The Chiltern Hills

Barry, when you said "injury" did you mean the "boner" that Martin clearly has on?


Mind you, aside from Martin's shorts trying to steal the limelight in this typically adolescent manner, us Kents have to thank him and Andy-pandy for getting us 'round this outward-bound course and keep injuries down to just the "gently-blooded" as opposed to the "helicopter paramedic & take me to Dawnsie's corner" league. (Andy, I haven't forgotten that you did try to gratuitously take me down with a "horizontally applied, perpendicular trail line"?) 1ST CRASH

Cumnel Backes and Andy-with-the-cool-blue-glasses showed everyone how to properly drop-in on a sizeable bombhole (yes, you did read that correctly!) Monsieur B went for a spectacular laydown manoeuvre to finish his show, the resulting bodyslide dismount though the leaflitter was to leave a skinless, indelible tattoo on his right hip.......Moral of his story? Don't carry your car keys in your righthand short pocket....Ouch, but did we laugh??? Would we?

Cool-glasses Andy learnt from the Backes foolhardy leadership by simply nailing the descent, romping through the leaflitter, throwing his weight to the back of the bus, so on the exit rise, he is popping sizable air off the lip of the hidden moraine (look that one up), only to land halfway up the exit to the crater. With a bit more commitment, he could have shaded the seemingly impossible rooty exit climb and impressed all of us watching........ But he didn't... So there.... The normal status Quo of the group was returned and we could carry on happily as before.

This was lucky, as Omar had been seriously eyeing-up a traversing manoeuvre, contouring around the steep sides of the crater. A riding line that would carry a large cool-tarrif but was bound to end in tears, but not before small children and old riders had been drawn into the challenge. Omar, mate, I know you wanted it, but this could have been how Mr Ben Larden started. Egging on people to ride places and do stuff that they really shouldn't!

Ummm, then Mr cool-glasses did get carried away later on the trail by fully compressing the Whyte hardtail frame to the point that the rear wheel had to puncture. Clearly having learnt that the girls were impressed with his repair technique, he decided to leave a thorn in the casing so he could impress them again. Nice work if you can get it?

Also, thank you to those of you who joined the ride and proved, yet again, to be a friendly bunch to spend a very English sunny day out in Oxfordshire, lapping up the lunchtime views of Didcot powerstation. Thanks to Incredulous for posting a 11pm start, (we saw through that one, but were still a few minutes late). Thanks to Kaff for coming as Darth Vader, keeping his disguise on until episode 3. We had to cut his sandwiches into little, bitsy soldiers and post them through his helmet slot.....Ooo-er!

"Suggestion for the day"? SOMEONE has got to get down to the cycle shop and get a decent carbon seatpost in their rather special 'Dale Flash......or SOMEONE is going to have the poo pulled quite a lot next time we see her with that classy bike, sporting a recycle-bin aluminium post. It had to be said. I could apologise. But I can't. Martin wouldn't mind if you bought one from Chain Reaction....You really must do it.

Oh, yeah, Geri was impressed by 'Ol Sids headgear. This man wears two hats! I guess this is so he doesn't get untrendy tanlines on his 'ed. This level of discipline must mean that at sometime in the past, he must have been spotted by the Style Police, booked and presumably now has a criminal record.

Christ, I hope they don't see Barry.... Bazza, honestly, you are looking a bit, well, er, how can I say it???? Umm, "vulnerable" these days. I'm thinking that we should have a fancy dress, beer wobble ride where we all have to wear as much armour as possible. (& Kaff can bring a light-saber). Mate, I'm buying you a Jousting lance for Christmas!

OK, so that's it. I'm done. Thanks for reading. (I bet there's some more dirt to entertain Dawnsie with, while she's trying to browse the forum using a touchpad and her big toe and tongue....

Leaky