Hijacked!

Well, I had to get your attention somehow, did'll I?

Thursday 4th June 2009 once again demonstrated the awesome popularity of our weekly night rides as 18 souls made their way over to Chopwell Wood for a tree trek. Billed as "Chris D's Chopwell Chopper" as he lives just down the road from it, it soon became apparent that his ride had been hijacked, so I'll re-title it "Rob's Revenge" and see how well that goes down! here's Speedy's attendance register (extra words to follow):

1.Ian A
2.Ian S
3.Keith G
4.Stian
5.Arthur
6.Jeff J
7.Chris D
8.Chris K
9.Rob
10.Paul
11.Stewart
12.Terry K
13.Jason
14.Jay
15.Matt
16.Alex
17.Tim
18.Richy

Chris did manage to get us all up to the Golf Course singletrack as we left the main car park in stunning sunlight sometime after 8:00 pm ish and after a brilliantly fast but all too short descent to the fireroad which I really enjoyed, trying to stay with Alex. Mission Impossible. We gathered to wait for Chris to lead into the trees along the edge of the golf course. While we were sat there awaiting a full regroup, we became aware of people on mountain bikes hurtling out of the trees toward us. Not just one or two, but around five or six! We shouted at them "any more coming?" but were given silly answers, so in we dived as Chris retained the lead.

We hadn't gone far before the cry went up again "Riders!", and blow me if there weren't even more of them head-on to our progress. But actually, there weren't any more of them, it was the same bunch again! After they hit us for the third time we realised they were using this little section as a lap and absolutely blasting it. Meantime, as we waited just past the first tricky climb, Arthur came a cropper on it as his back wheel lost traction in the - dare I say it? - dusty conditions. Yep, Chopwell dusty - whatever next?

A hard pull up through Golf Course Copse popped us out at the farm at the top of our favourite Heavy Gate Root Run, and we gathered again to get everyone ready for the descent. The fast lads bolted off down here followed by Jay and the Gollum. Having negotiated the first two stages including the gully without incident, Jay decided it was tumble time and crashed down over a stump as we hit the smooth gravel twister at the bottom. Ouch. Up he bounced, however, waving a few of us past. Golly continued to chase Rob down to the finish after the front men had stopped short, but he was well gone. As we all arrived down there one by one or in small batches, the next casualty emerged bringing up the rear - Speedy!

Continuing his amazing run of late, poor Ian A had again savaged himself on this section, which is plenty gnarly enough to trap even the most agile with just the slightest deviation off-route. And because it was so dry tonight, anything fleshy that touched down was going to produce great wedges of pain and suffering. Funnily enough (sorry Ian) he'd just today taken delivery of one of his birthday presents - a pair of 661 knee protectors, and had very sensibly chosen to wear them immediately. However, for once, and against his recent run of form, it was his arm that took the brunt of this latest caper, and also one of his thumbs which served only to slow him down a wee bit as he couldn't apply his brake properly, if that makes sense, dear reader.

Hijack time now. This is where Rob grabbed the reins to head the front runners away. After a short fireroad stint the next few miles were all done on sublime singletrack, steep, twisty and as fast as you could dare - and it was nearly all new to me even after years of pootling around in here. We were on the west side of the Wood around Carr House on trails we'd often ridden past, but never on, apart from the section near the house where Jason's son Ross came a cropper a few years back.

There were a couple more minor incidents down here, including a mechanical for Chris as first he snapped his chain. That was fixed fairly quickly by himself and Golly, but as we finally caught up with the rampaging masses at the next fireroad, we discovered his clacking chain was in fact twisted. The Gollum got that straightened out before issuing a loud rollicking to the ensemble as he'd found a pair of eye shields on the trail and didn't want to hump the extra weight around all night.

Off we went again, wondering if that was our fill for the night. Luckily for us it wasn't, as "local" Rob managed to dig out yet more unfamiliar and very entertaining tree-lined singletrack - just what we like so much. Time for a further slight slowdown provided by Jeff as he noticed some gear jumping on the Commencal 55, but we couldn't determine whether or not it was the rear hanger or the jockey cage out of kilter. He forged on regardless, hoping it would get no worse.

Time for a climb, pretty hard to avoid it in here, as we headed up toward the cars for a blast down the Four Stages. When the trailing party arrived at the start - Speedian, Richy, Chris D and the Gollum - they were all alone, except for --- a mono-wheeling maniac who'd been crisscrossing our path all night on a unicycle! Ian managed to exchange a few words with him and we shared a laugh before Chris got to pretend he was Ride Leader again. The customary 3 or 4 minutes later we were landing where the crowd had gathered for their snack stop, down at the foot of the Eagle drop. There were a couple of lads on bruiser bikes repeating this last section aswell - "sessioning" as that silly publication More Bl@@dy Useless Knowledge describes it.

After a decent break and a time check (late!) Rob, Golly and Jay led the haul up over the bridge to the top of the Ridge Trail, but we ignored it and followed Rob down the back on the approach to the biggest take-off in the Wood. We all stopped there to see if Jay fancied taking it on, but managed to convince him another time would be better (with an ambulance in attendance, maybe). So we rolled it gently and hit the fence line with a sprightly Gollum up ahead. At the run-out to Lintzford we lost Rob and someone else as they headed home from there.

The remainder stopped for a while to play on that steep drop at the end of the Ridge, where Golly was again the first taker followed by just about everyone else, including magnificent demonstrations by Matt, Stian and Stewart on their hardtails - it's tough enough on a susser, but these mentalists made it look fairly safe without springs!

That phrase again - "time for a climb" - as Jason took us up the fireroad the wrong way, straight up past the picnic table. A little further on, on "Dave's Bitch", (not the current Dave but a much older one) Golly directed Jay off the fireroad into the undergrowth as we lost a few more riders heading for home, including Chris D, Tony, Arthur and new boys Paul and Ian S, reducing us to 14 or 15 now. There was still a semblance of light remaining as Jay went the wrong way and Golly again took the front. Somehow he remembered this shortcut to the easier climbs and led through another short singletrack blast to the car park fireroad. Ten minutes later we were loading the last bike onto the cars and heading home.

While I await the arrival of Stian's GPS capture I would guess we did about 10 miles, maybe a bit less but the effort needed in here always makes it seem like more.

While I could never condone riding on footpaths (well, they were only signed at one end anyway!) we were hardly likely to encounter many pedestrians out here (and didn't), but in any case I formally deny everything. And although we managed to ignore our Ride Leader after a very short spell of his piloting, I'm sure we're all agreed that Rob did a fabulous job of guiding us through some extremely good singletrack tonight, so thanks to him. Home about 10:45pm.