I can’t blame anyone really although MBR will be first against the wall followed by the Met office. And realistically then probably me.
I know it was fairly clear on the map, looking at the contours. The weather wasn’t and hadn’t be great. The soil is that chalky flinty clay clag that sticks to anything.
I wanted something different so nipped down to Dorchester to ride the Maiden Castle loop from a recent copy of that rival publication. Conditions were predicted as better than the Mendips, Quantocks or Cwmcarn. All good.
It began raining as I arrived. I had some dirty perv watch me get changed. The wind caught the door swinging it shut against my head. The boot then did the same. The wind was vicious, bitter, strong and constant.
So off I set. Through a farmyard that was 5 inches deep in sloppy cow muck. Then across a few boggy field. But it was fine the wind was behind me. Up a long sticky chalk farm track dotted with giant Labrador poo only to turn back into the wind to go down a Tarmac road to pretty much where I’d begun the climb. Then another trudging climb over more boggy grassland gradually turning directly into the wind.
All might not be lost. I spy a woodland section. I’m thinking singletrack. I’m thinking a bit of fun maybe. I see a sign. Beware Forestry Operations in Progress. It was like a bunch of local chavs had chored a Chieften and gone for a joyride. So bike on my back I had to scramble up a steep hill through scrub n brambles to emerge like a man possessed in front of a elderly bunch all enjoying a flask of tea in their Rover.
On to the ridge path. The wind, so bitter and the mud so sticky I could barely ride the sole bit of singletrack. This dragged for a couple of miles of pedal and push along the ridge to the second decent of the ride. On bloody Tarmac! A final climb n fall over soggy grass gets me back to the car.
I was furious. But with who? I don’t believe anyone at MBR has ridden that route. I can’t see it’d be much more fun in the dry. I don’t believe the woodman did what he did out of spite. I wish the Met office could get the weather right for once.
Sorry SHMBO isn’t interested in my tales of woe but I had to tell someone. And no I won’t go back and edit it.

10/10 would read again

Could’ve done with more rANdom caPiTAls, and blaming people, but apart from that, very good! 🙂

was probably in a previous MBR too, 2 years prior, but in the opposite direction.

Lol but that’s just how it goes! North-easterly was forecast today and chalk is always lethal when wet.

Your next ride will be better. 🙂

giant Labrador poo

I’m just impressed you could identify the breed of dog and its size just from once glance at its droppings

Sounds like a typical MTB ride to me!

And now I realize I may have ridden the whole thing backwards

I have done that same ride…

Almost cost me my nerves, sanity and relationship, avoid.

If it is any consolation we froze on the Quantocks today

Poor effort. No attempts to circumvent the swear filter, punctuation is well placed and as said before no overuse of capital letters.

Must try harder.

themightymowgli – Member
And now I realize I may have ridden the whole thing backwards
POSTED 9 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

😆

Ridden the whole thing backwards? Impressive skills at least 🙂

MBR= more bad rides 😉

It used to be a standard joke that their rides were pants and most of the time better in the opposite direction to that on the route card

Mountain biking really is shit isn’t it…

Well at least you got out on your bike
That’s more than most lurking here have done in a long while 😉

Well at least you got out on your bike to push your bike through some poo

And now I realize I may have ridden the whole thing backwards

Pretty much all their routes work better this way. They do like their unrideable climbs and tarmac decent, the only one I’ve tried that was any good was a loop of Coniston, the route was a bit MBT (lots of up/down, no fun) , but I got lost and found a great decent.

Excellent! Everyone should have a ride that bad!

My worst ride (genuinely traumatising) was from a mtb route book. A lot of these guides seem to represent the author’s cathartic exercise in psychological healing through extreme suffering….rather than an enjoyable bike ride as you might reasonably expect.

one of their December routes was cut gate. “Rideable year round”.

cut gate is generally rideable for about a day. When there’s been a drought.

Well, should have gone to Mendip, going was good to soft, still plenty of grip.
Weather was cold and dry.

edit double post

If it helps (I know it won’t) I had a really good ride, lots of singletrack, mostly dry, didn’t ride through dog plop, no chalk or clay, wind was fine and precipitation was pretty close to zero (five minutes of light misty rain – not enough to put a jacket on though).

