Mothers day ride and nailing it on Holmbury and Leith
Well with it being Mothers day and all that, several Moles had already posted their unavailability for Sundays ride so after rolling up at Bocketts car park with Muddy Dave at 08:30 it was good to see another 4 Moles, Tony, James, DaveW and our very own Gok Mole (AKA D’Andy) wrapped up against the biting cold and ready to ride.
Paul 901 also rolled up on one of his dark side road steed’s to say hello before heading home after an early ride out.
Before we could get going D’dub produced a brand new, shiny, un-ridden, extremely bright orange, Salsa 29er from the back of his car and proceeded to build it in the car park, or so it seemed to the casual observer. Racing Ralph’s adorned his wheels and questions were raised as to the grip they might provide in the mud to come.
After some initial car park faffage and banter, it was time to roll and the plan was to head over to Holmbury to suss out the Cycle Works demo day action and then work our way back round by whatever route took our fancy.
Last Friday’s relentless rain and the usual route out along Admirals track to Polesden, confirmed our fears that winter had returned with a vengeance judging by the many deep puddles and squirmy lumps of mud that attached itself to most of our lower bits!
Down under the Two bridges and then Yew trees was a hoot in what seemed to be dry conditions that saw all of us let the brakes off before the slog up the other side and on to Ranmore Common.
Collar bone and Badger run followed and lived up to their reputation for being amongst the slippiest parts of the North Downs with that Oh so special claggy, squirmy clay coupled with endless wet roots, each one of which seemed to be positioned to catch you out, provided many sideways moments from front and rear wheels before hauling our selves up to the top of Whitedown.
Onward and upward took in the Abba Zabba complex and everyone wisely rolled on past the top of the AZ roll in (which had A+E written all over it today dear reader) and took the chicken run to the side, which turned out to be a sketchy handful in a couple of places anyway! I admit to having made an emergency dab or two due to poor line choices!
Blind Terror was accomplished without any real incidents before crossing the Whitedown road and heading into the Rooty complex on the other side, the name of which escapes me, but I was just glad to roll this section and get down to the road intact before heading across to Abinger Roughs.
Crossing the A25 saw us take on the long suffer fest of a climb up to the top of Sutton Abinger before descending down to the Volunteer Pub and heading up towards Holmbury and what were very welcoming dry trails but followed by more climbing until we got up to the top of the recently re-opened Yoghurt Pots.
There were a fair few miles of tarmac riding today and it was like a red rag to a Bull when we were overtaken by a few guys on the way up to the YHA car park so Tony (Roadmole) set off in pursuit eventually catching them before the top of the climb before strutting his stuff in the car park while the rest of us chatted our way up.
Dragging ourselves onwards and upwards we caught up with the Cycle Works demo day mob, including Nick and Simon who were guiding round various people trying out the latest Bling machinery. Yoghurt Pots was real a blast and in good nick with only a few wet areas and puddles to contend with and everyone seemed to enjoy giving it some down the trail, closely followed by the Cycle Works guys who were dishing out some banter from the back directed at certain Moles and questioning their riding styles. (You know who you are).
MuddyDave then led us down what seemed to me to be a root strewn, muddy, slippy, technical little trail, that led down to the Holmbury village hall and the Cycle Works demo area, Secret Squirrel I think, more emergency dabs from me!
After leering at all the new Bling on offer in the demo area we deemed it rude if we didn’t indulge in the free cakes and tea that was on offer. I can confirm that the cakes were of a standard that you would ride many extra miles for and most of us scoffed 3 each. One Mole, who shall remain nameless, managed 4 cakes, but the fear of litigation prevents me from naming him! However, he does have a very repetitive commute each day on Strava!
Duly loaded up with tea and cake we took on the trek across to Leith Hill Tower via the Stepmother climb (well it was Mothers day after all) and what a God awful Little Mutha of a slog this turned out to be. Riding my Stumpy 29er HT with a 1 x 10 (32×36) setup, had me longing for a real Granny ring but it was time to MTFU and settle in to what was a long suffer fest up to Leith Hill. Gok Mole had adopted his usual Friday night clubbing strategy and gone for the Granny early!
Straight on past the Tower, amazingly, as we were still full of cake, followed by a quick plunge down Personal Hygiene saw us stomping back over towards Coldharbour and into the bomb holes play area.
It was hear that an “incident” occurred as MuddyDave must have slid sideways on a wet root and slithered down the side of a bomb hole only to jam his left thumb into something and rip half the nail upwards at a jaunty 90% angle inside his glove. NASTY!!
Actually, rolling up to the scene looked much worse as he was lying there very still, clipped in with legs at angles that they were not designed to be at and we feared something much worse had happened.
After 5 minutes of sympathy (P#ss taking and a photo actually) it was decided that James and myself would ride back with Dave to Bocketts via the least bumpy routes available while the others did the usual thing of taking in Summer Lightning, Wolverns and back up to Ranmore.
