Crew: El Pres, Butty, Mr I, 3 Sheds, Dunc, Stunt
Pub: El Pud & Slim
Route: BL, full zig zags, walker barn, chazza, extension, standing stone, singletrack from shutlingsloe gate to s bends, KM descent, singletrack path, rezzies, Church House.
Conditions: Fine drizzle, low cloud, mild, greasy trails.
Stats: a range of excuses from man flu to “work interfering with riding”
notes:
Unscheduled rain did not impress the crew, although the appearance of 3 sheds did!
Having had such a good run of late this caught us out in lots of ways – inadequate clothing, rear lights on almost dead batteries, and lack of mudguards.
A slack route was devised (low marks for originality)
Visibility deteriorated as we climbed and the cloud closed in and the light faded out of the day.
Much wiping of glasses and mutterings below windyways, actually quite tricky to work out where the road was descending to walker barn, head mounted lights now counter productive.
Brief stop to regroup at chazza – slippery up and sketchy down, Butty records his slowest descent ever – fogged up yellow lenses not helping much!
Pushing on there is a slight comms snafu with the singletrackers being leapfrogged by the laggards who do the s bends to nessit. Exiting the cloud halfway down the KM decent makes an amazing change as suddenly we can see! Lights of each group are now visible to each other, regroup ensues.
Lower favourites thrashed just because we can!
Long overdue return to the Church house, with an embarrassingly early arrival of 8:15. New Staff, prompt delivery of food, Harvest pale and Butchers dark both excellent. Sick slim delivers El Pud “fresh” from the train. Quadcopter video teaser, memories of Dan in pictures, and much bivvy planning from the Friday crew (with much mocking from 3sheds). This week we enjoy whisky in celebration of the state of the union (what excuse will we find next week?)
Increasingly damp on the ride home.