Westoning Easter Sunday

Rising early on a Sunday (not something I often do) found me spannerin' my steed before I'd barely put down my empty bowl of gruel. I'd recently experienced a really annoying creak and didn't want to endure it any longer. The cassette was firmly nipped up and on my last ride I thought I'd traced the noisy blighter to the bottom bracket. As it's Hollowtech II it's a doddle to strip down so out came the tools and before you knew it my steed was in pieces, although it did need a few satisfying belts with my rubber mallet. Once apart it was clear that the non drive side bearing felt notchy so it was popped apart again, cleaned, lubed and reassembled in a jiffy.

The Westoning crew were all ready at the allotted time so today's blat was soon under way under a very pleasant clear and surprisingly warm sky. Even more satisfying was the silence of my partly serviced bb, phew the rushed fixed seemed to be working nicely.

Dozer's route for the morning had us crankin' plenty of ascents and descents over a mixture of gradients and surfaces. The speed of the hard trails made for speedy progress and it wasn't long before we cracked into double figures.

The steep climb out of Lilley up the Baulk saw most of us baulk and resort to pushing but Dozer managed to crank his way steadily to the summit. At least Darren had an excuse for his pedestrian ascent, his rig was fixed in the middle ring without a front dérailleur. The DH at "the springs" was as fun as ever and their regular "steep down" found me on an usual line but my oh my it was fast :D

The trail had me following routes I've only previously ridden the other way around, so riding them backwards made a pleasant change. The open cross country trails these boys crank make a pleasant change to my enclosed woodland hacks and the scenery was great in the warm sunshine. We weren't the only MTB'ers out enjoying the fine weather, horses were also out in numbers around Lilley.

Thanks for the route fella's, I'll get a hack around Woburn arranged before too long.

I think we can now say that summer is here.

Trail; 26 miles, 2,250ft ascending
Posse; Darren (Inbred), Dozer (Endozer), Farqui (5Spot), Sicknote (Hardrock)
Weather; Clear blue skies, sunshine, 19c
Mechanicals; none