Road and trail, where do I stand?

There are about 3 or 4 topics I want to write about. However they are longer posts and deserve more reading and editing.

Currently I am sat in a plush hotel suite about to turn 30. I have started writing in a diary and have also begun a physical bike log.

Both of these new editions I will talk about in another blog post however for now the point is, as I sip my second glass of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin champagne, I need to get something off my chest.

I love cycling.

There phew I feel better.

However I do not care what form of cycling I am doing.

Lately as you know I have purchased and been riding a little BMX. So much fun, so much pain to fall off.

I also have been hitting the trails hard.

I have given up on Strava.

All of this should point to my total movement away from roads and to the dirt. I love being out in woods, thrashing about on trails and exploring the landscape.

Except.

I never feel 100% comfortable.

I love it, but in the way you love someone who is bad for you. The way you love someone who you know, deep down, is going to hurt you.

Today I did a blast on the road bike. I planned it last night, I worked out the route and I was only out for 42 minutes.

It was literally a short ride.

However it just felt like home.

I talk a lot about the feel of things with my bike mates. We talk about how roadies tend to feel more serious and anal about things. How mountain bikers seem to be more chilled out.

Yet I feel I straddle both camps. I love the chilled out carefree nature of a mountain bike ride. However I just don't feel I really one hundred percent belong there.

Yet I am not a weight weeny, time trialing, uber serious, power output roadie.

Although I think I could be if I let myself go for it.

I think the truth of what I am might be in the middle somewhere. I think my light carbon road bike may have been a bike that maybe I should not have gotten.

I think I should have purchased a tourer with paniers and I should be built for comfort.

The journey is more important maybe?

Or perhaps I should get a cyclocross bike and go for the halfway house?

Most likely I maybe should stop worrying.

I shouldn't care about what I am or where I best fit.

Maybe I should continue to just enjoy being on my bike. To keep getting fitter, stronger and better.

Oh and to keep finding new routes to enjoy/endure.

Technology makes you lazy. Or extreme. Or something?

There is an interesting discussion ongoing on the STW forum with regard full suspension bikes making you lazy. Now I do not own a full sus however I have hired one before, and to be honest I loved it. However I can appreciate why the use of a full sus regularly might diminish some skills.

That is to be expected, the same as having suspension at all makes you less in touch with the ground in front of you having the full suspension means that your appreciation of the roll of the land is lessened as the shocks smooth everything out. However it is the same as saying that hydraulic brakes mean that you are spoilt by being able to hit steeper descents.

Actually I am sure someone on that forum thread has made that point, as technology moves forward we don't get lazier in fact we go after more and more difficult terrain. Surely that is progress?

Always riding on the edge, like the Reverend and the Makers lyric goes - if you're not living on the edge you're take up too much room. That is why we do this isn't it?

Well yes and no, sometimes you have to go back to basics. Slow down, take it steady and really think about how you are handling your bike.

A few weeks ago I went out on my BMX to try and hone some lacking skills by riding on smaller wheels, with weaker brakes and almost no grip in the tyres.

In trying to push it too much I crashed in a spectacular manner. However having sort of fixed the brake - electrical taped the cable to the handle bars - I set out with a one brake machine in order to do some laps around Cuckoo Woods.

The first thing to note is that one brake is probably more than enough on a bike with tiny wheels, while it gets up to speed pretty quickly it does shed speed quite fast as well. That said the brake was of little to no use and mostly caused the rear wheel to skid about, fun for quickly changing direction but rubbish for stopping. Or indeed for stability!

Although I think that has more to do with the bald tires than the brake.

Now small tires do tend to catch on everything in sight, which means small sticks, ruts and logs that would be gobbled up be the hardtail suddenly become a challenging obstacle. Any incline in the route has to be hit at speed otherwise you can't climb up it without spinning wheels.

Added to that the fact that sitting down is almost a no-no (too unstable when you're 6'2) and you end up with both an excellent physical work out (seriously I was constantly out of breath and with sore legs) but also a full on mental one. I felt more aware of having to pick lines much earlier than usual and I spent a lot of time walking trails and deciding where I would brake and pedal and how I would take corners - even considering where I should shift weight and when. This was exacerbated by the fact that in a lot of cases I had to walk the bike back up slopes to the start of my routes.

This was totally new to me, normally I am very much a grip it and rip it type of rider - and I must admit I quite enjoyed the cerebral side of thinking long and hard about where and how I would ride the trails. It also allowed me a chance to practice some of the lines I saw on yesterdays ride. In fact for most of the trails I have ever ridden the only time I know what is coming up is by riding it, not walking it and thinking about it.

Now I am not claiming I rode any of this at any great speed - if felt it though - but as said above it was a great work out and also had me giggling and laughing throughout the ride.

Again I did not Strava the ride although I did take a lot of photos. 

