.. The “Alderly Edge”. That poor ST4 has the metallurgic equivalence to a lab-rat, with the innocent frame having ever more ridiculous components inflicted upon it. Those new wheels were also available in black, but I felt that such a colour combination lacked class. And continuing the mock mansion design motif, I am considering grafting some plastic graco-Roman plastic pillars onto the chainstays.

Tubeless as well – a tyre technology trillion-mile proven on anything motorised, but still swinging between mockery and explosion when fitted to a mountain bike. Especially if “el hamero” here is doing the fitting. But my boldness was rewarded by the reaction of the Ross Riding Widdle who spent barely ten minutes pointing and laughing as ‘Alds’ was proudly wheeled through the gamut of humiliation on route to another stonking FoD ride.

A ride, as my legs were keen to point out, starting barely 24 hours after a lighting attempt on the Malvern Summits had finished. And these Wednesday rides in the forest seem to have become rather more serious and speedy. And properly cheeky* with the evening bridleway stricture being properly enforced.

First tho, the “Campaign for the Unification of Nocturnal Trails “** (Western chapter) invoked the “Kinder Trespass” amendment bringing forth some serious nodding, waggling of fingers*** and sniffing of air to detect any upstream Forest Rangers. Satisfied, the rip-your-legs-off ride began at a furious pace which left me apathetic rather than angry. Resigned to a stint at the back, again I wondered if a lack of bar mounted illumination would come back to haunt me. What with most hauntings happening in the full dark.

We headed directly for Wales via a track with head high vegetation leaning inwards to rip skin open, before the rocky trail under-tyre took over the going-to-maim-you agenda. Proper steep and technical, invigoratingly gulley’d, off camber and packing a manslaughter charge in the wet. Good that I thought, and good too that my hashed together wheels were both round and still encased in tyre. Not that they were really needed as the next climb involved a proper carry over wooden steps and drainage ditches.

“You’d never get a horse up there” I thought as we trudged ever upwards on a cliff edge that may not have been an official bridleway. Topping out, a short tarmac haul ran perpendicular to a hamlet apparently full of very old people shouting at Mountain Bikers. “You can’t ride up that hill” they shakily denounced our passing and – you know what – they were absolutely right with a vertical climb having us off the bikes and onto our shoulders.

The views from the top were something else. Something else I wasn’t soon worrying about with a high speed chase on sinewy doubletrack demanding all my attention. Good, again, I mused but not sure it’s worth risking being shot for. At which point we started climbing again and my legs suggested if I was unable to find anyone with a shotgun, I should consider suicide rather than endure any more pain.

Now I have ridden a lot of singeltrack, most of it quite slowly, some of it upside down and while I’ve never “owned” a section of trail, I like to think I may have rented a few. And – like any heavily campaigned mountain biker – have compiled a list of top fives; best woody descents, scariest rocky horrors, fastest vertical plungers, adrenalin jumpies, most fun trail centres etc. It’s a pretty static list nowadays with entries from all of the premier riding spots that are unlikely to be topped.

Until tonight. When I’m dead and gone, I’ll fine someone younger to spread my ashes on this trail – as a final resting place it has no equal. At least a mile of perfect singeltrack, a gradient blended harmoniously between speed and braking, sweeping corners fast enough to frighten but open enough to flash through at a grin-inducing pace, line choices between quick and pumpy or straight and jumpy. Behind a lad riding a flat barred hardtail, it quickly became apparent how much of a talent compensator the ST4 is, but this bothers me not a jot.

Because flashing through the trees on sun hardened trails, skimming endless tree roots, demanding every more grip from squirming tyres and being rewarded with an experience that feels fast and looks smooth is something I cannot understand why anyone under the age of about 90 wouldn’t want to do. Every day. Sod our bloody stupid access laws, it should be on the statute book that this trail MUST be ridden by anyone who has a mountain bike.

And then, finally, I will have an answer to all those flat-earthers who cannot understand the mud, the madness, the bleeding, the broken stuff, the cost, the time, the effort, the how-can-you-be-bothered-when-it’s-shitting-it-down. This Is Why.

Out of the woods, and a path on the river’s edge confirmed we were somewhere below sea level. The five kilometre climb homewards was a juxtaposition of much elbows-out racing at the front and an old bloke at the back in ‘limp home mode‘ – turning the pedals in the easiest gear, but entirely unwilling to accelerate to anything beyond walking pace. Back into the forest, it wasn’t quite as dark as last week but still lights certainly would have helped.

As would not being completely cream-crackered. Chasing the fast boys on the ridge-top about did for me, and the tight twisty downhill finished was mostly wasted with my hanging on for grim death replacing any noticeable trail skills. A couple of crashes to other people is always cheering to a tired man, but it shows just how damn fast and on the edge these rides have become. Suits me, it won’t be long before we’re slogging through waist high mud in temperatures failing to trouble zero.

