There was trepidation on both sides. For my part I know while he can ride a bike, my brother had recently fallen hard on his face and ended up in hospital and might not be exactly “on it”. I wanted to enjoy the ride with him, but not wreck it for myself with long waits and feeling like he wasn’t handling it happily. I took the bag with drinks and tools and left him unencumbered on his hired Genesis.
He also had concerns:
I had a couple of reasons to be a little apprehensive about riding White’s Level again. First off, last time I rode a red route I needed stitches in my face after examining the trail with my teeth. Secondly I seem to have knees that are vulnerable to damage, and have been feeling the strain of cycling and climbing mountains recently, and lastly, I was riding with FMFT’s progenitor and resident writer, who I could reasonably assume was much fitter, faster, and more skilled than I was by quite some distance.
Nevertheless, I like the trail, and was looking forward to riding with Andy. We set off early(ish) on a sunny Sunday, to avoid the crowds.
There’s a new diversion on White’s Level that takes you up what used to be the final descent on Darkside. It’s now a grinding, gruelling beast of a climb that saps every scrap of energy from your legs before you’ve had a chance to warm up. When it was a fast descent across the hill at the end, the loose gravel and large rocks made for an interesting and technical ride. Now they mean swapping repeatedly between pedalling doggedly with the back tyre slipping, and a series of undignified stalls against rocks.
Once you come out on top of the section - hot, dusty, and distinctly knackered - it switches to the more usual smooth fire road climbs and a short section of wide and furrowed trail until it comes out at the top of the black section, where Andy and I briefly parted ways for him to scare the shit out of himself and me to get my breath back a short way up the track.
Once there, the trail turns into the blast that I remember from last time. The descent down the side of the valley is a series of winding, flowy, thoughtfully built singletrack sections, starting at the fast and fun track of Windy Point, through the jumpy, bridgy, winding-through-foresty entertainment of Energy and onto the bermy boardwalks of Goodwood, before dropping onto another fire road and another diversion. The trail loops through the woods somewhere above the initial ascent, and then drops into a headlong descent down a newly built section of track, which makes for some exciting and precarious riding at times. Loose gravel sections mean that a mistake would send the wheels sideways and down the steep hillside. Tight and technical turns where the trail crosses streams check your speed and break up the concentration nicely.
I got back to the trail centre exhilarated by the ride, but wanting more. The first climb was a killer, but probably more interesting than the fire road climbs elsewhere. It seemed that my knees had survived without too much difficulty, and my face was still intact. I had no expectation of being able to keep up with Andy, but as it happened I was not as consistently far behind as I might have expected, and felt that I had held my own and enjoyed the ride, even though I was clearly the weaker rider of the two of us. Once again I’m struck by how well the same trail can stand up and be fun and interesting for two very different riding abilities.
As he says, the route has been drastically altered in places, now climbing the Darkside section across the open hillside, and what was a series of fun rock drops all down the trail is now a rhythm-upsetting collection of steps to put the power down to get up. It’s a fun climb, but one that takes you from 0-60 in no time and with no warm-up. The new route joins the old at the junction to the optional black section, which is where I turned off to experience again the flowing trail become a serious rocky drop that always feels like a hit-and-hope section on a hard-tail with the seat up and relatively short travel forks. I lived and ground up the usual fire road return to rejoin the trail and riding partner.
From there it’s the usual super-fun downhill basically all the way to the valley floor again, and as impressed as I had been with Tim’s ability to get up the technical climb when he was fresh, and the short amount of time I had to wait at the top, I was equally pleased with how close behind he managed to be on the downhills. It made for a ride that, while it took longer than I might have taken, wasn’t too broken up by waiting and still flowed for both of us.
The new final section of trail was a highlight for me as well, scarily perched over a fairly steep drop it rolls across the hillside taking your full attention and challenging you to hit each turn just a big nearer the edge of sanity.
Enjoy our day in the sunshine in graphical form:
A
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