Having seen Tony’s post up about a trip to Esher, I was unable to resist the urge to go back again. It was one of those days where everything just fell into place – I managed to get some time off work, the sun was shining brightly and it was dry.
So, the line up for the day was to be Tony, his mate Kev and myself. We arrived around 10ish, basking in the glorious weather, wandered round the park on foot, completed the usual faffing and got riding. As always for me with shore riding, it takes about half an hour to get loosened and into it, and the others were finding the same.
Still, it didn’t take long to start pushing ourselves, with Tony and Kev particularly wanting to work on drops and finding themselves working on achieving a drop off the side of one trail.
I was feeling pretty confident and was riding quite a few of the different trails, spending a bit of time on the wood doubles. I had one comedy incident involving too much speed and height which had me in a heap down the trail and a proper good bruise, but after a while we’d all completed successfully…
We were soon joined by Matt (I think) from Brighton who’s now joined the site (welcome mate – do we get commission Jimbo?) and it didn’t take long for him to find his groove and push us all on. After a break for lunch we moved on to tackle my regular Esher nemesis – the gapped table. (Tony, this quote is for you mate). I’ve done it once before, but not today… The issue I have is with the second gap, so, having pontificated for a while, I went for it. I got a good fast run in, completed the first gap, panicked and hit the brakes hard. Not sure of the next bit, except to say that I found myself jumping the second gap on foot and running in a ‘not in control’ fashion along the boards as the bike disappeared through the gap in a heap. After the hilarity from the others subsided, I conducted my ‘disaster debrief’ and concluded that I’d approached with the speed to clear the whole damn thing in one, and the mindset to complete the first gap and stop on the top. Inevitable disaster…
Matt then decided it would be fun to show the ‘Daddy’ how it should be done. He duly completed, but only with a loud bang as his rear wheel hit the second gap and compressed his Enduro spring to the bottom. Still counts as a pass though, well done mate!
We were properly ‘sending it now’ and spent a good while going larger and larger on the final drops at the bottom of the hill and all of us pushed our personal limits without too many scary moments.
All too soon the deadline came and I needed to get going, but a top days shore riding had been had by all. Cheers Tony for organising, and well ridden everyone. Let’s do it again soon…
Big Daddy
4 comments
Hummerlicious says:
March 23, 2009 at 7:44 pm (UTC 0)
Thanks Andy, another great report
I wish I’d had some spare holiday, it looked great!
Dobby says:
March 23, 2009 at 9:02 pm (UTC 0)
That was great to read Andy. Heard about Esher, but never been. I thought it was full of massive jumps and huge drops for the pros, but it looks like fun! Would love to go now and practice jumps
Big Daddy says:
March 23, 2009 at 9:14 pm (UTC 0)
No worries, it was a top day…
Big Daddy says:
March 24, 2009 at 8:31 pm (UTC 0)
Dobby, what makes it a top place is the progression possibilities – theres a few real beginner runs, and loads of intermediate runs, all of which you can practice a section at a time. Amazing how much you can improve over a couple of hours… Well worth it, and its suprising how tiring it is too!