Thursday 19 April 2012

Cannock Chase

Myself and Tom went to Cannock to ride both Follow the dog and Monkey trail.

It was a very last minute decision based on the forecast for the rest of the week. It paid off, we had one light shower after the fire track ascent, so we rode quickly to get under the cover of the trees.

The trail was surprisingly dry and gripping, with puddles inside some of the berms. The trail is so stony that if your tyres get wet they slip on every surface struggling to get grip.

I followed Tom down one section with a few jumps, the first he became slightly unbalanced, this was increased when he went over the second resulting in a spectacular crash. A grazed knee and elbow later Tom stood pumped and ready to continue riding. After checking the bike was fine, we carried on, faster than we had before he had gained more confidence due to falling off.

I tackled one of the black runs, that has large rocky drop-offs, which I was sure I was going to lose teeth from my big chainring, however I survived, and met up with Tom on the red. He commented saying that the red was pretty difficult with the step downs being higher that he had ridden before, but no falls (so he let on).

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, bar my few attempts to ride off piste down the side rather than round the corner, I was pushing too hard trying to catch Tom after taking off my long sleeve jersey.

We arrived back and ventured into the shop where a 2.25 Maxxis Advent tyre was purchased, this was to replace Toms 2.1 Bontanger tyre. The drive back home ended in rain and very wet roads, the rain had missed Cannock, which we were both glad about.

Here's a little clip from Cannock of Tom.



3 comments:

  1. I do believe you should be able to see it now. However you have already seen it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Was it as rushed as when me and Andy took you round the first time?

    ReplyDelete