As the years draws to a close here is what the Moles have been up to this week.

The extra holiday has allowed me to get some extra rides in.

I managed to get three rides in this week with a variety of different Moles. Monday saw me riding with Barrie, Tony, JohnR and maybe another Moles but that was 5 days ago and I’ve forgotten where we went as well as if anyone else was there!

Wednesday I managed to get Jem out for a short ride where we ran into MarkW who joined use for a ride across Headley, almost without sluch and ice, before stopping for Tea at Box Hill.

Today was a meeting of groups. BigAl from the Dirt Devils joined us along with Anthony and Simon from the Dorking Cocks. Keith, JohnR, D’Andy and myself made up the rest of the riders. Mud was very much back with us today and without much of a plan we headed over to Langley Vale to do our figure of eight ride with Tea at Box Hill.

Some 22+ miles were covered and apart from Life on Mars and China Pig, mud was reasonable with just about enough grip. We ran into a group from Redhill who asked if we were a group and when I said “Muddymoles” the response was “ah, I wondered if we’d actually meet you or whether you were really just a web site!”. Fame!

A similar thing happened twice on Wednesday’s ride with one conversation about a new Intense Tracer leading on to the fact the rider had read Matt’s review of the Intense 5.5 and another rider talking to us about Crud catchers also fessed up to reading about us. I still find it strange that we have such a reach in this age of electronic communication.

So as the hours tick on it just leaves me to wish you all a Happy and accident free New Year and hope to see more of you out on the trails in 2011!

About the author

Dave's been riding seriously since about 1997 and is one of the founding Molefathers — along with Matt and Mark — that came up with the idea of a MTB website for Mole Valley riders.

He's had several different bikes but it's now mainly 29ers in Dave's stable, apart from an Orange 5.

Current Bikes: Orange 5, Salsa Spearfish and Kona Big Unit