The Annual Midnight Ride.

    Every year we enjoy a mid summer midnight ride - this year was no different...

    As usual we're riding in the Peak District, starting from Macclesfield Forest. The ride starts at the stroke of Midnight and at eleven fifty, there's eight men wandering around the carpark dressed in tights - still, I feel almost certain that stranger folk have used the place than us. The clock chimes and it's lights on and away - all except Jon Woodhouse, who appears to have broken his loaner light already. Never mind - this is the stuff that makes it more than just a ride and big Steve Makin, always prepared, has a spare set - just in case.

    As Jon and Steve wrestle the lights onto the bike, a car pulls in. No need to worry, it's not some midnight cruisers, but the local contingent, who have been running a little late. So, joined by Alex and Andreas, ten of us set off up the first hill, into the cold night air. It's a fantastically clear night and the stars are twinkling up above as we're steaming below them. Off the fire road and onto some singletrack of dubious legality (there's a small amount of that on the Midnight Ride - after all, rights of way only apply during daylight hours, don't they?), we descend the dew-slicked path through the trees and then up the rocky, rooty trail and out onto the road. Quickly over a gate and onto more of the same, we wend our way along the bottom end of the reservoir as mist rises off the black water. A quick drop down the steep road and we're soon back onto gravel in between two more water stores and then climbing the slight gradient that will take us, via a stream crossing, to the foot of Teggs Nose. I listen for ten sets of wheels to cross the cattle grid behind me, but only count about four, before I'm out of earshot - still, they're all big lads and can look after themselves. Big John Wilson, who is getting smaller, and Peter Boulton, who is getting older, stop to tweak some lighting and the rest of us set off up the stream that is apparently a byway. At two feet deep and around eight inches wide, I'd like to see someone get a Fiesta up there, but we just about manage it on foot, regrouping about two thirds of the way up. It's a steep climb now and we're back onto singletrack through the forest and out onto Charity Lane. This is a byway too and as a result of four by four and trail bike use, it tends to get a little bashed about - it's all fair sized rocks though, so it's a fun descent to the Forest Chapel and then straight on past the church and down the even more chewed up descent to the road. There's a step half way down, that in the beam of my lights, looks like there's nothing on the other side, but an endless drop - it's a scary moment for me, but everyone else claims not to have even noticed it.

    Now it's a real dirge of a climb, up the road to the Cat and Fiddle. A couple of late night racers pass us, no doubt wondering what a bunch of loonies on bikes are doing out here at one in the morning, while we wonder why they're not tucked up in bed, dreaming of dump valves and spoilers - each to his own. We reach our goal and set off down the drop to the Goyt Valley. I hate this descent, my nemesis - it's rutted and grassy and is where I snapped my cruciate ligament a few years ago, so I'm a little wary of it. Evidently not wary enough, as I end up in a rut and catch my handlebars on the dry stone wall to my left. This brings me to a rather sharp halt and in doing so I shoulder barge the wall and knee my bars with such force that I manage to smash the wires from my lights and put a six inch gash in my right thigh. Needless to say, with just a helmet light and somewhat shaken, I complete the descent a whole lot slower than I began it. We spin along the valley road to Derbyshire Bridge and stop for a bit of sustenance. Whilst folks are stuffing Mars Bars and pork pies down their throats, I effect repairs to my lights with a knife and some electrical tape - good old Mr. Makin to the rescue once more. So, fed, coffeed, whiskied and watered, we set off back up to the Buxton Road, where new father Mark Harrison wonders, briefly, whether to pop home. He decides not to bother and we head out along the bridleway opposite the Cat and Fiddle. Across the peaty moor, there's a slight breeze and the air is feeling chill. The heavens are wonderfully clear and we have an impressive view of the whole night sky - all the clearer for having no neon distractions out here. We drop en masse down the path that will join Cumberland Clough and along this rocky route Peter takes a couple of nasty slow speed tumbles. There's a dead sheep in the stream and once we're downwind of it the stench is disgusting, so no hanging around until we get to the gate that is the halfway point of the Cumberland descent. It's baby head rocks (horrible phrase that, but a perfect description) all the way to the bottom, where the usually easy stream crossing has been washed out of all proportion and only the foolhardy Andreas is man enough for the job. Why is it that water always takes the best line down a descent like this? Over the stream and shortly we're back on the road and huffing our way up the climb to the top of the forest.

