Ride report and quiz

Too long a ride for a blow-by-blow ride report, so here are some
incidents from the day. Look out for the deliberate general knowledge
mistake and PM me in the usual way. The answer and results in a few
days. Please do not refer to the mistake in replies to the thread.


I'm riding through the forest on new tracks. The "authorities" have
apparently used a mini bull dozer to make a scar through the forest,
and then built it up with ballast. The health and safety people have
filled in the deeper hollows and smoothed the steeper bumps - then the
leisure and recreation people have added new hollows and bumps, so the
track bears little relationship to the terrain to either side. Crazy
people!



Riding up a gentle hill on one of the older tracks, there is a deep
hole with a puddle at the bottom. All other puddles I have met today
have been shallow, so I apply the inductive principle and ride
confidently into the puddle, only for the wheel to sink up to the hub.
I UPD, landing in the slimy mud on the far side of the puddle and turn
round to see the seat almost completely submerged.


Riding along the raised railway track bed. The tracks were removed
years ago, and the bed has subsided into a series of dips, with each of
the dips forming a puddle after heavy rain. Knowing from experience
that some of these puddles are very deep indeed, I am cautious. Some
of the puddles reach right to the edge of the track, and gorse and
brambles overhang the edges of the puddles. I adopt a strategy of
riding the curved edge of each puddle as fast as I can, leaning in away
from the thorns, "Wall of Death" style. The only difference is that if
I fall, death will be by drowning!


Sitting in the shade and resting. I hear a noise above me in the
chestnut tree. Then I hear something hitting the ground. After a few
moments, I realise a squirrel is up there, nibbling through the stalks
and dropping the acorns to the ground so it can bury them later.


I take a different route from usual and find myself climbing a long
gravel and sand hill. From the top, there is a long gradual descent.
At the bottom is an earthen bank with a smooth "saddle". Just before
it is a muddy puddle. It looks ridable. I hit the puddle fast, lose
momentum, and then stall on the bank and UPD. Just as well: when I
walk the last few feet to the top of the bank, I see that the other
side drops into a steep sided ditch full of dirty water and rubbish!


Back on the concrete, on the land of a disused colliery, I see a track
I've never seen before. In the distance is a hill with what looks like
an aerial mast at the top. It's a hard climb on rutted tracks, with the
last bit bumpy, gravelly and slippery, but I make it. It may be the
hardest climb I've ever done "in one" and when I reach the top I give
an animal roar of achievement and spontaneously lift my uni above my
head and brandish it like a trophy.


I sit at the top of the hill for a while until I realise I am starting
to burn in the early autumn sun. The descent looks like one of those
that is easy to ride but dramatic to watch, and I can see that a 4X4 is
parked in the field opposite, with the farmer apparently watching me. I
set off rather too fast, and it becomes one of those descents that is
dramatic to ride and funny to watch. But I make it down in one.


A bit later, illegally crossing some wasteland belonging to the old
colliery, I see to chavs with their distinctive jogging bottoms,
baseball caps and all-weather hoods, skinny physiques and skulking
gait. They are carrying something. They see me. One of them says
something to his friend and they duck down almost out of sight and then
I hear a car door. An engine starts and a blue VW Polo wheelspins away.
Obviously these chavs were up to no good, and thought I was a security
guard on unicycle patrol!


Riding across another part of the colliery yard, graffiti everywhere,
buildings smashed, narrow gauge tracks half buried, weeds growing
everywhere. Those chavs' dads, uncles or grandparents probably worked
here. Now it's slowly being destroyed. I see a Land Rover and it
looks like there's a real security guard. I wonder what to say if he
challenges me. How about, "I'm researching a biography of Michael
Hesseltine"? That should go down well in Mansfield.


I ride onto the desert: acres of sand and dried mud, slowly being
overgrown by silver birch sapplings. I hear catcalls from a group of
youths in a Suzuki 4X4. A bit later, I meet a bunch of kids and I stop
for a chat. they're pleasant enough, and ask some sensible questions,
but spoil it when I UPD shortly after leaving them and they laugh
derisively.



