Cheers guys for a fab ride esp Trail Monkey et al :

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/111532987

A brilliant turn out for todays ride.. What an eye-opener seeing that route laid out in detail.. I’ve always thought it was a bit gentler..

I was gutted that I had to nip off for prior family commitments.. hope everyone had a good time.. it would seem that way from early reports..

I’m looking forward to the photo’s.. 😀

Yeah – lovely dry trails, Gnar to the Gnar DH section (hard climb back up) and some lovely cheaky links – 3 trails I have also never ridden 🙂

Many Thanks to Trailmonkey & Shinythings for todays STW tour de Lustleigh Cleave. It was great to be shown some of the fantastic trails up there & an alternative way to get back out. Big shout out to Rob on his unicycle who rode down the Nutcrackers 😀

Here are some of the pics I took today – If anyone wants a full set please email me (addy in profile) & I’ll send them on.

The first descent into Lustleigh

[img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6077/6109742225_94834d8d36_b.jpg[/img]

the fixie singlespeed machine

The Raven trail

[img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6087/6109743651_37fee5bbf2_b.jpg[/img][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6065/6109744851_ed50f2c379_b.jpg[/img][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6199/6109745983_e7eb8bb92d_b.jpg[/img][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6210/6109746937_925644dded_b.jpg[/img][img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6086/6110293014_efb7f07d5a_b.jpg[/img]

The stop @ Hunters Tor

who said Shinythings was a ‘fungi’?

On the Nutcrackers

[img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6066/6110295038_cc03f6684e_b.jpg[/img]

Hound Tor traverse

[img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6210/6109751285_68ea6d02c7_b.jpg[/img]

The stop @ Hound Tor

Bowermans Nose

[img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6202/6110298412_d61b189ac3_b.jpg[/img]

The DH section in Hound Tor Woods

[img]http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6110299622_4832d334af_b.jpg[/img]

At the finish

Nice pics mate – nice to finally meet you Crispy 🙂

Thanks Foxy & it was nice to meet you to 🙂

Nice pics. Sorry I had to disappear at Water – I’d promised not to stay out all day – have to be diplomatic 🙂 (although my wife went out when I got home and got completely soaked and covered in mud – I think we were pretty lucky with the weather).

Nice to meet you all, and big thanks for putting up with my unconventional machine and slowness on the downhills. Lots of stuff I haven’t ridden before, despite living 15 miles away – I’ll have to make the effort to get back over there again and see if I can remember the trails.

Oh, and Les/Crispy – I didn’t actually clean ALL of the nutcracker trail… made use of my pads a few times and almost needed new pants by the bottom. Great day though 🙂

Just curious, but what gps did you use for the data-logging please?

Whenever I’ve ridden in through those deep valleys, the tree cover has been pretty heavy, so your device did well to maintain that much lock – (even allowing for a tiny bit of extrapolation in there too perhaps?).

I guess things have moved on – the newer receiver chipsets will have better isolation / more sensitivity now than mine does …

thanks to all for coming, hope that your efforts to get there were duly rewarded. nice to put faces to forum names 8)

still can’t quite believe that someone even contemplated the nutcracker on a unicycle 😯 outstanding.

there’s usually a ride happening in the area most weekends so if anyone has a taste for the cleave and wants more, you know how to find us on here.

nice pics les 8)

Foxyrider – how/where did you do that elevation pic/diagram?

@OCB – I have a Garmin Edge 800 but also had a 705 before and all worked in the Cleave – look for the ones with the new srif star III chipsets work well 🙂

@Lady – the elevation diag was used by exporting the recorded GPX into the old Garmin Forerunner program and then clicking view. I have uploaded the .zip file here if you want it:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9914773/Forerunner.zip

Thanks Foxyrider – that’s brilliant!

Yeah, good day out with all the usual shenanigans and incidents. Nice to meet you all, hope it dispelled some myths and inspired 🙂

Oh, and my bizarre over the bars incident that resulted in bruised forks was a lucky escape! Worked my wonders on the stanchion gouge but hadn’t realised how bad the large dent in the lowers was! By pure luck the dent is 4mm below the bushes, so it looks like I’ve got away with it 🙂
Mind you, my back looks like I’ve been mauled by a bear.

Mind you, my back looks like I’ve been mauled by a bear.

love injury?

Nice to meet some new peeps and as always ride with the usual D’moor mob. 🙂

Damn impressive to see a half bike tackle the cleeves more bumpy trails. 8)

Thanks to Les for his huge kindness in rubber supplies as well as the tea a noms.

Greg for the cake and flatfish for the lift…

Sorry i was a touch antisocial, 3hrs sleep from a nasty tooth ache and the continued pain through the day played havoc on the social skills, i didn’t even take out the camera all day. 🙁

One spill when a gathering of walkers traditionally spread themselves over the BW in a vague attempt to clear the way for my very slow approach, momentum is key on nutcracker and giving up that for other users threw me off..Somehow i snapped of my shifter arm so careful use of rocks and sticks were then needed for down shifting if i used the granny or wanted down from my Dartmoor big ring.

Always a pleasure riding the cleeve loop and the little run down the DH would of been a little less butt clenching if dropped my saddle clear of the short snagging zone.

Shinnythings OTB may of been a result of the high levels of gnarr bearing down of him from behind, glad the love wounds are only cosmetic and not usable is early excuses for Alpine failings.. 😉

Enjoy your trips lads!

STW Ride on the Dips next, will see if i can make it..

Thanks for all the smiles chaps.

It was good to catch up again Sharki, hope those tyres fit your rims ok 🙂

foxyrider

@OCB – I have a Garmin Edge 800 but also had a 705 before and all worked in the Cleave – look for the ones with the new srif star III chipsets work well

Ah – thanks … that’s even more impressive then, given the antenna options in that [small] sized receiver.

I’m still kinda 50/50 on getting an 800 … I’ve got a perfectly good 76C, but bike mounting is rubbish, and I’m tempted by ease of the UI for accessing ‘training’ data on the 800, plus the HRM would be useful and give my (very) occasional turbo sessions a bit of interest.

Apologies for the thread diversion, I’ll leave you to it.

😉

My relatively aged Gecko 301 plotted the route fine – at least up to Water where I had to escape – and it’s not normally too good in the woods. The tree cover is pretty thin round there really.

Cool pics, great day