Light/Dark. Hot/Cold. Dust/Mud. Chubby/Low-Fat. That last couplet is an outlier we’ll be back to, but first to misquote the Wizard of Oz, we’re not in summer anymore. Or even Autumn.

Two weeks ago our riding life looked like that photo. We were revelling in leaf-fall over dust. Summer from the axles down. Sure the season ratchet had cranked- turning trees amber and dropping temperatures*, but the weather never got the memo, so a month of minimal rain led to maximum grinnage.

You know it cannot last so every dry singletrack climb, every firm berm, every perfect take off, every non sketchy landing, every rock-hard apex, every calculated risk, every clean bike is cherished for the unexpected gift it absolutely is.

So we go long. Bitch reversed, G2-into-G, Bridget’s, The Legend of Jones, Threes-up finishing on the feared/revered Bunker. Which in the wet is essentially assisted suicide, but that day was conquered at good speed, without the standard terror associated with barrelling into damp rock gardens at inappropriate velocitygenerated by the steepness of the hill.

The names mean nothing outside of the group of four selecting them of course, but the memories mean everything. It’s a 65km day and we’re heading home in the twilight feeling sated and smug, but there’s something of a flat track bully here. Brilliant yes, one 30 second period joyful pulling and pushing the bike between wheel eating stumps kicking up leaves barely settled from the previous rider will lie long in that memory.

But you know what’s coming. And now it has arrived. The local Wednesday night ride is pretty much ‘three gap Wednesday’. These trail features hide something a little less physical- the bridge between a shit week and the weekend. While my riding pals are all lovely and everything, without the ego-less piss taking of our midweek right, I’d be in the jury box providing good character references mitigating ‘falling down‘ incidents wth difficult work colleagues.

Sunday last a trail we’d battered some two weeks before itsuccumbed to rain storms driven on westerly winds. Mostly sideways and fun in a way it really won’t be come February. Right now tho, there’s the flip between being just brave and being a reasonable bike handler. When it all goes tractionless, the tractionless get hippy. Flick the bugger back into line, get the front pointing in the right direction, death-grip the bars and ride the slide.

So we knew what was coming. More rain suggested this would be the first night ride where the pub handed out seat-saving newspapers for muddy arses. I was still keen tho mainly as my approach to the changing of the seasons is to throw money at the problem. Not in a ‘Hey let’s all move to Spain until Spring‘** kind of way, more taking advantage of the Cotic’s chameleon like ability to run both chubby and 29er wheels depending on prevailing conditions.

Looking out of the window, those prevailing conditions were ‘a bit shit’ so I procured a set of big, skinny rims for almost no money at all. A transaction which lost its fiscal allure once I’d splashed significant cash on brand new rubber to dress them.

First impressions weren’t fantastic. Climbing somehow felt more difficult – an issue instantly backgrounded once this new rubber exhibited it’s bark magnetic properties on the first descent. Not so much a passenger as man playing human pinball with almost every tree in the forest.

Arrived shaken and stirred at the fireroad. Let some air out for the look of the thing. Things improved a bit mostly because I’d lifted my head from a narrative stuck in a loop of ‘where’s the rest of the tyre, it’s like being a bloody roadie out here’.

Climb back up. Grit teeth. Clearfirst gap jump and am so relieved almost run over fallen rider in front of me. Retrieve Alex from his supine position and head down the trail only to find Adam lying upside down in the shrubbery. Feel mildly guilty that maybe my wheel changing has butterfly-fluttered the trail gods.

10 minutes later, I’m over it as Alex again throws his bike roughly to the ground narrowly avoiding a ‘saddle-erectomy‘ in the ensuing sky-ground-sky consequence of a head-first attack on an innocent tree.

Blimey, what next? Another man down with a back injury and the black-hole effect of the pub almost pulls us in, but with resolute upper lips we head on to a couple more descents, the last of which has the third gap jump on a barely consolidated new trail.

Not done it before. It’s only going to get more greasy tho. Do I want to wait until March? Tempting. But followed Rex, stuck a couple of pedal strokes in, saw his light describing a perfect parabola just before I closed my eyes. Missed the downslope but saved by great forks, and the darkness shrouding the fear of cocking it up.

Right then, Pub. World put to rights. Forecasts checked for weekend. Wind, rain cold which translates to slop, effort and new washing machines. It’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better, but we’ve got mudguards, waterproof shorts and an insatiable need to ride bicycles. Best get on with it.

Switch, flicked.

*so triggering the re-emergene of the drinking hat which provides the folically challenged respite when drinking outside a favourite pub under chilly skies. Pretty much the first thing packed in the bagbetween November and March.

** tempting as it is, apparently the kids have some quite important exams coming up and it’d be a bit of a bugger of commute to Cheltenham. I’m not yet totally swayed by these arguments.