Dirty CR 24/10

[Andrew G]

Grahame and I are going out on the MTBs this Saturday if anyone wants to join us. Due to be a bit showery so may as well have a dirty weekend.

Not a beginners ride, reasonable pace/effort - not dawdling along and no protracted breaks.

Depart 9am from East Croydon Station (meet at the side by the taxi rank).

Route, time, distance unconfirmed but will be heading South East, and we're never going to be miles away from Croydon so you can always cut off and hack back on road if you need to.

[kieran]

may be able to go, whats ETA back at EC?

[Andrew G]

er, about lunchtime. Is that any good? I'm a bit vague with this one I'm afraid but you'd be able to get back for lunch regardless even if it meant cutting back. I sort of have a free-ish day so haven't really given it a lot of thought, I'm also not exactly uber familiar with the timescale for MTB rides as I tend to wing it on a free day a bit more and don't look at a watch (I don't have a computer on my MTB either).

[Grahame]

The basic loop only takes about 2 hours, so we will probably add in a few "extras" around Downe. Andrew's estimate of "about lunchtime" seems fair.

When do you need to be back?

[kieran]

usually about 14:00 for home so say 13:20 at EC. I will post here if def going on Friday nite.

[Sylv]

if i remember right there's a nice little flight of stairs on that ride you can practise on kieran

[img]http://www.tungi.co.sh/ladder.jpg[/img]

[Andrew G]

The Dirty CR was a wise choice, a great ride, and a lot of fun .

Grahame, Mike, Bob, Kieran, and myself met up at East Croydon all with some slight concerns about inner-clothes moistness. Being quite a mild day but with the permanent "in a cloud" weather meant we'd all played a bit of clothes roulette as to what to put on under the rain jacket. In the end it was fine and I didn't overheat with a bit of judicious zip management on climbs.

All good fun and on emerging from the woods from one side (Ewoks) at the end of Courtwood Lane we bumped in to my Dad out with the dog coming out the gate behind us. A quick chat and ruffle of the hair, the dog's not my Dad's before we continued on our way. After the slimy clay and flinty soil climb by Markfield we had a nice blast along in the Farleigh area. Grahame did a sly move and nudged me through a big puddle which triggered off a bit of infantile charging along trying to splatter each other with mud and cack from the puddles and general trail slime . At the end we waited, with big sh1t eating grins, for the others. It's fair to say I'd got most of the mud splatter but in my defence I am closer to the ground .

We finished the ride dropping down to Coney Hall where we called it a day. Thanks to Grahame for the tea and cake offer but it was decided it was better to get home and shower than stop and risk getting cold before having to start off again. Bob and I headed back for Addington Village and the others through West Wickham.

A very enjoyable morning's ride. I actually remembered the route we did from the winter ride but it was good to have Grahame's navigational support and knowledge, and showing us some new trails nearer the end.

Thanks all.

P.S. we didn't come across any stairs today.