In November 2010 I was wondering what to do for my 50th birthday in the following July & then I thought of doing a Quantocks, Exmoor & Dartmoor long weekend ride to celebrate my membership into the SAGA club. I mean July is in the British Summer right so what could go wrong?

The planning commenced in earnest & I contacted all those people I’d met over the years on various bike rides who had luckily/unluckily given me their email address. With the details complete & the riders confirmed the plan was Saturday 16th July – Quantocks, Sunday 17th July Exmoor & Monday 18th July (my birthday) Dartmoor. In order to boost the numbers simplify matters we combined my Sunday ride with Oldfarts Exmoor Safari.

Saturday Q’s – we had 10 riders for the ride guided by Mr Q’s himself Knottie8. The weather was poor to start with but dried up fairly soon & we even had the sun shining while we were sitting outside the pub having our lunch. We did a great route which included the delights of Weacombe, Serts, Slaughter House & the Chimney. 22 miles.

the posse

Knottie

Trailmonkey

Shinythings

Mayer

regrouping

the chimney

We stayed overnight @ The Base Lodge bunkhouse in Minehead cost £15pppn & is situated less than 200m from the main drag & the Queens Head pub for food & refreshment (if anyone stays there tell Graham I told you about it – cheers). The place is MTBer friendly & we were even allowed to wash the bikes & use the showers before our drive back home on Sunday.

Sunday Exmoor – we had 14 riders for Roland’s loop with a slight twist as I wanted to divert off the planned route to go to Dunkery Beacon for pics, so my apologies to those who suffered on the climb up Macmillan Way because of me. Again the weather was damp & wet at times but not too bad over all. The climbs were long but we were rewarded with the dash across the top of North Hill with a huge tailwind & then the switchback descent down to Minehead. It did pi$$ down right at the finish tho. 26 miles

the posse

the route to Dunkery Beacon

Dunkery Beacon

Oldfart

don’t wait for me then!

Anna B

Horner T stop

making a splash

Selworthy Beacon

at the finish

grazing on the seafront

Monday Dartmoor – we had 11 riders for the tour guided by me & lets just say the weather was very nice for ducks. The route included the Widowmaker, Groundhog Day & the Ringmoor cottage descent. Sadly about 10 miles in the 3 x days of hard riding on my ‘old legs’ caught up with me & after a last downhill we picked up the dis-used railway line route back to Princetown. 16 miles

the posse

Millie

Carl

Brian getting air

Orena45 goes ‘flying’ past Millie

Carl

Orena45

after another quick downhill

I would like to Thank everyone who turned up on one, some or all three days of riding to make my QED birthday weekend a success. It has been a very enjoyable 3 days on the bike with friends both old & new, we’ve had some laughs, we’ve had some lung busting climbs & some eyeball rattling descents. I don’t think I could have had a better time celebrating my birthday any other way.

Les

loved the q’s ride. thanks for putting it all on and thanks to knottie for guiding and playing mr hare on the descents. he sure can shift.

great fun.

Sorry i couldn’t attend the full show CB, One could say i ended up working that weekend and as you know it’s about time i did some real work.

Logistics to get back in time for the Monday weren’t in my favour so missed out on that one too 🙁

Still great to see ya’ll int the sunshine outside the pub at lunch time, i must say you had a handsome b’day ride group there.

Thanks to every one who indulged this old duffer on Sunday and congrats Andy for only falling off once and more importantly not hurting yerself !

Hi Crispy
thanks for the invite to your birthday ride, it was a pleasue to meet you & the others. We both really enjoyed the ride, but now I know what a duck feels like after splashing around dartmoor
cheers
Andy

Cheers Crispy for arranging the winter weather for us, nice touch 😉

Thanks also for picking up the tab at the post-ride nosh up in Princetown (Julian, Milly & Carl – you shouldn’t have sneaked off early). Post up the link to the Bullheart 24/12 fundraising page and I’ll repay your kindness (as will, I’m sure, the others) with a nice little donation.

I got a handful of usable snaps from the Dartmoor ride. The rest were obscured by the action of rainwater on my lens.

Leaving Princetown…

Three snaps from the Widowmaker…

There was mud…

Andy’s glasses were so misted up he missed the easier line to his right 😉

No-one wants to keep on waiting for an inept, slow, old codger.
Crispy waves goodbye to the rest of the gang 😉

Call this frickin’ summer?

Hope you had a happy birthday weekend Les and good luck at the Bontrager 24/12 🙂

Cheers Rich you know how much I hate sunshine so I ordered the rain instead 😉

I was more than happy to pay for the apres ride nosh on my birthday but if you would like to repay the gesture with a small donation then here is the link to Team Bullheart justgiving page.

As promised.. (sort of) a consolation pic of your birthday cake.. banana, toffee and pecan.. It’s sat on the kitchen table now all wrapped up in brown paper with a candle taped on the outside..

I may have to go and keep it company in a bit..

I was really looking forward to a weekend of riding to celebrate your birthday but the fates conspired against me the whole way..

I’m glad you all had a good time.. 🙂

Nice one – thats what its all about,

Thanks Yunki that looks outstandingly delicious & i’m gutted it sorry you couldn’t make the Dartmoor ride 😀

That looks like a great weekend – hope my birthday next weekend is as good 🙂

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a few more here http://s1107.photobucket.com/albums/h392/knottie/Day%20two%20of%20QED%20or%20Rolands%20exmoor%20safari/

[Andy’s glasses were so misted up he missed the easier line to his right] That wasn’t mist on the inside, that was mud & water on the outside. PS it seemed like the right line at the time.
Andy

Awesome pics Les (and Slugwash), thanks for a great ride yesterday. 😀

enjoyed it…..roll on kit hill!

Brings it all back, although my legs are still reminding me of the weekends exploits. Cheers to all involved for a fantastic 3 days, and special thanks to Les for putting it all together. Good times.

Here’s the Exmoor Route we did;

<img src=”http://www.gpsies.com/images/linkus.png&#8221; border=”0″ alt=”GPSies – Crispy’s Exmoor ride” />

Excellent fun, thanks everyone! 😀