Tim Corrigan blogs on his latest cycling trips and other adventures…

It was time again to visit the Afan valley for our yearly dose of fun, technical mountain biking trails. The same team as last year: myself, Andy, Mark and Chris arrived on the Friday night to get our very specific and convoluted instructions for parking from the land lady of our B&B before escaping to the excellent pub (the only pub for that matter).

Not wanting to start the riding with a hangover, after 2 pints i scanned the lighter options at the bar for something I thought I could get away with. “Ahh, how about a Mojito?” I announced. Nice try. Mark and Andy were very firm that ordering such beverages was not going to be part of the weekends activities. I managed to get away with a G&T…

Having last year felt the full force of each and every bump and scraped the skin off the inside of my thumbs from holding on for dear life to my v-brake levers, I decided to take the opportunity to try a full suspension bike for the weekend. So I rented a KHS from Afan Valley Bike Hire. This turned out to be a great decision as not only was the riding experience completely transformed but also the bike was delivered to our B&B early on the Saturday morning and I didn’t even have to wash it! I’d recommend hiring one of these to anyone thinking about riding at Afan who (like myself) doesn’t do enough technical riding to justify buying their own full suspension bike.

The weekend wasn’t without incident though. Chris had various mechanical failures – a broken chain in the first 30 seconds, numerous chain derailments and a rear derailleur fall to pieces half way round the Skyline. Thankfully, Mark was ready to help out with his trusty chain removal tool and all problems could be fixed on the trail. Not so for Mark himself though who suffered a leak and subsequent loss of all brake fluid in his rear brake. We were just half way up the first hill at the time so it was down to the shop at Glyncorrwg for repairs for him. Andy managed to fall off (also whilst climbing the first hill) and damage his thumb to the point where he couldn’t use it to grip the handle bars or change gear. He valiantly continued on and completed the skyline using his left hand to change both sets of gears.

My ride was incident free, though I did find by the end of the weekend I had suffered an onslaught of mosquito bites… over 100 PER LEG (I tried to count and gave up at 100), plus plenty more on the arms, neck and head. Thank goodness for my nice tight cycling shorts stopping them from getting anywhere else! The day after the trip I had to resort to spreading Anthisan over my legs like it was sun cream to try to stem the itching. All is good now though and despite the incidents we will definitely go back next year for more (though I will be wearing Jungle Formula insect repellent)…

I just took part in the most unusual (and hard) cycling event I’ve been involved with to date. I was one of 9 riding a mixture of unusual bikes and ‘normal’ bikes for 92 miles around the lake district over 24 hours… in relentless rain.

The unusual bikes consisted of 1 tandem, 1 single speed recumbent trike, 1 hand cycle and 1 trandem. The hand cycle is best described as a wheel chair with a single front wheel on a steering column with pedals instead of handlebars! The trandem is similar, but with an additional rider behind (with foot pedals). The 9 participants swapped around bikes – so it was an all over body work out for all.

All of the unusual bikes were great fun to ride – though a whole lot tougher to ride up the hills of the Lake District than a normal bike – hence why the trip was a 24 hour event! (we did have 2 hours sleep in a tent) For the serious hills like Birker Fell, Cold Fell, Matterdale End, Whinlatter Pass and Kirkstone Pass we employed various strategies to get these bikes up them. These included others helping to push and pull – both mounted on normal bikes, and for the steepest – walking.

The event was to raise money for the Bethesda project – which will be setting up an outdoor activities centre specialising in people with disabilities in Burundi, Africa. Find out more about the Bethesda Project and support it if you can.

Last weekend Andy, Mark, Chris and I headed over to Afan forest in south Wales for some mountain biking on the custom built trails there. On the first day we rode the Penhydd trail, with a guide giving us some skills coaching including handling switch-backs, roots, and all sorts of other trail obstacles. Andy managed to fling himself over the handlebars but landed on a nice grass bank so all was well.

The night was spent in a B&B in Port Talbot – a town that although not blessed with beauty or wealth was nonetheless worth a visit for the experience (£9 for 7 drinks). The B&B also provided sherry in our room!

Day 2 was pure adrenaline on the White’s Level trail up the road with an hour and a half of technical climbing, followed by enough downhill that we were struggling to hold on to our bars by the end (I have blisters on my thumbs). Everyone came off the bike except me – I’m the cautious one (and therefore not that fast!) but all walked away without injury and a big grin on their face. We can’t wait to go back!

