Date: 21st March 2010
Riders: Richard, Davebus, Lee and Terry
Local Trails, LOMAC to Box Hill
Weather: 12.5°C

There's been a bit too much rain this week for my liking including a suppurating sky that lasted all day Saturday so we stick to the local trails. Or rather the local trails seem to stick to us as we cover a lot of chalky trails that have a treacherous slippery glutionous covering on them.

But we have a good laugh and there's plenty of banter especially when we happen upon a lone rider stuck out on the trail with a snapped chain and not much idea what to do.

After a bodged attempt at using a powerlink we realise he is on an 8-speed machine which means a 9-speed powerlink won't work and so we resort to the old chaintool method. After Dave manages to bend his tool (ooh-err!) I take over for the last section and connect his chain.

However as soon as he goes to shift up he loses the chain and we realise Dave has forgotten to thread the chain through the front mech! Still, we tell him we are the Muddy Moles and leave him to make his own way home (not really Matt, we escort him back to Ashtead where he tells us he lives).

After two luxurious weeks riding the SX trail I am back on the Prince Albert resplendent in a new SLX chainset and chain. Too bad the mud and crap makes short work of that and leaves it looking just as old as the previous gear.

21 miles covered plus ten to and from the start point for me makes a reasonable total of 31 miles in the conditions.

Date: 28th March 2010
Riders: Richard, Davebus, Lee, Rich Lonegroover, Rob and Si
Holmbury Hill and Pitch Hill
Weather: 11°C

It's here, finally. After the long, cold, wet winter we've finally reached British Summer Time. It was all too much for Gazza who overslept as the weatherman stole an hour from my weekend which he will hold in trust for me, only to be repaid at the end of October.

But in the meantime it means longer, lighter evenings and more opportunity for riding.

We are joined by Si this week who we haven't seen for ages (someone will check the archives soon and let me know exactly when he last rode with us).

We hit the rather soggy trails and head up to BKB then across to Pitch Hill to explore the various trails around there.

The loggers have been busy over the last month churning the ground up into a morass. I understand that these are working forests (although some felling has clearly been done just to block trails) but I don't understand the argument that mountain bikers ruin the countryside/that's it's an area of oustanding natural beauty when they seem quite happy to churn up acres of the place when the dozers move in.

I am riding the latest dialled bikes Prince Albert 725 cro-moly model having picked up the last of the pre-ordered batch from Mike yesterday lunchtime (19" or 'large' and in pearl orange).

After finishing the build late last night it was nice to be out on a new build. My first 'new' bike since I got the Titanium prototype almost five long years ago.

After a long pause for Rich Lonegroover to fix a flat where his tube had just exploded and then for him to change it again and insert a tyre boot when he realised the sidewall was split I led the group onto a couple of cheeky trails. I shouldn't do it but when some people seem to have gone to such trouble to keep us off it just seems to encourage me (I was quite happy to avoid them prior to all the logging activity).

Unfortunately Lee took a rare tumble and smacked his leg but at least it slowed him down a bit and he made it around the rest of the ride okay. I had the GoPro with me but after a quick spin down BKB I realised I had forgotten to charge it this week as the battery ran out. But every cloud and all that as it just meant that I took more still photo's for you to enjoy.

I was struggling a bit on the latter stages of the ride. This is due to the fact that I cranked up the commuting mileage this week moving from 3 days and 108 miles to four days and a 144 mile commuting week. I aim to maintain this and hope to feel the benefit next week but this week I was just drained. But that's cycling, you can never do enough!