High up on the spoil heap where the ground is hard, grey and rutted.
The sun is hotter than I thought and I feel exposed like a bug on a
table. I make may way over to a small stand of silver birches, sit in
their shade and drink from my Camelbak, and eat a Snickers. The birch
leaves are just turning golden, and a few have fallen.



Even higher, on a raised sandy area, where youths with dirt bikes
shout inane comments. I find a route down, crunching and sliding on
gravel and sand, then find myself in beatutiful open woodland: beech,
chestnut and oak trees on a golden carpet of leaf mulch, with no
undergrowth. The trails winds gently down the slope and the sun shines
through the leafy canopy. This is England at its best.


I come out near to a lake I've never seen before. After the recent
rains, it has spread over the path. I duck between trees and a low
branch catches in the vent of my helmet. My momentum carries me
forward, but the helmet stays where it is, and I nearly hang myself
with the strap. Nasty.


I meet the bunch of kids again. More derisive laughter. Determined
not to UPD this time, I ride a storming ascent of a sand, gravel and
rutted mud path until I'm way out of sight and earshot. Then my way is
blocked by a massive flood. I find my way through the trees at the
side, and come back out near the youths with the dirt bikes.



Back in the forest, on my last reserves of energy. All this climbing,
all the sand and gravel, and I'm not as fit as I used to be. I UPD
unnecessarily, and take the opportunity for a break. I drain my
Camelback dry, then eat my reserve Snickers. Looking up through the
trees, I see a buzzard soaring overhead.



A group of mountainbikers pass. The first asks if I'm OK because I've
stopped. The second spoils this moment of cameraderie by asking where
my other wheel is.


Very tired now, and only 300 metres from the car, I have to pass a
field full of basking idiots. One gets up on his elbow and says, not
for my amusement, but for the edification of his fellows, "Do you know
you've lost a wheel?" My patience is stretched thin. "The first time
I heard that was 20 years ago," I say, with some asperity. His
response combines indignation and sheepishness in more or less equal
measure.


--
Mikefule

"There's lots of things in theory. Sometimes I think it must be nearly
full." Sid Kipper
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Only one answer so far.


--
Mikefule

"There's lots of things in theory. Sometimes I think it must be nearly
full." Sid Kipper
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Mike Penton, dforbes and John the Bee were the only ones to enter.

The deliberate mistake was that acorns don't grow on chestnut trees.
They grow on oak trees.

Apart from that detail, the incident was true, although I cheated and
borrowed it from last week's ride in the same area.

Thanks to those who entered.


--
Mikefule

"Arggh, 'tis the hegemonic nature of ye American Hollywood cultural
imperialism, matey!" JJuggle
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*ahem*


--
Into the blue

Harper wrote:
i wuld get a 20' trialls uni prolly with a blu tiar.
get splined an a kh saet or ur a pansy.
get trials cuz thaz whut i du n u mus wannaa whut i du 2.
lol...awwsum.
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And the first prize goes to Into the Blue, for spotting the other
deliberate mistake: missing him off the list of winners!


--
Mikefule

"Arggh, 'tis the hegemonic nature of ye American Hollywood cultural
imperialism, matey!" JJuggle
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Thenkew.

Does first prize involve beer?


--
Into the blue

Harper wrote:
i wuld get a 20' trialls uni prolly with a blu tiar.
get splined an a kh saet or ur a pansy.
get trials cuz thaz whut i du n u mus wannaa whut i du 2.
lol...awwsum.
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Into the blue wrote:
Thenkew.

Does first prize involve beer?



Merely kudos.

And as there was only one question, just the one kudo...


--
Mikefule

"Arggh, 'tis the hegemonic nature of ye American Hollywood cultural
imperialism, matey!" JJuggle
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