The car park was a happy place, with promises of something similar come Sunday. It’ll take me that long to recover based on my yawning and heavy legged performance yesterday. Good job I was at work eh? Still it does give me plenty of time to polish my new hoops because that level of design classic doesn’t come without some hard work.

* As cheeky as riding naked across the lawns of Buckingham Palace with a “Vive La Revolution” placard while shouting “We don’t want none of your stinking German inbreds here“. And possibly slightly more illegal.

** I shall leave you to work out the acronym we like to label this group with.

*** Don’t count them. Just don’t.

That’s always been my motto when faced with anything even tainted with mild terror. Point me in the direction of a well stocked bar or groaning pudding trolley though and I immediately Go Large*. So when the motley Ross Night Ride Crew began enthusiastically planning some epic flirting with the Welsh Borders, I couldn’t help but remember exactly how long a previous daytime jaunt had taken. Sure we did get lost and spend a quality hour in mid ride quaffage, but – even barely past the longest day – I felt bringing lights was sporting a certain keenness my body was unable to match.

We wasted too much of that precious natural light with Olympic grade pontificating, faffing and debating route options going something like “Yeah, you know if we cut round the back of Six-Fingered Bob’s Dogging Spot – so neatly bypassing the Pheasant Shaggers – we’ll pop over dog-turd hill and slip into the back of Geoffrey’s wiggle“. To which the other revered route finders would respond with something like “But that misses a cheeky dart through Necrophilia valley and leaves us with no chance of sticking a fast one in Big Vera’s Tunnel”

I stand aside pondering if this is merely a mighty wheeze – Muddy Mornington Crescent for the new boy. Eventually some decision is made and for a happy five minutes I actually recognise where we are. But not where we might be going with a confusing mass of left-right-lefts onto trails shadowed by dense vegetation that scratched hard at my strimmer itch. At exactly the point when I became totally and irretrievably lost**, the route-finder generals too began the slow head-turning of the navigationally incapacitated.

I knew we were lost in so many ways when chief Route Finder and all round downhill-mentalist Gary asked me – Me for fucks sake, a man who can often be found lost wandering around his own house looking for the dishwasher – if I remembered where a tiny track, now covered in head high vegetation, may start. I mugged for a bit hoping to create an air of trail locating competence which was fatally exposed when said track appeared in exactly the opposite direction to which I was confidently pointing.

Great trail tho, tight and twisty then steep and deep in roots, fallen logs and – in Tim’s case – fallen riders. Top job he turned his wheel into a metal-y pretzel which Nick somehow made round again even after ignoring my suggestion to whip it out of the dropouts so to give room for a few of us to stamp on it. A brief period of collaboration broke out between the route finding factions leading us upwards before splinter groups again began whispering that if we’d wanted to get there we wouldn’t have started from here.

Not so much a tight-knit trail location committee, more a loose confederation of closely warring tribes. Amazingly we found Buckstone hill – although even our ascent to the very top again split the flat earthers from the there’s-a-trail-here-somewhere-pushers, and better still had a properly bonkers run down the multiple trail sections each one building on the last. It’s fast and open, then tight, then twisty, then tight again before a wall drop opens up a fantastic rock step closely followed by a natural table top. I remembered enough from last time to scare myself properly silly, so giving me ample excuse to mince out of the vertical roll down some of the younger/more stupid/less burdened by dependants and imagination rode off with irritating ease.

These trails are used by the boys from Dirt Magazine, so even the chicken runs are not lacking in terror for the under-skilled. Fun tho, and riding the ST4 (Pace last time) didn’t slow me down much, fear and proper wheel throwing looseness did that just fine. More singletrack, sufficiently remembered to get the ‘Jedi Speeder’ experience although, on reflection, maybe I’m at the age where I should be considering a stunt man for the difficult sections.

Ace as the night was turning out to be, it was still night clawing away at a dropping sun and sending us back homewards through a long doubletrack gradual climb enlivened by some proper views and the odd cow that looked to add “bike eating” to their list of achievements for the day. Mercifully un-chewed, we took another “Dave Special” over a style and upwards for reasons of a fine rocky descent that would have been even more thrilling had I been able to see any of it.

Luckily we were only 30 minutes or so from home. Less luckily most of this would be under the watchful gaze of a healthy forest well known for shutting out the light. Had their been any. A few riders peeled off home leaving six of us groping about and making new friends of the two enlightened ones. The last descent was properly funny but only because the two full on tank slappers I encountered due to a) very loose and dusty trail under wheel and b) not being able to see a) finishing with nothing more than 2 second slides which lasted about 2 days in my head.

Not learning – as usual – I nearly stacked it exactly 20 yards from the truck. Didn’t care much though because if I hadn’t been riding somewhere beyond the ragged edge, then I’d be sitting at home grumpily staring into the darkness and wondering if the excuses not to go ride were really good enough.

