Devils Dyke Ride 1st Dec 07

We left Devils Dyke at 10-30 for a head-clearing ride that with careful planning we hoped would avoid the worst of the mud.

The first climb of the day witnessed the first mechanical resulting in one of the gang losing all his lower gears which made the subsequent hills increasingly difficult, mildly amusing to begin with but torture at the end. A meandering route dropped us into the top of Stanmer Woods where we repeated the Muddy@rse Halloween ride but with a couple of added a detours. Neil and Mark tried to outdo each other playing on the jumps and ramps ending in a couple of 'bike-vs-tree' near misses and the 'Missing in Action' section claimed yet another lost victim. A grassy climb and we were straight into the more established Stanmer singletrack where the wet roots were covered by a layer of wet leaf mulch, it was like riding on soap! A couple of tumbles and close-thing slips and we were out. At this stage we decided that coffee was in order so we dropped into Stanmer Tea Rooms via an off-piste descent down a steep wet-leaf covered slope - control and commitment in equal measure - a couple of rear wheel leaf ploughing demonstrations caused much ammusement. Refreshed we set out on the return leg back to the Dyke. Another meandering route and we popped out onto the A23. As a parting shot we decided to take in a flowing section of contour hugging chalk singletrack ending in a very steep and badly rutted descent. In the sunshine this is a cracking ride. We hit it at 4-30pm in the dark and in drizzling rain which turned it into a very slippery heart-in-mouth singletrack interspersed with the odd muddy section that made things really interesting. The second mechanical - my chain slipped off the cassette went over the spoke ends and got jammed against the hub - much tugging and levering before it was free.


We returned to Devils Dyke at approximately 5pm to be greeted by more drizzle and a cold wind. No cleaning, straight into the car and home. It was a cracking ride, about 35 miles on a mixture of terrain, great company and lots of laughter.