    The best thing about nightriding is that the rules of daytime no longer apply. We're now dropping down a cheeky descent and along boardwalks, that in the daylight would see us in prison. It's great - the freedom of the night. The boardwalk takes two victims of it's own though, Dave Dodd comes to an unnatural halt and can't unclip in time - bosh, over he goes and Mark stops abruptly so as not to run over the fallen Mr. Dodd, bringing Anthony down in a similar fasion. No harm done though. Over the road and it's one more 'trail of a dubious nature' until we rejoin the main forest fireroad downhill - a whoopin' and a hollerin' we fly down this last stretch of gravel track and into the carpark. It's not quite first light, but as the coffee is drunk and the bacon starts to sizzle, dawn breaks and we congratulate ourselves for bothering to do such an inherently stupid thing as riding bicycles in the dark.

You going to be there next year?

Posted by Tim at 18:32:09 on 06 Aug 2003

Mountain Mayhem

Andy belatedly reports from the 2003 Saab Salomon Mountain Mayhem.

What do MBUK, singlespeeding and Mountain Mayhem all have in common? Give up? Well apparently none of them are as good as they used to be. MBUK UK used to be the erudite cultural hub of the nascent UK mountain biking scene; now it's a feeble titty-mag for pubescent spunk farmers too timid to buy proper porn. Singlespeeding used to be a lo-fi punk rock revolution that eschewed status symbol pimp-sleds in favour of salvaged rat bikes; now it's all titanium and carbon and just-how-much-can-I-blow-on-a-bike-that-doesn't-even-have-gears elitism.

And Mountain Mayhem used to be celebration of the diversity in the mountain biking community; an opportunity for lardy tow path cruisers to mix it with Olympian racing greyhounds in a twenty four hour festival of futility that, for one weekend in the year, united riders from the extremes of the ability spectrum against all the people who don't "get it" - basically everyone else on the planet.

Yeah, well, that's what they're saying anyway. I reckon MBUK was always an endearingly daft mag; little needles of wisdom and inspiration in a haystack of adolescent frolicking. Singlespeeding's OK too I reckon; it still has that shrugging "because it's there" appeal that's impossible to be evangelical about. Remember kids: evangelism is bad.

Mountain Mayhem still presses quite a lot of my buttons too. Let's face it it's always been commercial; always been about how many idiots Pat Adams can dupe into paying a king's ransom to ride around a field in the dark. That there are more of them each year is probably, on balance, a good thing.

There were more singlespeeders this year too - soloists in particular. If riding for hours without getting anywhere floats your boat doing it in one gear has to be even better. This is just idle conjecture of course; solo's not for me so I shared my twenty four hours with three like minded friends. I don't really like it when it starts to hurt you see. Let the rest of the world think we're masochistic freaks but really we just like a bike ride, good company and a couple of beers.

In retrospect entering as team 'beerisforwinners.com' was probably our biggest tactical blunder. We took our own name a little too literally and overdid the liquid carbo-loading on Friday evening. The error was compounded by our insistence on a punishing inter-lap drinking schedule. It all took its toll even on bodies tempered by years of abuse. Suffice it to say that despite our team name we didn't actually win or come anywhere even vaguely close.

For most entrants though Mountain Mayhem has bugger all to do with winning. At the risk of sounding like a plucky perennial also-ran, it's the taking part that counts. Actually, it's the having taken part that counts. When you're doing it, out on the course in the middle of the night, slightly pissed, maybe a little maudlin, wishing you were tucked up in bed it can seem like the worst idea ever. Then the sun cranks itself up into Sunday, the introspective mood passes and your inner revisionist decides that, in fact, you've rather enjoyed the whole thing after all.

So the verdict: it's still a cracking, chilled, singlespeed friendly event. Beer is for winners (in moderation) and bikes are great.

Posted by andya at 23:43:58 on 28 Jul 2003

Cycle Camping on the Isle of Man.

We recently spent a few days cycle-camping around the Isle of Man. This might not sound like a great feat but, let me assure you, when you try to tour with five people, three of whom are less than eight years old, on two bicycles - things can get interesting...

Our usual set up is two tandems, which were designed by us to fit an adult up front with a sub ten year old stoker, and a Burley D'Lite trailer, carrying the smallest member of the family and the bulkiest items of kit.

We fit clothing for five, cooking equipment, tent, sleeping bags, roll mats, waterproofs, camp chairs, toys and all the other assorted paraphernalia into the trailer and four panniers - no easy task to pack, let alone tow.