A quick stop in Westcott village stores to buy drugs for the victim and then on to Dorking and Leatherhead by road saw us battling a bitter North Easterly wind before James peeled off to Ashtead and Dave and I rolled on to Fetcham.
I will not go into what followed once we arrived at Muddy Dave Towers, but can confirm that I was glad it was him and not me that had to remove his glove and rectify the damage to his thumbnail. I do have a pic if anyone is feeling brave!
All in all a great days riding with 30 miles, 2855ft of climbing and free cake. What’s not to like!
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Dave says:
Naproxen and Paracetamol are wonderful drugs!
After performing a couple of snips to get the nail back flat I felt much better! A big thanks for Kev and James for escorting me home along the road and such a shame I missed SL as I’m sure it was riding great.
I guess it’s a bit of a reminder that the most innocent little fall can be very painful but after initially think I’d broken my thumb I am very glad to be losing just the nail!
Apart from that what a great ride!
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Posted on March 10, 2013 at 10:31 pm
LordOnOne says:
Struggling…to keep…dinner down!
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Posted on March 10, 2013 at 10:37 pm
MuddyJohn says:
What good photos.
Especially the use of the “censored”.
Hope you’re back to riding fitness by next weekend, Dave.
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Posted on March 11, 2013 at 1:44 am
Andrew AKAK says:
Ouch! Nice ride report Kev, doesn’t look too muddy in those pics either.
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Posted on March 11, 2013 at 6:50 am
Matt says:
Yuk! Thanks for self-censoring Kev, I really don’t need to see that. Actually, I’m not sure I needed to read it either!! But thank you for taking the time to write up this weeks’ report.
Dave, very nasty, hope it heals OK. Were you on one of your bikes or something different?
As it was Mothers’ Day I wasn’t able to get out, but I’m not sure I’d have been up to it anyhow. This weather is thoroughly unwanted, especially after being teased with a hint of Spring last week.
So much so my Helen and I are seriously planning winter sun next year!
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Posted on March 11, 2013 at 10:27 am
Dave says:
I was on my Gyro but it wasn’t the bikes fault. I was quite tired after some big climbs and it was not having 100% control that caused me to slip. Ground conditions were actually quite good.
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Posted on March 11, 2013 at 11:45 am
Kev says:
I can confirm that Dave was quite animated as he removed his glove and the decibel rate duly went up, coupled with the many colourful adjectives that were being thrown around the kitchen! Eeek!
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Posted on March 11, 2013 at 5:20 pm
Karl says:
Should have lent you my Kevlar motocross gloves Dave. Finger mangling a speciality of mine..
Hope you’re out next week..
Glad you spared us the gruesome pic Kev…
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Posted on March 11, 2013 at 10:22 pm
tony says:
Great ride write up Kev. The Cycleworks demo day at Holmbury was impressively large (possibly 40 bikes?) and very well organised. Maybe I need to head along to one of these events?
Red rag? I don’t know what you mean. Just clearing out the lungs a little!
I’m glad to see that Dave’s injury (although glad I didn’t actually see it) wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Although we were all slightly disappointed that he was sufficiently injuryed for us to use our many space blankets. We were fighting to get them out first when Dave said that he would be OK to ride 🙁
I can also confirm that SL was fabulous as was all of Wolverns, as James and I rode it all in one go. At the bottom of the Rookery I hooked up with DaveW and D’Andy. We headed off again for Golden Nuggets which was great but almost had me “doing a D’Andy A&E” off piste move. Mega sketchy.
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Posted on March 12, 2013 at 12:52 pm
DaveW says:
Nice report Kev. Dandy and I stopped to help some lad whose pedal had come off – perhaps ‘try and help’ would be more accurate, as the threads were f£$%&d on his cranks, so he scooted off to explore ebay, whilst Dandy and I shot down SL to try and catch the others up, finding Tony and James at the bottom of the Rookery.
I admit to being the 4 cake culprit – free cake and persuasive lady ‘cake pushers’ took their toll (Carrot Cake, Coffee Cake, Ginger Cake and Rock Cake), although I did resist the warm cheese scones brought around just as we were leaving. I was on a diet of mostly cake on Sunday. I skipped lunch, but then took my Mum to the Canopy in Epsom for afternoon tea and had a cream and jam scone, a slice of raspberry tart and a fondant fancy and then felt rather nauseous for the rest of the day.
I’m loving the Salsa Spearfish and the Ralphs worked okay as long as I maintained momentum (often sideways) through the filth and over the roots. The only disadvantage of the 29er seems to be that slow technical noodly bits around trees and roots are a bit tricker. It rips through and over everything else with ease despite only having 80mm rear travel.
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Posted on March 12, 2013 at 2:50 pm