The weather's been dry all week and what a week it has been for cycle commuting. I'm sleeping on top f the covers as it's too warm at night and I'm leaving the house at 6-45 a.m. when it's still dark but I'm wearing a short-sleeved single layer; great days.

I also equalled my PB for the cycle commute of 64 minutes on Wednesday, quiet roads and a bit of luck with the traffic lights assisted on my 18-mile commute.

So onto Saturday and we meet at the lower car park this time for another trip around the singletrack on Pitch Hill and beyond. Chris and Chris improve their timekeeping 50% on their last visit to Surrey (only an hour late instead of two hours late last time) but we all eventually hook up and follow Nick on some of the best singletrack in the South.

Not so many riders out on the trails today but I did speak to Alistair from Trail Addiction in the car park when we got back after the ride as he is back in the UK after another great Summer in Les Arcs.

Robin had a mechanical halfway down the Christmas Pudding trail as a large stick got tied up in his chain and ripped his rear mech off. Luckily the mech hanger did it's job and it was only this that broke and his spokes were also all in good nick too so not too expensive but that was the end of his riding for the day.

I had been struggling on the Prince Albert at the end of last week's ride and so decided to ride the SX trail today. But a poor choice of front tyre (Mark always takes the piss out of me for sticking with Continental Explorer Pro's) left the bike feeling really sketchy. So that made it not only heavy to lug uphill but left me feeling nervous on the descents as my front wheel washed out a couple of times on innocuous looking sections.

I think in reality the PA is fine and I just need to get off my road bike and back on the trails to get my eye back in.

We visit the aptly named Flytipper Trail and peer over the edge of the Canyon Gap but no-one fancies it and the overpowering smell of a dead deer prevents us form hanging around for much longer as we push on down the trail.

It was also good to meet Olly for the first time. Nice bike and a great rider, let's hope you get that worrying creak from your carbon framed headset/fork interface sorted.

Oh and I spotted Common Charlie in the car-park too. Whatever happened to him? (I'll tell you what, he thinks we are too fast for him but we don't mind waiting for you, honestly mate)

I woke up this morning and looked out the window to see it overcast and raining and thought oh no October's here, here we go again but by the time I got to the Starveall car park the sun was already peeking through the clouds and it turned out to be another cracking day's riding.

Leith hill is the most sandy of the Surrey Hills and the overnight rain had drained completely. In fact it was only 15 minutes before we got back to the cars that I spotted the first muddy section of trail/

Terry has treated himself to yet another new ride. This time the excuse is that it's for the Alps 2012 trip. It’s about 3 years old but barely used and a nice looking piece of kit.

Rob had arranged the ride but there was no route planned and so I assumed leadership and just followed my (albeit rather large) nose.

But the ride flowed reasonably well despite a couple of moments of backtracking and Rob M showed us a lovely trail as we made our way up to the Tower.

I also rediscovered the ‘snow trail’ (the one that I first found in the snow) but unfortunately I only found the end of it and I couldn’t find the beginning and it’s not a trail that you can ride ‘up’ to find the source.

We also ran into Jess of Astounding Adventures and four riders at the end of Summer Lightning section 1 practicing their manuals over the log there.

I was back on the Prince Albert again today. After last weekend's ride on the SX trail my legs were aching up until Thursday having lugged that around the trails. But my legs felt better for being on the PA and after 3 weekends on the trot off-road my skills and off-road fitness seem to be coming back to me as I felt much less beaten up at the end of the ride.

I also met the lesser-spotted Cas back at my house and fitted a cassette to his shiny new Dura ace rear wheel. He was keen to see how it worked with the chain whip and everything. I'm fitting it not removing it so I don't need the chain whip I stated confidently as Cas handed me the cassette.

It was only once it was fitted that he looked at me with a hurt puppy look on his face as he showed me the spacer he was still holding in his hand and that should have gone on first. Oh well, at least I got to demonstrate the removal process too and it was only another couple of minutes to remove it, fit the spacer and then tighten it all up again.

Finally Ben wanted to go for a ride too and so I went for a pootle around Epsom Downs, Langley Vale, Epsom, Ashtead and Ewell in the afternoon with to double my tally of miles for the day. The Alps it wasn't but it was a nice father and son bonding session.

"It was a game of two halves" is the oft-used phrase uttered by your average footballer and this was most definitey a ride of two halves as we spent the first hour tackling the more challenging type of singletrack on Leith Hill before heading off for some good ol' fashioned XC for the second and third hour before finishing with the likes of Barry Knows Best, Trail 1.5 and Death Star.

