The meeting places and dates are as follows

 Thursday 7th meet Green Gate Dalby

Tuesday 12th meet Bickley Car park Dalby

Thursday 14th meet Sawdon village hall

Tuesday 19th meet Everley Hackness

There will be a social (slower) ride and a fast ride each evening. Please be ready to ride by 615pm. You will need night lights. You can contact me by mobile until  6pm Thursday 7th, however please do not text after that as i will be in the States. You can contact the shop 01723 352682 until Saturday 9th then the shop will be closed until Saturday 16th. Have fun!

Around 12 or maybe 13 of us were out to enjoy the clear skies in dalby last night. 2 groups:A slower group of 8 or so were led by Chris and a faster group of Mike, Nick Wilson, Rich and myself. The slower group had packed up and gone home by the time we returned to our cars so we hope all went well with them. We (the faster group) spent a couple of hours cris-crossing the red route with a few detours thrown in. No great adventures to report this week apart from Nick and Mike almost knocking each other off at one point, but we had a good ride out none the less

Sounds like a couple of good rides. I'm envious. Won't be out until 21st now. In London yesterday at the Cycle Show (it was okay - lots of bikes and stuff), in Bristol next week.

Hi, Matt here… just noticed using Jax login!

Bickley ride completed… two teams. Fast ride lead by Hackness Mike, social ride was a joint responsibility ride in the end by Adam, Siobhan and myself.  Lights on from the very start last night…. As we left Bickley carpark Mike and I shared the thought that we'd never been trusted to pick a route in the dark before, neither of us are blessed with Deb's keen sense of direction. We agreed that we'd keep an eye out for “You're now leaving Yorkshire” signs just in case.

The evening was calm and dry; we decided that it was probably one of the few occassions for the next few months when it would be nice to be out high on the moors so we all headed off out to the Hole of Horcum. Even drier ride than the last time we did it in the summer. Don't know how conditions were down in the valley with Mike's team, but they came back with more mud than we did - could have been that spray on cosmetic stuff though.  

> … maybe some photos??

Sorry! We'll have to make an effort on the next few rides to get photographic proof.

Matt.

 You let Hackness Mike lead the other group.

Have they got back yet or do I need to keep a sharp eye out whilst I'm out and about in the big blue bus?

If you go down to the woods today…..

You'd better take some spares.
Yup, Wykeham woods claimed another bike!

Thu 14th intermediate ride:

I know Wykeham woods just well enough to get lost, so pressganged Nick to join us to make sure we got back in one piece. It's his back yard afterall.

9 of us set off.
Only 6 survived.
That's over 50% which I think is our benchmark for a successful night out isn't it?
Note to self: Must check 'acceptable final headcount' rules with Debs when she's back.

Bit drizzly, so the intermediate group stuck to the forest for our ride. Wykeham has some great trails through the trees, but as these are not prepared trails there are a lot of branches on the ground all waiting to snag in something expensive.
It's a good mix of gloopy mud, damp roots and small logs to clear, so a great place to practice.
But as a result, Wykeham is probably claiming more mechanicals than anywhere else recently.

If you check Adam's great GPS trace above you may notice a pause somewhere in the middle of last night's ride.

When we'd got a respectable distance from the start Angie got ambushed by the scenery and her rear hanger lost out in the battle (cheaper than smashing the rear mech. of course).
Nick put on an impromptu deraillieur repair class, the rest illuminated the open air workshop with bike lights and offered the bizarre collection of oddments we all carry for emergencies.

Just like the contents of a lady's handbag, the strange collection of tools and spares in someone's biking kit is probably very telling.

I could donate a Euro, some fluff, a triangular bandage, a flat battery and what looked in the dark like half a soda-stream (must check what it actually is in the daylight).
Someone else in the gloom offered to stick it together with a furry piece of old flapjack or something…
Some of us clearly fear things other than mechanical failures.

Luckily others had thought through their packing better and actually carried bike parts.
Sadly they didn't fit.

So yet another rider was introduced to the wonderful world of single-speed mountain biking.
Actually - single-speed AND single-braked (this wasn't Angie's first problem of the night).
She was getting closer to unicycle mountain biking with every mile!

Usually at this point Lewis comes to the rescue out of the trees. He's a dab hand at cobbling bits together and no doubt could have rebuilt the whole thing out of two twigs and a dead crow.
But Nick did an expert conversion job none-the-less.

So Angie, John and Markus left the group early to head back before anything else broke, leaving 6 of us to complete the outside loop above Wrench Green before heading back too.

The fast group headed out over the pig-track and into Dalby to play there.
Hopefully someone can fill us in on the details of their ride?

Some idea of last Thursday night's ride.

The repair shop.

And the maestro at work…