Ride Report – Sunday 24th August – A Two Karl ride
Making the most of the sun before the storm hits us for Bank Holiday Monday a tidy group of old and new faces met at the Bocketts Farms top car park.
Original Karl was there, collecting brake pads from me to finish off his steed for the ride, New Karl who joined us last week, JamesS arriving at 08:39 ahead of schedule, Kev, Matt, Elliott (The Giant of Horsham), Nicola from Old (by which I mean way before this iteration of the web site!), and a returning Ginny. All in all a mixed bunch of old faces, steady faces and faces who seem likely to be with us for many rides to come. Dandy has set off 40 minutes earlier to meet the DoMTB crew who were doing trails at Peaklake.
After the usual chit chat we headed off towards Ranmore taking in Pamploma at which point we ran into Graham and Nick, who insisted they were going the other way under the twin Bridges! Dust was in evidence for the riders at the back as the more intrepid and care-free kicked it up on the way down. Yew Trees rounded out our ascent to Ranmore.
From there we headed to the top half of Wire in the Blood, a quick resume for the riders who hadn’t done this before and then on down Badger Run and Collarbone before another fast run down White Down. A certain odour was present for most of this section but it wasn’t as apparent when we got down White Down. Elliot was absent at the next regroup and I went back to find him with a side wall cut from the White Down flints. A tube was fitted and we moved on through Abinger Roughs. Nicola bailed at this point with a lunch date on her mind and getting just out of her safety zone for local knowledge. It was great to see her again and hopefully she’ll try to make a few more rides soon.
Across the A25 and towards the Volunteer pub we climbed up the road to the YHA car park and Elliot showed us a new route. Well that was his story and I’m making no further comment but the route was quite freshly cut and certainly an interesting downhill at the end! As Elliot put it, as long as there are no U-turns in the GPS track BigAl will never know he made a wrong turn!
Then it was fire road to the top of Yoghurt Pots which was also dry and dusty. James left us here as he was also on the clock while the rest of us headed to BKB via Jesses’ Trail which is a corking little trail in today’s dry weather. Not so good in the wet as there are a lot of roots. BKB seems to have suffered in the dry from poor braking at the beginning as there is a lot of erosion before the roll-in and quite a serious little gully has formed. Regrettably there seems to be no chance of repair, ironically as health and safety and risk assessment mean no one wants to do it. Consider some of the great Tattoo Dave trails out there that are not sanctioned but get regular repair and probably less erosion because they are only ridden by the better riders and maintained by the same. Ah well, that’s the world we live in.
Two cakes were eaten today, a rather nice chocolate banana cake as well as the triple chocolate shortbread. The DoMTB crew turned up sans Dandy and I chatted with Lee about trails and life in general. Dandy then turned up and stripped off. Time to go we all thought and off we headed down the road back towards Abinger.
Normal fare on the way back with a climb up Low Med and then a run down Golden Nugget with New Karl going spectacularly wide in front of me as he carried too much speed into a turn. Easily down on this trail and I set a PR according to Strava. Which brings me to the a thought that I might get the walkie talkies out and buy a stop watch so we can do some trials on what Strava really mean… which I suspect is not very much in reality!
A final run up through Polesden showed some 28 miles for me at the car park. Great to see Ginny and Nicola back in the saddle with us and good to have Karl with us for his second ride. If all new riders can use one our existing riders names it does wonders for me being able to remember everyone! Super!
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
There are 11 comments on ‘Ride Report – Sunday 24th August – A Two Karl ride’
We love to get comments from our readers - if you've spent a few moments to comment, thank-you.
If you haven't had a chance yet, jump to our comments form if you have something to say.
Leave a comment…
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
KevS says:
Also, a few dodgy pics on Flickr from Sundays ride.