This year I joined up with Mark Sheppard to ride the British Heart Foundation London to Brighton ride. The ride is 54 miles on road from Clapham Common to Brighton beach and this year had 27,000 official riders.

This ride gave me the motivation to get out my road bike, which has been mostly sat in the shed the last 2 years as I have been concentrating on mountain biking. I got it out a few weeks before-hand and did some training rides on it – it was like a dream to ride again – so quick! I think Mark is pretty tempted to get one for next years London to Brighton.

I’d never taken part in a ride anywhere near this big before and it was awesome seeing so many cyclists.

Tim’s London to Brighton survival tips:

• No need to carry much in the way of drink or food – there are official and unofficial stops all over the place – even people giving away biscuits!
• If you are riding a mountain bike, get some slick tyres and get your bike checked over first.
• If you’ve not ridden this kind of distance before do some training, building up to at least a 30 mile training ride. Rest the few days before though.
• Don’t try to set any time records – with so many riders, getting out of London does take some time and it only take a few riders to get off and walk up a narrow hill to force everyone to walk.
• Save something for Ditchling beacon – it’s tough but do have a go at riding it – it really is all down hill after that and it’s pretty satisying overtaking all those people walking up.

10 of us set off to ride some of national cycle route 4! Know the one? Our section followed the route of the Kennet & Avon Canal from Reading to Bath over 3 days. The starters were myself, Liz, Alison, Craig, Andy W,  Michelle, Chris, Ursula and Andrew M.

Day 1 took us from Reading to Froxfield, near Hungerford – a total of 35 miles and a lovely day of riding, despite some surprise hills on the road section towards the end. We rounded up the evening playing quick scrabble and drinking Belgian beer.

Day 2 had Tim B join us with the national cycle route taking us off the towpath for 27 miles of road to Devizes. It might have been possible to ride the towpath for this section (as two girls on folding bikes were doing) but with a group this large we stuck to the designated route. The evening brought huge quantities of curry (and prawn cocktail and chips for Craig!), plenty of beer and killer pool in the local version of “Reflex”. There were some quite hilly sections, especially that one towards the end – but all coped very well – have you all been out secretly training or something?

Day 3 had us back on the towpath for 22 nice flat miles, a stop for some big cakes and an eventual race (for some reason) into Bath city centre led by Liz including overtaking the local cyclists and fending off the double decker tourist bus!

Nick names for the trip: Tim C: Maintenance Man, Liz: My Pet My Responsibility, Alison H: Queen of the Hills (again!), Tim B: Tight Chain, Craig: Prawn Cocktail, Andy W: Where is my food?,  Michelle: Pool Queen, Chris: Egg, Ursula: More Tea!, Andrew M: Marathon Crossover and Alison S: Team Z (drove to meet us at the pub!).

A great trip –  and importantly one in which everyone who started finished, and not only that finished together and with a smile on their face. Well done everyone!

Today Liz, Dylan and I set off on a bike trip that was rather flatter than my usual. One that took in most of Hayling Island’s south beach and most of Southsea beach as well. Family bike rides may be lacking in the speed and exhilaration of fast road riding or sweeping singletrack but that doesn’t mean they have to be dull. 

This ride had day long sea views, countless opportunities for ice cream and snack breaks, a brief spell of riding along a 15th century fortification, us crossing the path of the worlds longest running commercial hovercraft and even some clambering around a kiddies pirate ship. But the highlight for me was taking the bikes on the Hayling Ferry over to Eastney. There is something great about combining these two modes of transport – in this case not least because the total time to Southsea was less than it would have been to drive, but also – well it just looks cool having your bike on a ferry!

Next time – perhaps we’ll go a stage further and take the next ferry over to Gosport as well!

Rob and I set out for a bit of early year training on my favourite training ride in Queen Elizabeth Country Park, near Petersfield. The park itself has 2 waymarked mountain biking routes, novice and advanced. It is also right on the South Downs Way so I find an excellent 2 hour training route can be made out of riding out and back along the Way for an hour and finishing up with riding the advanced course in the park.

The novice course begins with a gravel track quickly followed by all the climbing for the route in one go. The descent is then on wide tracks with some brief spots of singletrack. The advanced course however has much more variety with climbing sections, singletrack sections and a technical downhill switchback section. My favourite part of it though is the last section which is of the flowing downhill singletrack variety. 

