Tuesday 5 May 2009

5-2 on aggregate

Weekend was fun, saturday me and burk nipped up to Lee Quarry for a quick blast, took the heckler this time, it was faster and the corkscrew was less hairy but I think the hardtail is better on the jumps, tight berms and trialsy sections. Saw someone fall at the berm on the corkscrew and his mate decided the bit after was too steep so he put both feet down and walked it... still astride his bike, looked like a recipe for disaster but he made it ok. Sunday we went to the peaks again, I packed summer gear and sunscreen (Ha!) but in the car on the way it started to drizzle, oh dear. As we got to stockport it was raining and on the road up from chapel-en-le-frith it was hammering on the windscreen. The mood in the car was not good, I don't mind a bit of rain but not whilst dressed in summer gear. Anyway the cloud broke just as we passed rushup edge and and as we parked up near mam tor it looked a lot drier in the edale valley. It was windy as we got ready so we set off quick, I wanted to get down cavedale before it rained. Cavedale was fun-ish still a bit wet and slippery but not too scary - not sure if Burk will go down it again tho, his first time and he had an off near the bottom. Up the road to do the pindale downhill, round to aston and up hope brink, the following downhill, normally fun, was rubbish, really strong headwind meant you had to pedal hard to get speed and you soon lost it. Jaggers clough was better and that just left the climb to hollins cross. As we looked across towards Jacobs ladder we could see a thick curtain of rain but again as it crossed the valley the clouds dispersed and apart from a few drops we remained dry. A short route which took a bit of time due to punctures, 1 for me and 3(!) for burk who never normally gets flats, he really doesn't like the contis on his orange 5 so has ordered some big Panaracer Fire DHs. I warned him, it started with chunky tyres for me too and now I've ended up with a 34+lb behemoth of a bike. Anyway that brings the puncture score to 5-2 to burk which I'm quite excited about considering the last 3 years scores have all been around 35-0 to me. Whilst a 30-2 final score sounds tempting I'll be hoping we remain on 5-2 for the rest of the year.

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