Afan Saturday morning

Trail; Glyncorrwg Ponds, White's Level

This was the first ride of the wkend where we were present and a mighty train of knobblies we made too. For those that hadn't joined us on Friday, the initial 6km slog up the side of the valley was an hell of an introduction. The singletrack climb is steady and has plenty of rocky interest to keep you mind off your aching legs and pumping lungs. Once the posse had eased a little roadie-esque air from their boots traction was restored and everyone steadily winched their way topside.

At the top, a new Black section has been added which starts with a handful of high banked berms which were fun. You then race down some double track before darting off over a good length of pleasantly wide northshore woodwork. This had plenty of bends and drops to keep you focused.
Then the trail turned rocky with a series of ups and downs one of which has almost every rider stop before deciding to ride or walk down. For the brave few the speed was welcomed into another batch of high berms and it was on the last tight and high sucker that Dozer questioned his line choice a little too late and toppled over on the tighter line. He bravely rode on and seemed to be able to ride all but the larger drops with his sore shoulder. After another section we then noticed the tops of his shoulders weren't equal and would have gotten him off the mountain had we not been at the furthest part from anywhere :rolleyes He soldered on and Rob whiz'd him to A&E where the x-ray showed that he'd separated his shoulder :O Effectively his shoulder had dropped leaving a single bone up high, yikes. His riding was over for the wkend :( but I'm relieved that he didn't appear to be suffering too much pain whilst his arm was in a sling.

The rest of the ride was pretty much all downhill over the typical Afan terrain that everyone was now getting used to.

Posse; Brumster (Liquid), Chris (Inbred), Darren (Cannondale), DDave (Cameleon), Dozer (Endozer), Drude (XTC), Farqui (5Spot), Jenni (Cotic Soul), Les (Hardrock), Rob (Flux), Roger (FSR), Sicknote (Hardrock), Mark (XTC), Uphilla (5Spot)
Route; Tracklog
Weather; Warm, sunny spells
Mechanicals; Chris' non-driveside crank bolt came out which Les somehow spotted on the trail. Unfortunetely, Chris reassembled his ISIS cranks out of alignment and couldn't get 'em apart again, doh. He was forced to retreat down the initial climb and use an extrator before whiz'g around after us. Uphilla suffered mis-shifts throughout the ride. A few punctures ?
Inuries; Dozer separated his shoulder and although he bravely rode to the end of this trail, his riding for the wkend was over, boo.