Crew: El Pres, PTD, Bern, Mr Inc, Butty, Stunt<\/p>\n
Pub: Dunc<\/p>\n
Route: BL, Old Road, Tea Rooms, Shining Tor, Pym Chair, Jenkin Chapel, Ewrin lane, Poachers<\/p>\n
Conditions: Mild, Dry, Little wind<\/p>\n
Notes:<\/p>\n
El Pres declares early birthday tipple, and hence route choice rights, he fancies Taxal edge.<\/p>\n
Collective gulp from the assembled riders (and a sigh from Stunt on the 3″ tractor tyres…who adds a few more psi)<\/p>\n
Nevertheless once PTD has arrived, we give it a go and set off up the road (to be promptly overtaken by a young lad on very green MTB)<\/p>\n
The repairs from the other week are inspected…cat’s eye ironwork replaced by poorly filled holes, some bigger patches of tarmac, one hopes that this is to even up the base layer for proper resurfacing (but likely austerity = make do and mend instead).<\/p>\n
Great views of the plain in the evening light, the odd motorbike, but not too many (they are saving themselves for the BH weekend).<\/p>\n
Plenty of interest on the way up, gambolling lambs, rooks mobbing the buzzard, curlews calling, the odd roadie making the climb look easy, and shutlingsloe and the forest looking inviting.<\/p>\n
Regroup at the tea rooms, and time for tubby tyres to finally be the right answer on the offroad climb.<\/p>\n
Overtaken at the turn off to shining tor by youthful whippets on ultralight carbon hardtails, fast down and possible to climb all the way up to the top in light and dryness!<\/p>\n
It’s not yet 8pm but its already clear that Taxal and back in time for food is mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n
El Pres declares tipple at Wingather as the new target.<\/p>\n
Off across the slabs (only took us 15 mins a few weeks back with a tail wind), however the inevitable occurs, with Bern trying to keep up with the full suss boys and takes out the rear tube on the last water bars. Spare tube is already pre holed! so he is lent a 27.5 3″ tube for his narrow 26″ tyre – amazingly it fits and not suprisingly it’s rock hard!<\/p>\n
Time has cost us dear, El Pres treats us to Sloe Gin, mini pork pies, mini scotch eggs with a cheeky apple sauce filling (with a tendency to squirt!!) and cream cheese filled mini peppers.<\/p>\n
It’s a fine feast..and washes away the regrets of not being able to go through the gate to the beckoning vision of singletrack to Wingather.<\/p>\n
Instead it’s route one back to bolly, is it the gin, or maybe the grip of big tyres on dry tarmac, but Stunt is keeping Butty and PTD\u00a0 honest on the descent.<\/p>\n
Legs are hurting on the final climbs before more downhill velocity to the pub.<\/p>\n
Poachers is holding a Gin tasting evening, the Nancies have a posh table reserved sign all of their own…..but fail to arrive…much cheeky talk of modifying the sign in humorous ways..remains talk.<\/p>\n
Old dog wins the ale contest after both pale ales are abandoned after one pint. Nosh excellent as ususal.<\/p>\n
Axis of evil forms to help El Pres towards the line, and we sucumb to both world beer board (Butty’s 11%er a bit sweet with undertones of aircraft dope!), and a whisky finish.<\/p>\n
Mildy wobbly ride home into the start of Star Wars day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Crew: El Pres, PTD, Bern, Mr Inc, Butty, Stunt Pub: Dunc Route: BL, Old Road, Tea Rooms, Shining Tor, Pym Chair, Jenkin Chapel, Ewrin lane, Poachers Conditions: Mild, Dry, Little wind Notes: El Pres declares early birthday tipple, and hence route choice rights, he fancies Taxal edge. Collective gulp from the assembled riders (and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tnr-2018"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3753,"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752\/revisions\/3753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/android-finder.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}