Date: Tuesday 14th August 2012
Route: WP, Dwarf’s Run, B@$tard Hill, Denham Bridge, Lopwell, Maristow, HQ.
Riders: James, Paul, Alun & Rob
Depart WP: 19:45
Arrive HQ: 22:33
Distance: 17.8 miles
Weather: Wet / Very wet

The wet weather crew in action again (see report from Tuesday 3rd July 2012)

Due to this report being written some 4 weeks after the ride and me having a particularly bad memory, I’m afraid some of the statements made may be slightly inaccurate or made up. I even had to review the route logged by my phone to remember where we went!

This ride was another where the fair weather riders had all made up excuses as to why they couldn’t come out to join their hardier club members for a civilised bike ride. So the four of us stood in Willowby Park trying to work out where to go, there were requests for Lopwell and Doublewaters. I did as I always do in this situation and checked my App for the tide times at Lopwell and it was looking good provided we didn’t get there too quickly.

It was decided that I would lead the ride as I knew where we were going. Pretty soon (probably by the end of Willowby Park) I ended up in my usual position at the back, which is not the best place for leading a group which meant we ended up taking a different route to Pound than I was planning. When we got to a point where nobody knew where the start of the Dwarf’s Run track was I was duly reinstated at the front.

As we went along the track the weather got worse and I remember thinking it was ironic that we were out in the pouring rain and my shoulders were hurting where my rusksack was rubbing on sunburn sustained during my previous week in Poole. I believe this was one of the first times Rob had ridden this track and he admitted to about three offs including one over the handlebars caused by a particularly well-armed log.

To get from the end of the track to head towards Denham Bridge we needed to climb Ba$t@rd Hill and then descend back down to the road near Berra Tor. From here we took the road down to Denham Bridge and then the usual track through Denham Wood. When it came to the point I wanted to turn off the main track and do a nice piece of singletrack I had shown the group recently I was stopped because Paul didn’t feel he had sufficient illumination for the task. This was because the high powered light he ordered weeks and weeks ago from Hong Kong hadn’t arrived and he was too scared to chase them up in case they sent their UK customer relations manager round to his house with a set of nun-chucks to resolve his complaint.

We followed the main track through the woods and then because time was pressing on we took a shortcut down the steep muddy path which we had done some months previously which comes out just above Lopwell Dam, which was great fun in the wet conditions. As predicted by my App the tide was down and we crossed the Dam without incident. Due to Paul’s lack of light and the prevailing conditions we took the arduous road climb all the way back up to Roborough Down and then strugged (well I did – see table below for reasons why) all the way back to HQ for the usual post ride sustenance.

Seeing as I had look this route up on my phone the stats were:

Reporter: James