The dry weather continues although a chilly 5 degrees as I leave home at 8-45 a.m. sees me wearing a few more layers but it's 8 degrees by the time we leave the car-park at 9-30 a.m. and it eventually rises to a short-sleeved riding fifteen and a half degrees by the time we are well into this 25 mile three hills plus Ranmore Common ride.

From Starveall we head up to the Tower and then left towards Windy Willow. But instead of riding this trail we search out a few other hidden gems that test our skills before hooking up with the Caspers trail and then traversing the hillside and down to crossroads where we then climb back up the grassy trail we descended last week.

Then it's on towards Deliverance which all four of us tackle although Steven on his first ride with us is definitely getting his adrenaline high as he whelps with a mixture of delight and fear on the way down.

Onto Waggledance and Summer Lightning and down to the Brickbat Alley before turning right and down Rookery Lane where we cross the A25 and head across the railway line with a nervous moment or two as we are standing around on the train crossing and Tim is struggling to open the gate.

Finally across and we hit the bottom of the White Down climb. It's heating up now and whilst Steven and I strip off a layer Johnny Dangerzone lives up to his alternative name by handing around the muffins which are just a small part of the supplies he is carrying.

The nice steep climb up towards the pillbox and I'm powering ahead and feeling good today now that my muscles have warmed up. Left at the top onto the North Downs Way and we are into the XC phase of the ride as we forge ahead with the flow only interrupted by seven or eight gates that we have to navigate along the trail.

A couple of nice descents and some new trails to me sees us cross the A25 again at Wotton and head up via a mixture of side roads and more new trails to bring us out on the North side of Holmbury Hill where we pass a large group of all-female riders.

Across towards the Reservoir and down Barry Knows Best where we spy a guy out his brand new cyclo-cross bike taking it slowly down the berms before a quick tea-break at Peaslake where I say hello to a stressed out Alistair from Trailaddiction (hope you made that ferry mate).

Up the steep church climb onto Pitch Hill and we hit trail Zero and 1.5 before heading down Death Star and up past BKB again to the trig point at Holmbury Hill.

Down Yoghurt Pots and then down the Babyhead trail to skirt around the back of Holmbury for the final long climb up past Upfolds Farm and back to the car-park for a ride that covered 25 miles plus and was completed in 4 hours 2 minutes.

An excellent ride and thanks to Tim for leading this one. It was great to finally meet the Muffin Man too and I think Steven (LGWramp) enjoyed his first ride out with us. This is definitely a route that we need to repeat with the Sunday crew.

I wasn't at the races today. A superb 34 km ride taking in a really good XC stylee route and 740 metres of height gain (and descending of course) but I was struggling for some reason.

It might have been the 180 road miles in my legs from another five day commute this week although I had a rest day on Saturday which is usually enough to see me okay.

Out of the Arkle Manor car-park and straight up the climb on the South side of Box Hill and I noticed straight away that there was no real power in my legs and I started to drift off the back of the pack. I'm just not warmed up yet I said to Gazza who was trailing alongside me but nothing seemed to be there for the rest of the ride as we took in China Pig, the Juniper Hill climb, Mickleham Down and down to the bridge under the M25 at the back of Epsom Downs.

Through Walton-on-the-Hill and alongside the Golf Course and up to Colley Hill where we hooked up with the North Downs Way for a while and then across Headley Heath and back onto Box Hill for the final descent back to Brockham.

Some new trails as well as an interesting way of joining up some well-known trails but it left me fairly flat at the end. But congratulations to Cas who passed the 10,000km target that we both set ourselves for the year with a killer two days riding of 142 km from Cheam to Canterbury yesterday and a great Cheam to Brighton and back of 165 km today with still 68 days left till the end of the year. I'm about 1,00km behind him but still well on track to hit the target by the end of November and we are already thinking of the target for 2012.

After not riding for seven days (a week's holiday from work) I'm back on form for a great ride around Holmbury and Pitch Hill.

After last week's Box Hill ride which saw my car stinking of doggie doo-doo on the drive home and left a faint aroma in the garage all week long the dampness on the ground and the constant but somewhat refreshing light drizzle cleaned all the crap off my tyres although I was careful to keep my mouth clamped shut for the first few miles.

Mark introduces himself in the car park, a late joiner to today's ride but I see from his forum history that he has ridden with Nemesis already. Well that's once more than me and most other people have seen Nem out on the trails this year!

Up to the top of Holmbury Hill where we met Andy and Nick who had ridden up from Cranleigh and then it was over to Pitch Hill to ride some of the challenging trails around there including yet another new trail that Nick had discovered.

Nick also managed to get into a heated discussion with a dog walker about rights of way but I think she had recognised him and was just miffed that he had rebutted her advances in car-park 3 one evening last year.

Looking back to the start of the month the change in the trails are amazing. From dry and dusty to damp and dirty in just 30 days.