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 25, 2014 at 3:40 pm
Dandy says:
My tardy arrival at the Peaslake Stores was due to a stop for a saddle adjustment, I hasten to add, not because I was that far behind the rest of the guys! Indeed, the saddle adjustment was required due to the enthusiastic descent of ‘Fork Left’ which saw me attain the leader board. Though as one who usually mocks Strava times because of the inaccuracies of the various recording devices, I won’t try to ‘dine out’ on this one. Besides, it was only because I was trying to keep up with Lee(roy Brown) that I managed such a decent time. Trails were in excellent nick yesterday, though today’s downpour has put paid to that. Nice to see you guys at the Stores, apologies if stripping off my base layer put you off your cake 😉
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 25, 2014 at 3:44 pm
KevS says:
I still have a nervous tick and shudder from your “getting yer t#ts out” display at Peaslake stores!
Luckily I was just finishing off my second cake when you arrived 😉
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 25, 2014 at 3:47 pm
Karl says:
Thanks for quick ride report Dave, and for rescuing me with new brake pads before the ride. Extremely handy.
I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, and riding for ‘flow’ instead of batting it worked a treat. Couldn’t face the idea having a bash on week old cracked ribs!
Very nice to be out on a dry, bright day. Certainly hope we get a few more sunny Sunday’s, tho I’m not holding my breath.
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 25, 2014 at 5:37 pm
New Karl ! says:
Another great ride guys, Dave, happy to oblige on the name front, glad it make life easy for everyone ! Matt I can report back and thoroughly recommend the 1×10 upgrade if you were ever in 2 minds.I did have to ‘slip’ into the 42T one up cog on the odd occasion, but a man of your fitness could probably cope without one ! as you say you could always add one in the future if needs be.
Nice to see you all again, let’s hope this weather clears and we can have a few more dry rides into late summer. Till the next time.
New Karl !
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 25, 2014 at 8:06 pm
Elliot says:
The loss of another tyre to a flint cut was both unwelcome and irksome. Later on I found a second cut with sealant leaking which had sliced through half a side knob…lucky we put a tube in rather than try to fix the first cut. Turns out I did have a spare Purgatory at home with plenty of life left in it so at least I didn’t have to dust of the old wallet!
Quality ride other than that. With the highlight of course being the choc chip banana bread, so good I managed to hold it down while Dandy was changing!
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 25, 2014 at 9:55 pm
Tony says:
It sounds like a fabulous ride. D’Andy flashing his moobs aside. Hopefully the trails will be dusty once more when I get a chance to get out.
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 26, 2014 at 4:11 am
Matt says:
I had a great ride on Sunday, really enjoyed myself on Elliott’s ‘trail’, BKB and Golden Nugget. Strangely I found myself following Dave on each of them, just about hanging on but I think we were closely matched. Yoghurt Pots was running great as well.
Karl, I’m definitely going for the 1x based on people’s feedback, so good to hear another view. Rather than Shimano though I’m going out on a limb with a SRAM set-up so we’ll see how that works out.
It seems weird to me that my singlespeed Kona hardtail – with quite pedestrian geometry – feels as trustworthy as my Five on the technical stuff. I put it down to the larger wheels (and my 26″ Crests are relatively flexy), plus the tyres I’m running on the Five – Conti Mountain King 2.2s are okay but no match for my Butcher/Purgatory combo on the Kona.
D’Andy has a reputation for many things but I think we’d all agree the reputation gained with his clothes on is preferable to the reputation gained with them off! (sorry Dandy for the abuse!)
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 26, 2014 at 9:10 am
KevS says:
I ran 1×10 on my Stumpy HT for a while without any issues until I ditched the gearing and went SS on it!
Even did Mountain Mayhem 2012 using 1×10.
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 26, 2014 at 1:07 pm
Karl says:
6 gears max.
If you can do it on a singlespeed……
I am however quite slow.
🙂
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 26, 2014 at 1:51 pm
Nicola says:
It was a beautiful morning to be out and a fabulous ride, as far as I got. Great to meet some of the regular moles I haven’t met before. See you again soon! Nicola.
Add a new comment, or
Posted on August 26, 2014 at 5:40 pm