This trail would ride really well in the dry!
I always try and go riding over the Christmas break. When I used to spend every Christmas in Bath I would normally try and get a Boxing Day ride in with Gav as well as a few more trips to Wales in over the Christmas break. As we alternate between mine and Emma’s Mum’s place now that doesn’t really happen as much.
This year I’ve also been full of cold and a hacking cough which has killed most ideas of riding. To be honest though the end of 2012 has seen a slow decline in riding which I’m keen to rectify. We had our annual trip in October (which I still haven’t written up) and I haven’t really ridden much off road since then.
So I managed to find some people willing or able to make a trip out in the pouring rain with me on New Years Eve – Finn and Joe from Brighton. We agreed that Swinley was probably the best option as the Surrey Hills would be a complete wash out.
I’ve been trying to not buy so much crap when riding. One of those is crap service station coffees on the way. So I grabbed a small cafetiere and some coffee and decided to make everyone a brew from the back of the van before we set off. Far nicer coffee and a nice way to have a chat before getting going.
Swinley is one of those areas that has miles and miles of trails that you know are there but you don’t know how they all link up to make a good ride. So we were keen to just ride around and try and make some of those connections as the conditions weren’t so good. Swinley is also having some work done by trail builder Rowan Sorell so it made sense to try and find new bits that weren’t affected by trail closures. We found lots of new bits and linked up some really nice little trails. Most of it was sloppy as hell and we spent plenty of the ride with water up to our bottom brackets but it was still fun. The forest looked strangely beautiful in the flat grey light.
I shot a few images on my LC-A with some HP5 400 in but I’ll have to wait a bit before processing those.
So even though it was wet, slimy and horrible and I had little lung capacity it was still great to get out for some fresh air. I rode mainly trails I had never seen before thanks to Joe’s incredible photographic memory for finding and linking them up. The favourite comment each time we stopped for a chat was…
This trail would ride really well in the dry!
Hopefully I can get another ride in next weekend and start getting back into the habit. Would be great if the weather started improving too.
And yes it’s probably time to trim the beard. Image by Finn.
