Today's Ride

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I took a little detour through Bowdown Woods on my way to Greenham Common today, which looked lovely with the Bluebells just coming into flower.

Bowdown has a little Nature Walk running around it, and cyclists are not always welcomed with open arms. My excuse is that I was raised and nurtured during a time when mountain bikers were regarded as being outsiders, on the edges of normal society. Even the Cycling Press, ahem…. “encouraged” us to behave with a somewhat rebellious stance .

MBUK magazine would give us free stickers to support that view, and sometime in the mid 90's I proudly fixed one to my Merlin M.A.L.T. II that read, Quote: “RAMBLERS…. Satan’s Children”.

Bowdown Wood 200419_1 by Philip Mock, on Flickr

Bowdown Wood 200419 by Philip Mock, on Flickr

Pip

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Right attitude Pip, 'though I do draw the line at rambler slalom :shock:

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Great to see you out there.

More exploring this morning.

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The History Man":2fv4oyfy said:

Great to see you out there.

More exploring this morning.

Click to expand...

Havent been out for a bit due to health but thought i would go out today for a gentle short ride. Ended up doing a 4hr loop :facepalm: the longest ive rode since my accident a couple of years ago though, so pretty pleased. Alot of exploring new trails and woods so it ended up being another great ride.

Weather was hot, with a capital 'hot' and the route i went was out of the way of the holiday walkers so had the trails to myself, apart from the odd dog walker, and one pheasant that wouldnt move

Mark

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Last day of the Easter break, and it was a little cooler here in West Berkshire.

The 1998 Hot was cleaned, dried, lubed and polished yesterday, so today it was out with the 1997 Explosif after a little inspiration from seeing Al on his.

I headed South this morning with the intention of getting a picture looking across the Kennet Valley….. to equal some of the superb views that Mark has been posting . I couldn’t get the camera high enough with relying on a fence post :roll: , so you’ll have to take my word that it is there in the background.

Kennet Valley View 220419 by Philip Mock, on Flickr

Pip

Awesome work Pip - first world problems choosing which bike to ride eh? I can't relate to that at all :facepalm:

Lovely day today, warm with a cool breeze.

Decided to ride over to the woods where Sherwood Pines centre is. Mostly off road from mine and i join the woods via the locals entrance, at the bottom of the now called bike park There were a few people there from centre parcs and even though they have taken the big drops down and the park is built on a slope that isnt as steep as my drive, they seemed to be having a good time. Rode up to the Jumps which are still there, although the big sets have been reduced somewhat. I was only passing through as i was here to ride the singletrack and explore the original jump spot we had built back in the '90's rode some old singletrack that was barely rideable back then which has now seen quite a bit of traffic so was quite a bit smoother. Rode a couple of the old jumps, which seem a lot smaller now im bigger. Rode a section of singletrack which now had berms on the corners :? it wasnt until i got to the end that i realised it was one of the pines circuits which apparently goes the other way so thought i would have a quick go the other, right way. It was quite enjoyable and i might actually ride round it one day.

When im a bit fitter i will organise a ride on the original singletrack around there. There is so much to choose from and its not beaten up as everyone rides the man made tracks now

The last picture is from the top of the old pit tip where i built my first DH tracks which i used to ride on my Kilauea. It has since been took down as they discovered large quantities of coal still in it, its about a 5th of its original size now. One side used to be just shale all the way down, scary as your brakes locked pretty much straight away and you ended up just skiding and picking speed up all the way down, lucky there was a long run out Sherwood Pines are the woods on the horizon.

Another great day full of memories.

Mark

Very warm today, even though the wind was cool, and also strong at times, with a couple of light rain showers.

Went for a quick blast around a short loop, trying to include some hills, which is hard around here but after the ride i was exhausted, so glad there wasnt any really big ones now

Mark

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Scooty-doo