A smaller band of singlespeeders met up at Holmbury for METG2 on Sunday – 12 of us including one cheeky geared rider (Rachel) who would surely have been quicker if she had 26 less gears on her bike. We rode from Holmbury Hill over to Leith via Telegraph road and picked up another rider (Dr Marc) in Holmbury St Mary with his monster gear (42x 18?!!). We then rode up the twisty singletrack to Leith Hill Tower and headed down to Summer Lightning and saw Jon and Becky with the trailbuilding party, before we got into Coldharbour where we split. I offered people the option of going straight back to the tower or else do 30+ mins of steep singletrack in Redlands then go to the tower. Nobody said they wanted to take the shorter option, then Dave ( who was keeping up easily) offered to take Rachel up to the tower. With that we carried on, then I looked over my shoulder to find there were only 4 people following me!! Oh well your loss ; – ) The rest of the route after Coldharbour, took us through Redlands doing 2 long techincal sections of singletrack, then back up Leith Hill to the tower (only I made it up without dabbing) We then did the twisty swoopy Tanglefoot from the Tower down to the quarry. Respect to Simon for riding Pintglass and the big drop-off in the quarry.
We rode Raindogs down to Holmbury Hill, then scooted back to the car park to find the rest you had all gone. We then rode Barry Knows Best down to Peaslake and food, before cruising up Pitch Hill and down Wedgie with a comedy double crash from Pete and Simon. We headed up to Winterfold on the perimeter track via Jellys Hollow where I amused the kids by riding “Like Suicide / Terminator” a steep descent into the gully. Finally we took the singletrack back to Peaslake via the Gimp and back up Radnor Road to the carpark.
I appreciate that most of the trail names won’t mean that much to you, but you can find out more on your next visit. The 3 survivors got back to the car park at 4.30 feeling a little tired. Carl left us at Peaslake to drive back to Coventry and therefore 3 commemorative plates will be made for Simon, Peter and me.
I hope you all enjoyed it and thanks to Dave and Richard for their able assistance.
Thanks to you all for coming and well done to Simon and Pete who completed the whole route. The “power of 3″ prevailed. Seb would have been with us if his Speedplay pedal hadn’t fallen off the spindle when he got to the top of Pitch Hill.
/marcus
PS – there is talk of the Peaks or Yorkshire for the next METG.
Keep it Steel! (I almost didn’t put it in, its sooo cheesey – ed)
date: old
authour: Marcus Brueton