We sailed from Liverpool, eventually, after finding that there is more than one ferry port in the city, on the Sea Cat - an excellent vessel, which rises from the waves and scoots along at an impressive 30-40 knots (which is pretty quick for a big boat, apparently). Arriving in Douglas late morning, we set off in search of the first campsite, ambling along the main road to Peel, we spotted an alternative to the TT route in the shape of a disused railway line. The map showed that this would take us, parallel to the road, to our chosen destination, so singing merrily along we trundled the wagon train through the meadows and over rickety bridges and through, over or around many gates. We popped out at the St. Johns crossroads and dropped down into Peel. The campsite was pretty much fine, but the building site next to it looked like it wouldn't be the best accompaniment to a restful lie in, so we checked the map and headed off up the coast road to Glen Wyllin, which was supposed to be our site for the following night. Never mind, it was a fine warm afternoon. Stopping for sustenance in the shape of ham sandwiches and fig rolls about halfway to the site, we kept our spirits up by weeing behind a hedge. All five of us!

On to Kirk Michael and the Glen Wyllin site, we found to be clean, pleasant and have a race track for the local Nova owners straight through it and on to the beach. Great! We spent a couple of nights there and developed a healthy dislike of all types of midge, the little burgers got everywhere, I can tell you. During the day we tootled around the lanes and visited the highly recommended Curraghs Wildlife Park. All manner of beasts to entertain the offspring, including a fantastic Red Panda, how cute was he?

Glen Wyllin was fine, until the Manx populace descend upon it on the weekend from Friday night it becomes the venue for outdoor Karaoke and general rowdiness. Don't you know some folk are trying to sleep! Needless to say, the very next morning we were gone, off like a rocket, well a slow, wobbly rocket that stops a lot, to the next site. We intended to look for somewhere in the region of Ramsey, but it was to no avail and after pushing the kids up some horribly big hills, we stopped in the town and had ice creams, bought three Manx flags and headed off to our next stop - Laxey.

Laxey is a strange little place, built on two sides of a steep valley and almost home to the biggest waterwheel in the universe. I say almost as it's a little way out of town, but you get a birds eye view of it on the way up the Snaefell electric railway, which is a nice trip on it's own. The campsite was excellent, a tiny site with all the essentials along with a large kitchen equipped with fridges, a cooker, a microwave and a toaster. I knew it was a good place as we arrived and the guy in the next tent said "That looks like hard work, there's a beer in the fridge if you want one". We pitched up and got the sausages on the go, then took an amble to the local shop to stock up on provisions for a pleasant evening. When we got back to the tent however, the midges had descended and it was straight into well sealed sleeping bags to keep them from our delicate flesh. Ho hum. We're due to leave the island tomorrow evening, so after a fitful night and a few disturbances due to the locals night time activities, we awaken to another glorious day. One last time to fire up the old petrol burner and it's bacon sandwiches all round. Laxey is a great little site, timed right to avoid the midges anyway.

We get everything packed up once more and head off out of the town, up the steepest hill we've encountered so far. We follow the road closest to the coast, in a vain attempt to reduce the contour count and eventually, after much pushing and nearly getting blown clean off the bikes, we arrive at Douglas. Our intention is to spend the afternoon on the beach and then trundle off to the ferry. We settle down to watch the kids play and make sandcastles in the wind. It seems like a good idea to just check our departure time, and on doing so, we discover that, due to being completely dim, we're booked onto a return ferry that will take us to Heysham! With the car being at Liverpool and our arrival time at Heysham being just gone eleven p.m., we decide that trying to ride from there to Liverpool in the dark, with no lights and three sleeping children, wouldn't be a particularly great thing to do. We gather our things and head to the ferry terminal to see what we can sort out. The Isle of Man ferry terminal is actually a very nice place, it has a restaurant, cafe, helpful booking office and left luggage lockers. After a quick explanation and an extra £20 we're booked onto the ten o'clock Superseacat crossing to Liverpool. We now have an extra three hours to kill, so a quick chat with the tourist information office and we're loading our panniers and stuff into the lockers and heading to Douglas Sports Centre, for the last hour of the public swim. It's a nice centre and the helpful nature of the Islanders shows again as the receptionist borrows some arm bands from the lost property box for our youngest to use. We spend a pleasant hour swirling around the rapids and then it's off to McDonalds for a slow tea. It's actually quite nice to be killing time for a change, instead of trying to find more of it.

We roll back down to the ferry port with an hour to go and load the bikes back up, wheel them into the waiting room and unleash the kids on the activity area, the main activity being running as fast as possible around a plastic assault course and shouting as loud as they can. It's not long before we're standing in line with the motor bikes and then rolling down the ramp onto the boat. This is a nice new Superseacat and is really rather splendid with big chairs, plenty of room and they even show a film on the journey. Just as the kids are starting drop off to sleep, on comes Scooby Doo, to keep them awake a while longer. Not to worry, we're soon docked at Liverpool and unlashing the bikes to take the short ride to the carpark. Loaded up as fast as we can and on our way home, another holiday over, and this time without a trip to casualty.

Excellent.

Posted by Tim at 22:51:51 on 28 Jul 2003