three years, the mutt and I haveperambulatedalong the main track, occasionally exploring by shuffling down banks and fighting through brambles. At no time have I come across anyone showing an interest in the acres of non-coppiced trees, or – in fact – anyone at all. One snowy December, twenty happyminutes were passed by Murf and I arse surfing down the banks into the bomb holes. It’s may not be much of a wood, but it feels like mine.

Surroundedby larger wooded areas – all of which are filled withpheasantshoots – and bookended by the main road in the valley and the crumbling one on the ridge, this little bit of green seems largely forgotten and neglected. So perfect for some trail poaching.

In my lunatic cross-bike days, trails were scoped out but largely ignored mainly through fear of death. And with so much brilliant riding 20 minutes away, it’s easy to understand door step ignoration of something half as good but twice as convenient. But today we had a proper look and were consumed with “Line Disease“*

Poaching trails not entirely without cheek has a certain etiquette. Pitching up sporting petrol driven chainsaws for example is frowned upon. As is chopping down anything that’s still alive, although selective pruning is fine. Drop-Shipping home built planks and north shore isn’t on at all, but smoothing soil over a likely stump is absolutely the ethos of cheeky trails.

We scoped a lot but built only a single trail before the call of night, tea and medals. It’s a pretty fun 20 second drop off the ridge, cranking right between two trees on off camber loam, bit of speed into a corner needing a berm and then two jumps, the first little, the second merely a trail pimple.

But with a bit of thought and a lot of effort, there is a loop to be made here. It might not be the 100k of sublime singletrack hidden in the Forest or the steep and deeps of the Malverns, but it’s right on my doorstep and I’ve a winter to get through.

My deeply held view of legally-ambivalent trails is simply this; we’re not destroying anything, we’re not breaking anything, we’re not nailing stuff to trees**, we are merely making use of dead space, forgotten land, abandoned acreage. I almost think of it as a public service – although I accept other views are available. Wrong, but available.

But the very best thing about creating something from nothing is this; while you may be 44 on the outside, it males you feel about 11 years old. And only someone with a less developed sense of humour than an accountant would see this as a bad thing.

* Many MTB’rs suffer from this: Look at something clearly unridable by you, stroke chin, rotate wrist 90 degrees describing the line through a shark like wiggle of the hand and declare “that’ll go”. Pause. “Probably“. Pause. “Fancy trying it first?”

** Until recently, a practice exclusively left to Christians and Canadians.

What we’re not talking about here is my endless quest for the the “right” tyres, or some nonsense around “rebooting a franchise“of a tired old brand. The former, I’ve mostly given up on and now pursue a strategy based entirely on “what’s on the rim” while the latter is just marketing speak for “if you want some new ideas, you’d better pony up some more money. Lots more money”

What I am talking about is the search for lost cycling Mojo. Which was last seen back in April just before I spanged my elbow, and has only surfaced through fleeting sightings since. For which I’m entirely blaming having to travel to London. Because otherwise it might be my fault, and we can’t be having that.

London is toxic in all sorts of way beyond just the fug and smog of ten million nutters. It has engendered sufficient evening of benderage that means – even if I live another 50 years – my liver will never be a candidate for transplanting. And outside of treating boring hotels with liquid medicine, the early mornings, late nights, crap food snatched at stupid hours ruined my riding week. And London extended way beyond geographical boundaries however much I kidded myself otherwise.

Excuses not to ride were not just vocationally based. Other stuff to do at the weekends, sometimes with family, occasionally with paintbrush, probably too often on a hillside hunting down composite shards. And even on the bike, it wasn’t always as enjoyable as I remembered. Road biking nudged in for a while until the Dartmoor was done, after which the road bike came out exactly once in three months.

I wondered about this. What was missing from my cycling experience. And came to the worrying conclusion it was me. Or at least my enthusiasm and drive to get off my arse and go do stuff I’m sure I loved. Riding is always better than not riding – that’s an established “fact” here on the hedgehog, but sometimes rings a bit hollow from the comfort of a sofa.

It could be the repetition of too many tyred old rides. It could be the pace, too slow or too fast. Let’s be honest here, too fast is probably the issue. Once the goal isn’t some kind of peak fitness, the whole blowing it out of your arse suddenly looks a bit silly. It’s like those lists that you will never every get done. There is no finishing line, no point when you can put your feet up and say “I’m done“, no time when you ride because you absolutely want to rather than because you feel you should.

Whatever it is, a few things will change. Or be added. Injuries in my case, a couple which have slowed me down even further. So managing muscle groups against the twitch has seen me taking the climbs a little easier and trying to make up the time on the descents. Given a choice between riding with my friends or riding with the kids, I’ll go for the latter option every time. The road bike has a place and that’s not hung on the wall. It’s great for that stolen ride when you need to create that space in your head, and as an antidote to a winter of drudgy mud.

But mostly the change will be about what I’m riding for. I’ve never been short of guilt (either perceived or warranted) as a motivation for all sorts of stuff, riding included. Every ride is one that you won’t be able to do when you’re old(er) and (more) decrepit and should be viewed thus. We’re stupidly lucky to be able to combine our love of the outdoors with bikes.

Sometimes it is good to to remind yourself why