I got to ride a new location last night, starting from the Arch on the way towards the Hafod estate. I met Dave, Pete, John and Matt and we all set off as dark storm clouds loomed overhead.<\/p>\n
There was a bit of a ride around on Fireroads and then the first descent which was very similar in style to a Dyfi Forest descent – Loose, shaley and fairly steep in places. I took the rear of the train so that I could capture some of it on film. Next up was a steep technical climb, that none of us quite cleared, followed by some more fireroads and another steep, loose descent. John slashed his tyre on this descent so after using some of my toothpaste tube to\u00a0patch\u00a0it we soon got him back on his way. Just as we did though, the heavens opened so we all got out our jackets. As I did this I noticed that my car key was missing, so after a little deliberation we decided to head back to the cars to see if we could find it.<\/p>\n
This meant that we had a long climb on fireroads in the rain and missed out a descent from the wind turbines, but thankfully once we got back to the cars, my car was locked, everything was there and the key was sat in the lock on the outside of the door! With the key retrieved, John decided to call it a day as he wasn’t sure how long his tyre would last whilst the rest of us continued off into the gloom on the other side of the forest. Here we had a couple of nice wet, muddy descents that weren’t as steep as the others but were in a way more enjoyable, followed by a little grassy descent that was good fun too.<\/p>\n
All in all, a nice change and some new trails, so despite the soaking it was good to get out. I’ve now just spent a couple of hours in the garden being eaten alive by midges as I cleaned my bike, replaced cables, serviced the rear shock, changed the bushes on the rear shock, changed the seals on the forks and cleaned and greased the rear hub. Hopefully it is all working again now, although it is in dire need of some new forks.<\/p>\n
Here’s some video from last night – sorry about the mud, but there’s little I can do about that.
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