A weekend of getting away from it all

Saturday morning comes around and I rode up to Ilam hall near Ashbourne taking 85 min for the DVO club champs. The aim of the game is first across the finish line wins with the fastest off last; Lord only knows why I was last and with a 2 min gap on 2nd to last. I began the race in the knowledge of needing to catch 33 min of the first person who began the course (highly unlikely). The race was going great and i was flying, 3 miles in i hit a hill and felt some sharp twinges in the arch of my foot (not for the first time), sensibly i pulled out where i sore my 3 min and 5 min man so I was running very well. I later cycled back from Ilam quite disappointed and did it 5 min quicker than the way back in the baking heat. On the Plus side I received a little tan!

Sunday morning at 9.30 I meet Steve to go mountain biking somewhere in the Peak District. We arrive in Calver about 10.30 and decide to explore the café whilst waiting for Chris to arrive. Steve and Chris clearly had been in here before and ordered what can only be described as a 'bucket of tea/coffee. We spent about half an hour talking and glancing over routes and maps before deciding to ride a nearby route. We park up and assemble our bikes, Chris suddenly realises he has left his skewer for his front wheel at work in Carsington. He decides to head back their after having just driven from their, meanwhile me and Steve plan to ride for an hour.
So whilst that wally was driving, we were riding and loving it!

We started out slowly just testing our legs and checking the map at every junction. We strayed slightly from the bridleway on a rocky decent at one point and stumbled upon two women on horseback. They shouted us to turn around and head back up to the bridle way, I was not about to argue with a horse. We started climbing again up a rocky single track, when my front wheel jammed down between two rocks and I came close to walking myself over the handlebars. In the process I strained my hamstring and bruised my thigh. Not that i noticed till I reached the top of the hill and the adrenalin wore off. We later sore a heard of grazing highland cows with beautiful ginger coats and massive horns blocking our route, amazingly they didn’t seem phased by us and we went on our way. We ragged our bikes down a steep rocky decent down into Calver, got lost a little and ended up cycling back to the car all along road and boy was it steep it was around 80 mins.
Chris pulled up just after I had finished stuffing my face, what timing! He assembled his awesome Treck fuel ex 8 whilst i stood drooling. We rode around part of mine and Steves previous route and the soon went the wrong way (according to the guide book) but it worked well cutting out a large road section. We then started hitting a few big climbs where I seemed to storm ahead of the others, getting nice rests at the top. However, Chris got bigger rests on the decents as I let out whelps of pain when i kept coming of my flat pedals (I want my cleats back). Roughly 2 hours after starting our ride we were back at the car, beating the rain and I was stuffing my face again with an even bigger grin than before.