Haven’t done an MBR Ride for years – thanks for reminding me why.

Quantocks, Exmoor and Mendips would have been better I am guessing.

Lol I enjoyed reading that. Good effort 🙂

My ride yesterday involved a broken chain, busted seat clamp and snapped mech hanger all on one bike. Thankfully not mine, but did feel sorry for the other chap. ’twas the maiden voyage on his bike!

I went out yesterday, rode straight from my front door, there was a fresh easterly wind and snow on the tops, the ground was solid, mud-free and dry, the route clear and smooth, my tyres spun along fast and I got home feeling exhilarated and refreshed.

I was on my road bike.

Reminds me to avoid MBR and their terrible route ideas. Ta.

You’ll remember it though.

The wind caught the door swinging it shut against my head

😆

Sorry

I don’t believe anyone at MBR has ridden that route.

Anyone who’s ever ridden an MBR route will have had that dawning realisation by the half way point. If you do ride them, then as has already been said, do it backwards. I remember doing one of their routes in the Clywds. All the way up a mahoosive climb we were commenting that this would make an absolutely cracking descent!! When we made it to the top, we then descended all the way down on a dead straight fire road! There was a lot of swearing at that point!

Having Grown up in Dorchester, on the same side of town as Maiden Castle, I’d have gone to Puddletown forest, it’s much easier to kill a few hours out that way TBH…

But if you have to head out Westwards go throught the shittry farmyard you mentioned, short raod section and then take the climb up onto the ridgeway get some elevation and head out towards Hardye’s monument and then play in the woods out that way, or just chop along, there’s some good views from up there. But not much in the way of singletrack TBH…

Sounds like MBR just sent you on a loop round the back of Maiden castle? Which TBH there’s not really all that much to, and a pretty big waste of some quite nice countryside…

I remember a ride from about 1989 with the future Mrs Cheezpleez which involved clawing our way up a very steep, clay-claggy hill in a huge cloud of aggressive flies over a succession of stiles and fallen trees before slithering down a largely unridable descent ending in a farmyard that was knee-deep in cowshit. Ah, the merry banter.

And then there’s this (not me): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE8a7VBnVPE

Fair play.
Don’t know about worst ,but yesterdays cx trot at Duncton was one of my hardest!Foolishly ,I put a super thermal baselayer on under a softshell.
Either too hot or cold.schoolboy error. Combined with a puncture and a spell of cramp( I never cramp!)plus a couple of bum clenching descents
I was glad to finish .
Unlike Globalti , I wasn’t refreshed. 🙁
😀

“Worst Ride” – all my worst rides have ended in A&E so your one sounds ok to me.

bravo enjoyed the read … when the ride is like that I am always reminded of Robert Service’s. The Spell of the Yukon

I wanted the gold, and I sought it,
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy — I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.

I wanted the gold, and I got it —
Came out with a fortune last fall, —
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn’t all.

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)
It’s the cussedest land that I know, ………

I’ll fight — and you bet it’s no sham-fight;
It’s hell! — but I’ve been there before;
And it’s better than this by a damsite —
So me for the Yukon once more. ……

makeitorange – Member

“Worst Ride” – all my worst rides have ended in A&E so your one sounds ok to me.

Amen to that, brother. If I make if home not covered in blood, and still able to walk, then its all gone pretty well 😀

At the end of the day it could have been much worse, it could have been a road ride.

Thank you all for the support. We live and learn.
Makeitorange, I agree but on your way to A&E you established your limits in skill and agility and just how big your balls were. I discovered my limits in tolerance and could feel neither my fingers nor balls.
And yes I can identify a small number of dogs by their dung. Mainly because I stare at it wonder whether I should pick it up and lob it at the poopytraters owner.
I’m not normally a grumpy man. Yesterday was a bad day. Thank you

We need someone from MBR on here to defend themselves! Could be fun!

Ah yes the joy of an MBR ride, we live and learn.
9/10 for the rant.

I have yet to find a descent MBR or MBUK route. your lucky the entire thing wasn’t on tarmac (all though that would probably have been better). The sad truth is that since these mags obviously wont publish anything not on a bloody bridleway – the only good riding in this country is trail centres and cheaky, local knowledge stuff.(