Sussex-MTB

This is a biggie, so apologies!…….

The weather has been so good recently, for mountainbiking it really has been one of the best summers in many years. The trails have managed to remain dry and dusty, even after rain showers and I reckon they are pretty much perfect at the moment.

We’ve managed to get a whole load of rides in over the summer in a variety of places too. This last week has been absolutely amazing:

I started off last Saturday with something I’ve not done for a very long time. A ride on my own! As the (dis)organiser for Sussex-MTB it’s very rare I ride on my own, in fact it’s probably been a couple of years. I like riding with people, the social aspect of what we do makes it a lot of fun as well as the act of riding too. So it was nice to have no agenda, I had a generous amount of time to get to Stanmer to meet the others. So I sat on the tops of the hills, ate chocolate, admired the scenery, chatted to passers by. It made a nice change to have no one to please but myself.

I met the boyz at Stanmer Tea Rooms and after a quick refuel we headed out onto the singletrack. We ignored a lot of the usual Big Dog stuff and did a load of the lesser known, more technical trails. BigSi managed to go over the handlebars and hit his shoulder. Fortunately these days he’s reinforced with titanium so it made no difference! Deadly also did a fairly spectacular faceplant on a log pile too, but although rather dazed, was unhurt.

South downs ride gallery

Wednesday night we met up at Whiteways, Dobby astride his new, very shiny, Hummer. No jealousy to see here, move along please. We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours doing all of the fine, flowy singletrack. The trails were dusty and dry once again, it was a joy to be out riding!

Whiteways gallery

Friday morning I got out of bed at silly o’clock to do a quick pre-work loop with my colleagues. The sun ride was great and it feels good to get a few miles in before work, even if you do end up starving hungry for the rest of the day!

Friday Gallery

Saturday was Quest ride day for September. We had a good turn out of 17, a nice big group, but not un manageable. Dougal came all the way from Bristol, but he was trumped by our old buddy Dave ‘Bushlove‘ who had managed to slip over for the ride from New Zealand. I think that’s probably a record that won’t be broken!

I had a route in mind that I’d been planning for a few days. The long dry spell meant we could do the bridleway that runs to the North of the downs from Storrington to Washington, a bit of a rarity as when it’s wet it’s unrideable really. So I’d planned a decent length loop, but when it was time to head back we all agreed that we should stay out for longer as the conditions were so perfect. So it ended up being the longest Quest ride yet at around 26 miles. Everyone hung in there and we had a great ride.

Quest ride gallery

Sunday dawned all too quickly and I’d agreed for a group of us to marshal the ‘Petworth 10K race for life’. Mike and Tom were static marshals at a check point, Andy and I were lead riders for the front of the race. I reckon 36 minutes for an off road 10K run is pretty good, the eventual winner certainly pushed us up one of the hills when we struggled to stay in front! We didn’t see him on the downhill the other side though It’s a worthy cause though, so if you get a chance make a donation to cancer research……

Race done we hopped in the car and headed to Leith Hill for an afternoon of singletrack and jumping. Tom once again showing the rest of us how it should be done, even clearing a few steep climbs this time for the first time too.

Sunday gallery

So as you can gather from all the above, the weather is great, the trails are dry, switch off your PC and get out there now!………

Hummerlicious

Posted on September 14th, 2009 under Articles, Ride reports. Tags: brighton, leith hill, monthly ride, mtb, parklife, Quest Adventure News, ride, SDW, singletrack, south downs way, stanmer park, sussex-mtb. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.