Talking to my mum tonight I was reminded of a cheesy phrase she used to send her three offspring into situations that generally ended up being rather rewarding: “In twenty years, you will regret the things you didn’t do far more than the ones you did”.

Sage advice. Right now, I can’t think of anything to top that.

* and assuming I can still stand, keep on going.

** Had they left me there, I would have been forced to throw myself in front of a car so ensuring an ambulance would take me to a place of safety. You don’t want to be outside, on your own and looking worried in the Forest at night-time. The breeze in the trees whistles “Duelling Banjo’s”

.. somedays’ you’re the ball. In life, and much more when bikes become involved, I have tended to “The Ball”. Occasional glimpses of what the Slugger might look like have rarely occurred – and then only from the position of “The Ball“. Today I observed my two of my friends riding rather splendidly, while my own contribution to this riding ensemble was a proper sky-ground-sky event not experienced for many moons.

If we were to assume the mantle of the three cycling musketeers, Tim and Martin could fight over temporary custody of “Athos” and “Porthos” whereas I – of course – would rightfully claim the title of Dead-loss. It started well with enough with nearly a kilometre passing under tyre before I became hopelessly lost. For a while we thrashed through sunken trails with me looking worried, and the GPS demanding I turned right back at Reykjavik.

Eventually I passed off this navigational blunder as the new MTB Sub-Niche of “All Forest Extreme Power XC Exploring”, and introduced the clan to the “Mushroom Trail”* designed by nature to put the “hard” into “Hardtail” – machine gun firing off camber roots at single sprung cannon fodder.

I am very fond of my ST4, at times like this possibly rather more than is normal for a bunch of non organic tubes, but rooty, pedally singletrack is a lovely watch from a full suspension bike. We found much more of this in the next two hours, some of it actually on purpose but my random meanderings did have a final destination in mind.

The famed “Dowies” singletrack is hewn by a single man with a motorbike and way too much spare time. Forestry keep logging it, he keeps rebuilding it – multiple trails snaking down a steep slope, littered with fat roots, berms, jumps and general MTB gigglyness. If you can be smooth, you can be fast but that requires good trail knowledge, better skills and a whole world of self belief built around the grip of your front tyre.

Tim went first, me after using a few previous trips to hang pretty close to his rear wheel. This felt pretty good, not too scary, a salutary lesson on how damn far you can lean a well sorted mountain bike finishing with a mild buffing of an ego. “1:50 is the best time down there Tim” I offered as we winched back up for another go. What I didn’t know was Tim was going to have a crack at that time, what I should have known is there is absolutely no way I’d be able to stay with him.

I must have misheard “Ragged = Fast” because actually “Ragged = Slow = Crash” is what it must have meant. Ragged also means all that skills-shit which seems to work pretty well is given a slap by Ego as he barges uninvited into the driving seat. Ego thinks he’s fast but he’s so busy looking at himself, he rarely bothers looking up at the trail. As Tim disappeared at an alarming rate, I responded with a casing of a big-ish jump that – with Mr. Rational in charge – had been nothing but a bit of fun.

Now Disaster joined the race. He’d nearly caught me on three previous occasions, but this time changed tactics instead hanging about with Mr. Crash at the next corner. I turned up mostly out of control hard on the brakes, eyes on the front wheel, ego catatonic at the wheel. If I’d committed to the bend, I might have made it but I never gave myself that chance, hitting a big root square on with my head – think Tortoise being offered a juicy lettuce leaf – far over the bars, and not such much a passenger as an accident looking for somewhere exciting to happen.

The crash went on for a while. Over the bars and into the forest which was unpleasantly akin to being beaten with sharp sticks. Eventually the sky stopped flipping but I felt – since I was lying down – it’d be a damn fine idea to maintain that pose until my heart rate dropped below a million. Martin turned up looking as concerned as a man can while pissing himself laughing, and we determined other than a somewhat clarty elbow, the only real damage was to Mr. Ego who’d slunk off and left the scene of the accident.

I quite like crashing without properly hurting myself. It’s a bit like drinking without adding a hangover to your morning challenges. The high water mark of my ability is such that even a brilliant bike and dusty, dry trails cannot compensate sufficiently for ego-stoked bravado. I know exactly why the crash happened which is fine, because that doesn’t stop you being silly again. Possibly just a bit less silly.

Great ride tho; end of the bluebells, start of the summer. bonkers fast trails, fit feeling legs and a bike that was both superb to ride and – refreshingly – unbroken come tea and medals. If I could keep my aspirations in check, I might be sort of okay at this mountain biking thing. Maybe being the ball isn’t such a bad thing after all.

* Not quite true. Martin found it, having never been here before. The word that comes to mind here is “portent”.