A couple of weeks ago I put some used tyres on a forum 'free to collector- cake appreciated' and this bloke turns up with a lovely tray of fresh cakes from the local bakery.
He has a look around my place and susses that I am a keen biker, probably the AM, DH, HT and road bikes decorating the walls of my apartment. After a bit of chat he says 'hey do you fancy coming on a ride this Sunday? There will be beer and food!'. As it happened Mrs Flamejob was going away so I said yes on the spot.
I had a look on their forum to check which genre I would be riding and prepared my Specialized Pitch with more XC oriented tyres, bought a new CamelBak bladder and gathered my All Mountain kit.
My new buddies picked me up from the edge of the city and we headed North at daybreak, chatting the normal banter about bike gear and previous exploits. We soon hit the carpark meeting spot on the edge of the town and saw we were some of the first there so we found a bar and had a caffeine boost, surrounded by retired gents starting their regime of Sunday drinking.
After kitting up there was soon an arc of about 150 riders, mainly on 6" bikes toting armour on their backs, being split into groups of about 12. Stickers were slapped on helmets denoting the colour of the group and we set off with two 'sherpers' from the local club to guide us; one at the front, one at the back.
The start of the riding consisted of steep granny ups, some of which were a walk. I had glanced at the elevation profile of the ride and noticed that the first climb was about 500m of relentless up, but it turned out that it was a chilled pace with lots of chatting.
At the summit of the climb the lead sherper donned his armour and said 'so.. who is the fastest down?' For some reason everyone pointed to me, so I pushed my seatpin lever cranked the TALAS knob on my 36's and we started an incredible, technical descent past some amazing buildings nestled into the folds of the hills.
This cycle of ups and downs continued for a couple of hours until at the end of a climb I saw a tent with ladies giving out beer, sarrano ham, cheese and snacks to a good humoured crowd all spattered in mud.
During the following six and a half hours of riding over incredibly varied terrain, through rivers and down truly epic ridgeline descents there were a few more food stops and when we returned to the car park there was a crew of blokes cooking pork cuts and chorizo on a griddle and more ice buckets filled to the brim with soft drinks and beer.
I was knackered but incredibly happy. The 'sherpers' were some of the best riders I have had the pleasure of riding with, those kind of blokes who are unassuming and modest, but rode their Nomads to the extent of their capability, up climbs that would scare trials riders and down rocky chutes that a lot of DH riders would double-take. I was honoured that they asked 'do you have a DH bike, here's my email address'.
In the end I was welcomed by complete strangers to ride a completely free, fun and well organised event that didn't involve any machismo or red tape. A fantastic day out.
Walking up chatting sounds the way forward to me and blast down the descents, bliss!
