A good ride

Had a pretty good ride at Woodhill today. Rode with a friend who was on his fairly new GT single speed, and on his second ride after knee problems. The weather was not too bad, cloudy and cool but no rain.

Unusually we rode up the road to the start of the Big Mama track and then dropped in for the first half of Big Mama. I was riding Ok, we rode up the Big Mama hill and I was feeling pretty good at the top which was way better than last time I rode it. Sadly the top 2 jumps, which I have always felt comfortable doing, have been changed.

Historically Woodhill has had most of the smaller, and even some of the bigger jumps, with flat landings, bad design in an era of ignorance. But they have been like that for an awful long time and while some don’t like them I was used to them and it meant that I could hit them at a speed that suited me, slowly ! Now they have been rebuilt with wooden framed landings and I am sure if I hit them I would case the landing and trash my rear wheel. Which means I do not jump much any more as there are not too many jumps that do not have newly built landings. This pisses me off a bit as I did enjoy doing the jumps I did in the way I did them… oh well, back to the ride.

We dropped down the last section of Spaghetti to the old car park and then did more road work up to the start of Haggis. I had a great ride up Haggis, I really hit the groove on that track, first time I have ridden the whole first section fully seated, I do believe that some of the trainer work and the session at Rotorua has built a bit of grinding strength. We then did Northern Exposure and then hit my trail again. The new section is bedding in well though there was one bend that just does not flow for me, I have gone over the side both times I have ridden it, so I will take a spade up and widen and berm it. We the rode down Ironhorse which I have not done in its entirety for ages and then back up Anaconda, felt good on that trail as well which was a first.

Back up the side of Conifer and Haggis then up the combo trail which was a bit of a grind and then down through the new trail which has bedded in well. This section of trail is in the race in 2 weeks so I will ride it again next week and get the layout firmly bedded in my mind.

All up a really good ride, things glowed well though my rear brakes need a serious adjustment and the BB was squeaking like mad. I dropped the bike in to the LBS and they said they would do re-grease and pack the BB ready for me to pick up tomorrow.