stapfam

I got dragged screaming out on the MTB this morning. Just aswell as plenty of water on the road and it was hovering around 30F so a good chance of ice about on the damp bits. My ride mates are in training for the London to Brighton in June so they wanted to get a ride in. Couple of tentative miles to the all terrain trail and it started. As you can see we have had a lot of rain recently and it made things interesting to say the least



The idea was to take in a decent offroad hill to check whether the legs were working. Mine would have been if I had taken them with me but at least it was drier for the hill. Part of the South Downs way called Windover hill and only a 600 ft climb over about 3/4s of a mile. Steepest bit is towards the end at 18% but the average is only 12%



First pic is at the bottom showing Pete in the black sitting down to recuperate from 4 miles of the Mud trail. He is not a bike rider and although he has been out a few times on gentle trails- I doubt that he has done 50 miles on a bike in the last 2 years. 2nd is of him on the 18% and I have to give it to him- he only stopped twice on the hill but did not walk any of it.

Only 16 miles covered today in a total time of 2 hours- but Pete did enforce plenty of rest breaks. Probably did the rest of us good considering how little we have been offroad this year.

So plenty of rides required for Pete in the next two months- Wonder how he will get on with the new bike that we have insisted he gets.

Beverly

No way would I get my bike that dirty unless someone else was cleaning it