Coppicing has been extreme!

Lots of small flowers out and about.

I do love exploring a new trail.

Sometimes one brake is as useful as no brakes.

Am I suddenly a better rider? 

Well no probably not. 

Do I have a better appreciation of some skills? 

Yes I probably do. However like all sports this is about practice, practice and more practice.

Which gives me a good excuse to go back out and explore and play about. 

Not that I need one really.

For the record I managed to spend nearly 2 and a half hours out today just running laps around the wood. 

And it isn't all THAT big!

It is awesome though!

Hunting the Medway Megaliths

Following on from the idea of going and exploring today I set out to find the Medway Megaliths. These are a series of Neolithic stones that are in the general vicinity of the River Medway. Hunting for stones that don't move is a bit of a misnomer however I didn't take a map with me so had to rely on memory...

The stones are roughly split into two main groups those the other side of the river and those on my side. Unfortunately the Coldrum Stones, which seem to be the better preserved stones, are the wrong side of the river for me to find today. So I set out to find Kit's Coty House, The Countess Stones and The White Horse Stone. 

I  started as I always do with a quick blast around Cuckoo Wood, again I took a slight detour and found more singletrack with good potential - I am seriously finding that wood to be a wood that keeps on giving.

I also found lots of wild snowdrops which meant it was time to photograph the P7. This was to be the only reason I took my GoPro out today, and I must admit it was a bit tricky to not try filming some (bad) runs at times.

This would become a bit of a recurring theme during this ride, however being freed up from the constraints of Strava and in no particular rush to get anywhere meant that I could spend my time photographing everything in sight.

Once I had finishing bobbing about Cuckoo I started the climb up to Bluebell hill. This time I did not initially climb up to the top of the hill instead dropping off halfway in order to find Kit's Coty House.

Found it!

A running theme.

Trying a different perspective.

Shame the view wasn't great behind the Coty.

The back of the Coty.

You can just make out some 100 year old graffiti.

Making the most of the GoPro's fisheye lens!

Apart from having to spin the wheels up a hill for 10 minutes Kit's Coty House was nice and easy to find - just required walking the bike down a steep flight of steps to get down to the bridleway. 

However my attempts to find the Countess Stones came to naught. Basically I took a wrong turning, ended up in a private field and panicked. Not something I would recommend. Having looked at the map and worked out where in relation to Kit's Coty House I should have gone I feel confident that I can find the next Megalith next time I head out (see always a silver lining). 

Feeling slightly frustrated at not being able to find the Countess Stones and not wanting to go to the White Horse Stone just yet I took a bit of a detour to something I knew the location of. This is not a Megalith but a Bronze Age Burial Mound (barrow). 

The first step to the burial mound was a panicky ride off private land and back to something resembling a public right of way. Fortunately I found a road and quickly a track way I recognized from ultra marathon training runs a year ago (time flies!). I then pointed the P7 upwards and slogged up to the top of Bluebell Hill (again). 

From the picnic site on Bluebell Hill I followed the trail down past Wouldham Common and towards Shoulder of Mutton Wood.

Here I found the barrow and repeated the trend of photographing the P7 in all its glory.

P7 standing proud/propped up by a well placed tree stump.

Odd to think no one knows who was buried here or why.

Always cool finding trails and history on your doorstep.

On the way back up to Bluebell hill I stopped for a much needed banana break having been out and about for the best part of two hours by now.

Happy because I have eaten.

Looking good.

In the summer this is a spectacular view of the Medway valley, honest!

I then hammered my way up and over Bluebell hill. Then I tried to be clever and wind my way down the hill via a woodland, however the woodland ran away from where I needed to be and it was muddy.

Like the Somme muddy. That thick, sticky, strength sapping mud. 

So I retraced my steps swallowed some pride and rolled the bike down a road until I reached the cross roads with Pilgrims Way. 

When I used to do a lot of trail running I ran along Pilgrims Way in order to get up to the top of the Downs. I have no idea how I haven never spotted the White Horse Stone before. It is ridiculously easy to spot from the main track. The shame is this has meant that people have drawn on it quite a bit and it does not look as impressive as it should do. Bare in mind this is a Neolithic stone (4,000-2,500 BCE!), possibly a marker for something much bigger which has since been lost - like the nearby Smythe's Megalith which was in a field that I have run along many times (who knew?).

Modern world (ish) meats Neolithic.

How I never spotted this giant stone before is a mystery to me as much as why this stone is here in the first place.

With the final megalith found and the rain beginning to fall I decided to end my Megalith adventure and head home for a hot shower and a cuppa. 

I will head back out and try to find some of the other stones that I haven't managed to see or have missed. There is also lots of castle ruins etc to try and find and explore.

All part of having an adventure on the bike and not just falling off down hill or trying to go as fast as possible on roads.

So far its a change that is most agreeable.