It felt really weird for the Gollum driving south to a Seven Stanes trail centre, and all alone, and without the comfortable surroundings of the GolyMobile. Such were the unusual circumstances this weekend for our ride at the Forest of Ae on Sunday, 1st November 2009.

With Golly staying up north of the Border for the latter part of the week, the trip organisation was taken on by Chris K who took no sh@t at all in getting things sorted, and he even managed to get the party to Ae for 10:00am, amazing. Those travelling with him were our "out west" pair of Jeff and Chris K, and townies Alex and Steve B. Was it the weather or once again the venue that kept the numbers down this time?

Unfortunately, the Gollum, just sixty miles away in Ayr, wasn't able to match that time due to a set of circumstances beyond his control, but he blamed Barclays Bank and Mother Nature for those, and finally arrived at Ae about an hour and a half late! The squad could have ignored his absence and got on with their ride earlier had he not been carrying Steve's bike as well as his own. Sorry lads.

We began the ride around 11:40 (any further offers?) and it was wet. never mind, we are MidAirCrisis, let it rain! We just had to pray there weren't any closures this time as the place is very prone to logging operations interfering with the runs. No problems in that respect so we got on with the sometimes singletrack, sometimes fireroad climbs in search of action.

Chris K seems to be well on the way back to full fitness now, the climbs not hurting as much as they have on other outings recently, and it was the troublesome Gollum who seemed to be loitering a bit. Too much of the Good Life for the last few days! It must have been the incessant, although not heavy rain which drew his attention to what was passing under the wheels of the Trek today. Not just the floods of water coming off the higher ground, but the sheer amount and ferocity of the stoney surfaces. They've always been pretty rocky here but on this visit they seemed to be much harsher, with nowhere to go to escape them.

First real relief from the climbing came with Granny Green Luv, which after a shortish uphill, twisting between pairs of closely-planted fir trees, begins to point down as it heads for the river a few hundred feet below. This first chunk was giving clear warnings of just how slippery the trail was with all this water on it, and again there were little and large pointed rock edges sticking up from the ground everywhere, impossible to avoid.

At the high point, Golly stopped as he always does to lower his seat, ready for the puddled but still extremely good fun of the descent. He hadn't even reached the first of the many tabletops when he suddenly felt deflated. Crikey, what else can go wrong today? Well, this turned out to be a soft front - that super grippy, Super Tacky 42a High Roller must have taken a good knock on one of those many evil little sharps and burped over half of it's air out. All he could do, without keeping the others hanging around wondering where he was, was to push over the hard bits and creep down the finish hanging over the back wheel, watching all of those juicy jumps and dips go to waste!

At the bottom, he stuffed a CO2 cartridge into the thing as he was showered with scorn from the others. Ah, the wonders of rubberless tyres. That made the final stage down to the wooden bridge a good bit more enjoyable than the first and there were plenty of laughs as the bridge came into view with the boulder and root-strewn approach quite tricky in these conditions.

Chris D led away up probably the steepest climb here but it wasn't too long before we regrouped up above. Then it's a long fireroad stretch before reaching more singletrack, and we did get pretty wet here, forcing us to hammer up the climb in search of tree cover. That deluge didn't last long and turned to normal rain as we approached that innocent looking sign with "Ascent" written on it. Oh, goodie.

Jeff, Chris D, Steve and Alex had romped away as they normally do leaving Chris K ahead of Golly half a kilometre behind. We'd just turned downwards half way through when yet again the Gollum was forced to stop, this time with a flat rear rubberless thingy. As he struggled to find the necessary bits for the repair, Chris K backtracked to help and soon after the others followed as the rain again got heavier. Normally this would be a pretty grim situation, with everyone getting soaked and the temperature not much above zero up atop the hillsides, but with this bunch doling out the abuse it was somehow bearable.

Chris D came to the rescue with an inner tube (shock, horror!) and also another CO2 cartridge to inflate it with, there being a huge rip in the sidewall of the, hmmm, Specialized Captain 2Bliss tyre. These tyres have such a thin sidewall for weight saving that they really are up against it in this sort of terrain, and because we're not particularly gentle on our descents they don't have much chance of survival, so they're headed straight for the bin at home.

Embarrassment over (again!) we headed on to the end of the singletrack, back onto fireroad again and easing toward the last few miles of the ride. Frozen toes and the odd dead finger were now the order of the day. We pressed on to the head of the next bit, The Edge being even more daunting than usual with rivers running along and across it, then the squiggly drop, another climb up fireroad then again through the trees and that lovely, fast run down Ae's version of Spooky Wood (without the trees). Even in this weather, that felt really good but a bit more care than normal was needed (by Golly, at least).

With that out of the way it was gentle climb time again to the finale, with a subtle warning to Alex about the last drop-off before the car park. Then he was off like a shot with Golly behind him at a safe distance. Poor Jeff got stuck behind the Gollum on the way down, the wet trail making it a little tricky to overtake on, but when the pair arrived at the fireroad they discovered a widely grinning Alex who'd overshot the left edge of the final boardwalk but landed upright, or at least he was when we spotted him!

The others made it down without too much drama, although Chris D did have a partial adventure at one point. Chris K took it steadily while Steve, with "previous" on this trail, also made sure he stayed in one piece so close to the finish.

Still raining nicely, OK it was bucketing down, as we reached the Visitor Centre for cleanup and pack up, bikes first. We sat in the cafe afterwards for a bite and a warm cuppa and left in time to get home around 5:00 pm, or half way through the footy, whichever came first. Another great ride, not quite taken at ten tenths due to the weather, but we still gorged ourselves on the downhill goodies and were well satisfied. I think.

I've drawn a few conclusions recently after Trail Centre rides, and here's another: if the Scotties don't watch out, this place is going to become their second Newcastleton, with visitors getting fewer and fewer (for the XC, the Downhill is a stunner still) because there is an awful lot of rough ground to cover here. That would be OK if it were all meaty downhill stuff but it's the climbs that take the edge off it now, with nothing bedding in after last years re-covering of a lot of Ae's off-road mileage. The weather today made it stand out, literally, even more than usual.