After the Night of the Arseholes with Bump! Bump! Bump! loud music and an autocross meeting taking place on our camp field until around 3:00 am, Day Two dawned through startled, gluey slits instead of eyes around 08:00 with the carefully orchestrated destruction of Camp MidAirCrisis marshalled by Mick and Jeff. They had no trouble with their kit and plenty of time to extract some wetness from Tim and Terry as these two struggled to interpret the instructions for their pop-up tents, which appeared anything but pop-downs. At least they responded with generous applause after the pair finally succeeded in getting their giant frisbees into their disc bags.

We cleared up our litter and dumped it all in a plastic bag before setting off with Mick at the wheel around 09:30. So first stop the Farmer's house to ask where the bins were. He was at the gate when we got there to make sure we were gone and not trying to rob him so Mick opened his window to enquire about the bins. "Where can we put this rubbish bag?". "Ooo, aar, what 'you got in there then?" he queried. "Just what we used last night and this morning, a few bean tins and paper towels" replied Mick. "Best if you could find somewhere else to put it" came back the Farmer. Why weren't we surprised? (we put it somewhere else).

Plan for today was to cruise back down the road to Edale where we were due to be met by Stevie B and Ian B who were travelling down together in Steve's motor just for the day. We headed up into the village looking for the Visitor Centre car park following Mick's web investigations. Chock full, it was. A warden bod directed us back down to the main road where there was another larger car park which had been packed when we first drove past it yesterday on the way in. Today, however, there was tons of room so we slewed in there and miraculously, just as the GollyMobile was coming to a halt in a bay facing the road, who should drive in directly opposite us but Steve and Ian! What brilliant timing, almost as if it had been planned.

We grabbed a quick wash and brush-up in the toilet block before assembling the bikes and preparing for the off, with today's ride starting right here in the car park. That meant a bit of backtracking back along to the campsite on tarmac but we were soon turning onto bridleway which had already started to fill up with those people in big socks and booties. Seconds later there was a hissing sound from somewhere underneath Ian. Bleedin' puncture! At this point, about seven minutes into the ride and still on a hard surface, Ian felt like sh@t and when we saw the split in his tyre we felt the same! As always, the communal range of repair materials got it sorted after a wee while and we were off again in search of blissful singletrack.

After a bit of flat valley riding we arrived at the start of our blissful singletrack. Not. We arrived at the foot of the infamous, world-renowned Jacob's Ladder. And as far as we were concerned it may as well have been a real ladder. We each had a go to see who could tame the thing with Stevie taking first prize with a massive effort to clear about thirty metres of its 2.5 kilometres. Good show! So we pushed our bikes up the first level and were able to ride for a while until the next steep bit arrived. It's between about 8 feet and three feet wide, boulder-strewn and very steep in places with a couple of almighty step-ups that a 29er would be hard pressed to tackle. Helicopters were made for this sort of trail.

Once at the top we took a rest, although the front runners had plenty of time to do that, or even have a kip until the Elders eventually caught up. Very hard work. So we got a couple of flat-to-downward duals to tackle and a few chunks of singletrack, at last. It remained fairly dull but dry as we reached the first decent descent, and if I recall correctly, this was a dried out (almost) stream bed with the usual assortment of obstructions from pebbels to clemmies a foot in diameter. At last the Gollum had gravity-assist as he launched the Trek down it with gay abandon (pause for comments). Those downhill wheels off the now defunct Kona Coilair had hampered the climbing ability significantly but this is what they were built for.

About half way down the next kilometre or more, Golly managed to turn right and completely miss the nice, smooth track running alongside his chosen rubblefield, so Jeff took immediate advantage to swoop past into the lead as we continued to bomb it. Golly's miniscule brain was suddenly filled with questions -

Would Mick's shoulder survive this battering?
Would Tim choose today to perform another headbanging dive?
Would Steve forget he's supposed to be slower after that Hamsterley pile-up?
Would Ian launch that fabulous Commencal and land somewhere nasty?
Would Jeff finally scratch his own pretty Meta 55 on one of these boulders?
Would Golly be safer stopping and letting them all past?
Why am I here at all?

Somehow we all got down there and stopped way down below to congratulate each other and take a well-earned breather. Time to climb again as we hit somewhat smoother and wider trails, and came across a four wheel drive club on their annual Rambler squashing outing. We tracked and led them up the fairly steep climb until they got stuck on a high rock step, allowing us to reach the summit first. We regrouped and once the FWDs had gathered nose-to-tail just ahead of us the MidAirCrisis six-pack sprinted away in front to race them down the next descent.

This turned out to be no contest as we totally thrashed them, and this is also where Jeff decided it would be fun to give it more than 100% with the result he went sailing over the bars, but somehow landed on his feet after stepping off the front of his bike and ended up running a good way off the trail! So he remounted and was back with us in a short while, totally unscathed. Lucky steward.

For the life of me (not much value in that) I can't remember what happened next other than the climbs became joined up and harder, and with about half an hour to go, the weather decided to turn a bit damp. We were on the final climb before the descent alll the way back down to the village and the cars. A short discussion between Tim and Mick as to which was the best route down resulted in a win for Mick and after a nice downhill blast we were tipped out only yards from Edale's safe haven 23 very hard miles after leaving it, a great way to finish the ride.

Unlike the previous day, this ride seemed to require much more effort for much less payback and at the final hour the weather had the last say, although once we got pointed downwards we just shrugged that off. And the heavens literally fell open as we were packing up so we timed the finish just about perfectly and the bikes got autowashed by the Big Mutha (Nature, not Ian B). Altogether another great weekend with plenty of laughs and some more new ground covered. To me, there's a definite theme running through the MTB magazines' articles on "Killer Loops" and "Classic Trails", and I flat out disagree with all of the ones I've been on in the last few years. I reckon these descriptions are not aimed at ordinary mortals like us (OK, I exclude Mick from that!) but rather flat-out, expert, long-haul competition riders who don't mind the drudgery of horrible climbs and extended runs between payback hits.

We also had quite a fun run back as Stevie managed to hold the BM in check enough for us to stay with him, arriving home around 20:00 or something. Thanks, gents, for another brilliant weekend's company and more great memories to take to my urn.

here's Jeff's GPS Trace pics from both days here