I also spent much of the first evening in the pub being ridiculed for apparently ordering a Pina Colada last year. However, now I check back to last year’s writeup I realise it was actually a Mojito which is so much more manly and underserving of criticism. We also realised that – since he has been on EVERY SINGLE group bike trip I’ve ever organised, Andy is probably a completely imaginary friend of mine because that’s totally implausible. Chris and Mark may well be imaginary as well (there are people other than me in the video right?!).

So anyway onto the incidents:

• Chris broke his chain. (Just like last time!)
• Mark also broke his chain several times and had to take a link out each time. With his chain getting shorter by the minute, after the first morning Mark took his bike for it’s annual service at the shop at Glyncorrwg. (just like last time!)
• I got bitten by mosquitos (just like last time – though I was wearing repellent so I managed to keep it to around 30 bites this year)
• Andy fell off (who can believe it – just like last time!) At least this year it wasn’t on the very first section.
• With a grazed body and swollen knee from falling on rock, Andy managed to soldier on and ride the rest of the first day but ducked out of the second day (yep – just like last time). Next year body armour for Andy!

Anyway this year, instead of photos – we have video! This should hopefully give people an idea of what it’s like mountain biking at a custom built trail center. Think: endless, glorious single track, challenging technical stuff and awesome downhill but of course – you have to get up the hill first…

This will suit if:

• you missed out on the black run and want to see what its like
• you would enjoy seeing me fail hopelessly to keep up with Mark – still king of downhill! Given that I was hardly braking he obviously wasn’t at all…

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!

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)!)

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!