Crossing the streams

Llangollen MTB - Feb 2018
Matt riding a dry trail. There weren’t many of those. In fact, this was the only one!

There is some stuff you shouldn’t mix. Explosive chemicals being self-evident*. Three generations of the same family a somewhat more learned life skill. And big days in the hills when Winter still firmly controls the calendar.

Matt – in the image above – clearly disputes this. His view is if you’re not bloodily injured with a mostly broken bike while struggling through waist high snow as night falls, then basically you need to get out less. Death-Marches are a real thing, and Matt’s keen to up the game with DM Evo where at least one person might not make it.

Honestly it’s like being the red jumper bloke in Star Trek. Join that party and it essentially peril, pain and a probable fatal interaction. Knowing all that, it as something of a surprise to find myself dodging fat raindrops at 6am this morning as the van pulled into the drive.

Clearing up shower then’ I greeted Matt. He just looked disappointed it wasn’t sleeting, or dinosaur killing meteors weren’t bouncing off the roof. We collected the rest of the red-jumper tribe and headed into mid Wales bombarded by zero temps and hard rain.

Daybreak didn’t bring much joy to a sodden landscape, with much hiding under the tailgate finding s dither of mountain bikers wondering how much waterproofing kit to wear. I went with ‘all of it’ as we took account of our surroundings – to whit being on the valley floor flanked by muscular hills at every compass point.

Best get up one of them. By the end of the day I’m pretty sure we’d been up most of them. Maybe twice. It’s proper ‘winch’n’plummet’ geography with little truck for anything tending to the horizontal. The first climb was a muddy horror, elivened only when an elbows-out MXer passed us in a spray of slurry only to bin it 30 yards on.

https://flic.kr/p/QWxKCD

Made me laugh. Into the sleet now acting as organic acupuncture. Fuck me that’s a bit miserable I thought dragging another waterproof from the pack. I didn’t need to look at Matt to see he was smiling. And hoping for snow.

First descent was a 2m wide mud rut enriched with a jumble of loose rock and wet roots. I was back on the Bird having repaired** all the broken stuff not really enjoyed on the Gap Ride. We are still having bonding issues – especially once my tentativeness ended with a partial ejection into a mud bank.

No one else seemed to be struggling tho. Nor at the first actual stream crossing where I took pictures before failing to fall into the river. This is something of a first.

Llangollen MTB - Feb 2018
Sam not falling into the river.

Climbing wise, all was good even with frozen appendages stomping pedals and gripping bars. Six weeks in the shed going nowhere slowly may actually be making a difference. Or it could have been two cups of turbo-coffee and a dirty egg bap. Time may tell.

Descent 2. Went okay. Nobody died. Not even those wearing red. Bike still felt odd. Well I felt odd, unconnected, a bit nervous, missing my hardtail. At times likes this, a moment of introspection while chowing down on sarnies can help.

It didn’t really. I was a bit miserable from the chain gang up the valley into a bastard head wind. It was a pretty valley but it was also pretty brutal. Rather than deal with any actual problems, I changed my gloves. Displacement activity right there.

Descent three. Top of which is that first image. Stunning to be in the big hills, breathing clean air and on-sight-riding fairly technical stuff. Even when I’m riding like a twat, I cherish days like this. Any big hill, any season.

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Sam was holding the gate as I came close to cartwheeling into it. Proper rocky but actually mostly dry. This lasted another two seconds before my wheels were submerged by a raging torrent pretending to be a trail.

Three minutes later not much has changed other than a few heartfelt ‘fuck me, that was close’ , and sufficient sliding off wet slate into water deep enough for me to consider whether a life raft might be something to add to my personal inventory.

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Arriving in a rather flustered state at the road, Haydn wondered if my forks might need a tweak. I asked him why. His reply suggested my current setup would be brilliant if I was method-acting Zebedee from Magic Roundabout, but not quite so appropriate for pounding rocks at regular intervals.

Since I was faffing, it seemed apposite to remove about 25{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of the air from a rear shock last inflated when I was quite a bit fatter***. Placebo or not, from therein, the bike received a studied Nod and a bit of a Yorkshire ‘That’ll do’ as we finally made some decent progress when the world tips to our happy place.

Last climb then. Feeling good. Except my feet. Can’t feel those at all. Swing into the road climb to be met by a sign informing any who may pass that 25{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} is the gradient. It wasn’t as easy as that, with a upward trajectory suggesting a moon-shot.

Llangollen MTB - Feb 2018

Orbital mechanics aside, I made a decent punt at it. 16 minutes of ‘oh sodding nora when is this going to end?’ delivering 250m of vertical waiting to be cashed in on a descent boosted as the best of the day. That’s a hell of an ask based on what had come before.

We rode into some stunning scenery filled with glacial moraines and the promise of cold rain. Dropping into a mad rock gulley I substituted any proper technique with the ‘hang on and hope’ approach that’s served me so well all these years. I even kept my eyes open.

Which was helpful as a tiring Sam became a further trail obstacle. Stupidly I followed Cez on a line best though of as ‘danger of death or at least the loss of a spleen’ accelerating to speeds I’m not entirely comfortable with.

Not as uncomfortable as what came next. A concrete slab drop-shipped by a lowest cost bidder to slow subsidence. It didn’t slow me as I was properly shitting the big drop on the far side of it. No way to roll that. Instinct is one thing, experience another. So for the frightened, closing my eyes and hoping for the best was as ever my go-to strategy.

Bit clattery, moments of uncertainty, bike going one way, upper body the other. Gritted teeth, rode it out eyeballs on stalks then cracked on registering every moment as the difference between merely existing and being alive.

Trail finally finished and we were cold, wet and bloody loving it. Rolled back into town to scare the good citizens of Llangollen with half naked bodies and much giggling.

What a day. Crossed many streams. Dodged some bullets. Found a way to enjoy the wet and the Winter. We’ll be back. Maybe next time tho hold the sleet….

*other than to those hardcore practical experimenters with no eyebrows. Tend to leave buildings vertically.

**as in ‘drop it off at Matt’s and get it back working through some kind of magic

***Don’t confuse this with me being whip-thin now. I’ve merely backed away from corpulent.

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