In terms of effort I find the novice course almost as tough as the advanced one with the advanced one being a lot more fun so I invariably plump for advanced. Anyway, despite it being only a few degrees above 0, it was a beautiful day and got me inspired to get out there more often in the coming months.

After breakfast:
Rob: “Ok I’m not going to ride today”.
Me: “Yeah ok Rob whatever” (complete disbelief – been wound up too many times..)
Rob: “No really. I’m not riding.”
Me: “Yeah ok then”
Rob: “No I’m REALLY not riding”
Me: (less sure) “Err ok..”
pause
Me: So you are riding yeah?
Rob: “No”
pause
Me: “If you do it now I won’t make you do it next year”
Rob: “No comment”.

So without one understandably downtrodden, shin injured, weather sceptical tap out we set out on day 3, which was.. a gloriously sunny day! The first hill was tough but once that was conquered we settled down for another day of riding up and down hills. We had no punctures and the previous week’s practice ride of this section paid off with us knowing the places not to take wrong turnings.

We enjoyed the uphill, the down hill and the flat sections (yeah ok there wern’t many of the latter). We had a great pub lunch and hurtled down the hill into Eastbourne about 4:30, straight to a Belgian restaurant for well earned steaks and Belgian beer. All in all – despite some bad weather on the first couple of days it was a great trip. I’d do it again, but next time – in 2 days! Come on you know you all want to!

Day 2 started with guess what – more rain. But with a forecast for the rain to clear quickly, we left our luggage in the porch for Liz to pick up and set off for – oh a good 5 metres before Andy needed to adjust his disc brakes! We then got ourselves back up the hill to the South Downs Way and set about tackling the many hills of the day.

But it kept raining. And wet chalk makes for pretty slippery riding, and we were slipping all over the place – with quite a few near offs. Rob did fall off, and then proceeded to smack himself in the shin with his (apparently ungrippy) pedal – and then again – same shin – ouch. We all wished we’d kept our winter tyres on, though frankly I’m not sure it would have helped that much on some of the wet chalky descents.

It was still raining at lunch time and we were so covered in mud we ate our pub lunches outside in the rain rather than leave mud all over the seats inside. The weather did clear up in the afternoon though and despite a few more punctures and hard work riding up hills, we did start to enjoy ourselves…  Neil: “I may complete the SDW but it may be at the cost of my sanity”. Andy: “I’m actually looking forward to the next hill”. Me: “Andy has lost his already”.

We finished up in the bustling town of Clayton (well ok it’s a village with one pub, though that was bustling by the time we filled it with 4 hungry cyclists, Liz our favourite porter, Kaylee (9) and Dylan (2)!)

Andy, Rob, Neil and I set out to ride the South Downs Way in 3 days. The South Downs Way runs for 100 miles from Winchester to Eastbourne in the south of England, and a pretty tough 100 miles they are too. The route is 95% off road and is characterised by seemingly endless ups and downs. This time we did at least knew what we were letting ourselves in for as we’d previously attempted it 2 years ago and ended up drinking beer on Brighton beach after the second day!

So the morning came.. and it was raining. We tried to delay the start, but really, we just had to get on with it. Thanks to Mum and Dad for the stay over, lift to the start and big breakfast and supplies of energy bars. We had one other thing on our side as well – Liz (our favourite porter) was to take our luggage to the end point of the first day so all we had to carry was what we needed during the day. Oh and of course.. we’d all trained really really hard this time.. er.. hadn’t we?!

The rain had left much of the first part of the ride muddy, and it wasn’t long before we were covered in mud and our fair share of nettle stings. We made good progress though – pushing on to Queen Elizabeth Country park by lunch time (we recall it being late afternoon before we got there last time). It went a little downhill (well alright not before a lot of uphill!) though when we had a series of punctures in the last hour, and upon riding down an amazing descent to my pub of choice by 5 only to find it didn’t open till 7 we had to ride to the backup pub almost 30 minutes away. However by the time we got there, Liz had turned up offering moral support and more importantly, strawberry chewy sweets.

The day finished with a lot of food consumed, a last 10 minute uphill ride to the farm we were staying at, a good hour of bike maintenance and finally, falling asleep with hot chocolate watching Bridget Jones’ diary. Oh and Liz offered to carry our luggage again for the next day on condition she got to take a photo of us on our knees begging.. Dylan (our 2 year old mascot) had to join in of course!