Three Bigfoot Mountain bikers headed over to Andover for the Cool MTB challenge run by Gorrick.
It’s also known as the Test valley tour.
The day did not start well. Someone overslept. Yep it was me!
I woke up at 6.15am to see a text sent at 6.10am from Pete who was collecting me at 6am.
After leaping out of bed with a few choice words not appropriate for a family blog I got my stuff together and bundled into the car.
The journey there was uneventful except for the heavy shower that greeted us on the M3.
We met up with Paul in the leisure centre carpark with the rain still coming down. The three of us agreed that we don’t mind rain once we’ve started a ride but we don’t like starting the ride in the rain.
Anyway after I ate my breakfast, a Yorkie bar, we got the bikes ready and rode through the start gate straight on to singletrack!
Oh yes I could tell this was going to be my type of ride, muddy singletrack. I just got in to a rhythm and then it ended.
A couple of country roads later and it was on to muddy bridleway. Again once we got in to a rhythm it stopped and we came out on to a country road with a couple of other participants. There were no arrows telling us where to go. “Oh deary me!” we all exclaimed. Someone else came up and mentioned seeing a bit of the red and white ribbon that marks the route going off a turning to the left back down the trail. So we turned around and went back down, low and behold there it was. Ok time to keep our eyes open.
The next memorable point was the hill. Not just a hill but THE HILL. A chalky farm track ascent that offered little grip and needed to be ridden gently and smoothly. A bit of a problem when you’re running a singlespeed (I’m looking at you Pete). Thankfully I was running 20 gears. The problem was that my tyres were clogging up with chalk and clay so I would have to go on the slippy grass verge to clean them off but that was harder work than the ruts. We all got up the hill eventually. When we got to the top there was a fellow MTBer with a small problem with his bike. His rear derailleur had snapped off and flown in to a tree. We all nodded sagely as we agreed that for him the event was over.
So we got up the hill. Now it was time to go down. Weeeee! Oh ****! The descent was not fun. We had two options, stay on the clay bank with little grip and crash or get into the deep rut filled with rocks and crash. Thankfully us Bigfooters are tough and we all took the third option, stay on the clay and use our superior bike handling skills and stay on the bike. I breathed a huge sigh of relief at the bottom.
Time for some more country road. Powerhouse Pete rode off in the distance up the hill. Paul behind me shouted “car back!” I looked around a saw a convoy of classic Ferrari’s, a Bugatti and other sports cars, then a 2CV! I stopped to watch them go past and we got smiles and waves as they drove past us. I don’t mind telling you I got a little fizz as James May would say.
We lost sight of Pete. Paul and I continued on with the ride assuming Pete had got into a rhythm going up the hill. After a bit more singletrack we arrived at the feed station. Pete was not waiting for us there. “Oh well, he’s obviously going great guns and decided not to stop”.
After the food stop we got to play on the most wonderful, muddy, slippy and wet singletrack of the whole ride. At every corner either the front wheel slipped or the back wheel slipped. At the most delicious corners the front slipped and as you got it under control the back one went. It was brilliant fun! It felt like we were riding someone else’s local trails snaking through the woods under trees and over logs.
Then we missed a turning, we rode straight across a fireroad and straight across another one. We rode up the hill and descended down the other side, it was at the bottom we realised we were lost again. We worked with others who had followed a similar path and got back on course for the final road stretch home.
When we crossed the line I noticed a text from Pete. He had taken a wrong turning and thought he had cut out alot of the course so he waited for us at the top of a hill. While watching the Red kites soaring in the valley and other participants climbing up the hill he realised that he had actually cut back to the chalky hill and was now behind us while we thought he was in front. Oh how we laughed with him when he crossed the line an hour later.
Talking to others at the bike wash we weren’t the only ones to get lost at various sections that day. The poor signage didn’t spoil our day and I personally feel that it gave the event a more adventurous feel to it. Plus we got to have a laugh with others and that’s always a good thing.
Cheers for reading.
Adventures in mud 