Words and Photos by Pete, Forest shots are “stock” from a fine Sunday ride in January this year
Route : BL – Zig Zags – saddlers way bottoms reservoir – leathers – PTD ascent route – nessit – downhill – diverse routes to Leathers – Sutton Hall
Conditions : The rain cleared to a lovely night. Quite muddy 6.6C at midnight
Crew : Bern, Troll, TJ, El Pres, PTD, Pete & Coley
Pub : Alex and Dunc
Scenes from another fine evening of TNR :
It’s become a routine thing. Langley Joe drops in at the BL rendezvous – he is our very own caped crusader.
Paul is back at the helm, and gives us a different take on the forest once more . Even after all these years he still finds a novel way of riding on some familiar bits. some challenging climbs (i.e. the odd bit of pushing by yours truly)
We are bemused that UU can sort out the clearance of dozens of fallen trees in the nature reserve bit but they struggle to clear about a dozen on the main forest public tracks. Its disappointing. many expletives come to mind.
Some of the fallen trees are an easy obstacle …but there is a mass of them between standing stone and Nessit which force us down into the huge felled open bit to get around them. Tough going to shift yourself and your bike through this lot. More expletives are yelled at the ineptness of UU.
The lights of Macclesfield are visible through the trees as we ride the narrow gravel single track that leads to the downhill course.
There is enough light left in the sky to silhouette the trees of the forest beautifully , but it’s dark enough to need our lights to descend at speed.
There is something very special about this twilight zone. And the thought that you are headed for fine beer and nosh with an honest appetite.
We get to Sutton Hall. Hoegaarden and Whirly Bird are the weapons of choice.
Between myself, Bern and Chris we have about 32 vouchers .
Upon presenting these to the wonderful “Sid” we learn that they are not all legitimate, some date from as far back as 2015 and some hail from the wrong B & P establishment. No matter. We are given the benefit of the doubt and our enduring faith in all things SH is renewed.
Alex and Funky arrive about 10 post a reasonable forest circuit. Respect.
And the ribaldry zone is once more upon us.
By 9:45 I was thinking they might be no shows. O ye of little faith.
The main bill paid we have a brief AOE with drams all round. Chilly on the way home.
