Cafall and Being Clever

There’s a lot to catch up on here so let’s start with my riding and then get onto the pros.

I had a weekend in the southwest and with an old mountain biking friend getting slowly back into it off the back of a charity event for work it was a chance to do something I don’t often get the chance to by riding a trail centre with a group.

The decision of which trail to do at Cwm Carn was made for us thanks to trail closures on the Twrch so we headed out on the newer Cafall route.

I’d had issues here before after optimistically trying to both at a high pace with no food in a morning, and this was a much better experience. After the usual car park faffing that comes with a group ride, and I think a bit of quietly sizing each other up four of us rolled out into the loop on a range of bikes. Along for the ride were me on my Process 134, an old but new-style Marin (possibly a Mount Vision), a nice Cube 26 inch full-susser and, for novelty value, a 1997 Kona U’hu still rocking Bomber Z1 forks, a very limited amount of rear travel, old-school angles and v-brakes.

This trail climbs a lot with switchbacks the order of the day for much of it, then plummets off the hill in a series of roller coaster sections that are pure Welsh trail centre, it’s fast, needs precision braking and benefits from a dropper post and good suspension. The vintage Kona had none of this and it’s testament to the residual skill of the rider that he was not the one to be dropped, nor did he crash. Perhaps he simply could not stop, but he certainly kept touch with the better newer bikes.

The beauty of riding as a group is a relaxed debrief and reliving of the best bits over lunch afterwards and, a reminder for me that sometimes it’s about the shared fun of a morning out, not just playing out on my own. I’m hoping for more of this.

On Monday I the talk was all about a repeat group ride, but with me pushing for the Mendips, and others unable to get a long enough pass away from the gardening it wasn’t to be. I headed for Burrington Coomb and headed off on a classic route, with half an idea to try and be “clever”. This meant the usual climb up, a bit of cheeky singletrack, and more climbing, then the long rocky descent to Cheddar. This always means a long drag back up but this time rather than going left up the gorge I tried a loop to the right. This apparently meant a brutal road climb, but then I linked onto the fireroads that would winch me right back onto Rowberrow Warren, where I could pick up the other half of the figure-eight and then up onto Blackdown. I gambled that this would be dried out and ridable and it paid off, giving me a run over the peat on top and then the usual brilliant rocky flowing fun round the edge of the hill, along the valleys and back to the coomb. Overall a highly satisfying little loop as usual.

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