Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Had my eye on  tonight's route for a while now.  Running in at approximately 1250 metres in length, it's a gravelly single track used for service vehicles to gain access to one of the very posh golf courses north of Derby.

 

Fortunately, there's a public foot path right that cuts 90 degrees to this track, allowing good access under the cover of darkness to the mid section. Then, with a bit of luck the gate will be left open.  This allows you to take the track up approximately 400 metres till the gradient really rolls off and there's no real gain in going further up.

Riding down, there's a couple of spots where it flattens off a bit but with the 10" Primos on I was able to roll through with a bit of tick-tacking and I reckon with a bit more confidence on the top section, should be able to take the midsection with a bit of speed.

Further down there's a large right-left s-bend; over a speed bump (drainage perhaps?) before the track feels strangely sandy under wheel (?!?), dropping down back towards the golf club car park.  Just as momentum runs out there's another public footpath on the right should the green keepers (who live in the buildings situated half way up the track) be hot on your heels...

Certainly worth a return visit, especially as I can be there in 15 minutes drive, (plus 15 minutes walk), and although not the steepest track, is of decent length.  If I can't be in the Alps, I can ride this in the dark and pretend that I am, even if a stair-lift is out of the question : (

Huge Edit: I wrote the title (the 7 Ps) as I had intended to list 'what went well' and areas that required 'room for improvement', but then promptly forgot, meaning that I've got a night write-up with a completely different title.

So to rectify, What Went Well?

Firstly, the previous recce meant that I had previously walked the track and had removed a couple of the larger rocks.  I also knew the approximate location of a handful of potholes to avoid.

Walking up the route at the start meant that I knew that all the gates were open and that there was very little activity to get in the way.  On some nights the local dogs are known to roam the course.  No signs of this tonight.

Having two torches to hand turned out to be a very good idea when the head torch decided to turn itself off unexpectedly half way down.  New batteries should hopefully sort things out.

Room for Improvement?

Having not ridden the noSno for approximatley a month, I really should have given it a good going over before leaving the house rather than at the top of the hill.  Trying to adjust truck tension, tire pressures and generally tighten the whole thing up with gloves on and by torchlight is not the best idea.  It's only going to get colder as winter draws in and the less hanging around, the better.

I'd love to download the gps trace off the blackberry to google earth to get some nice route overlays.  I would if I could find the right cable.  Why so many usb cables that look similar, but just won't quite fit?  It annoys me as the cable is probably in a 'safe place' : (

The hardest thing about using a mountain board brake is learning not to use it.  Yep, a little less caution next time round will go a long way.

An afterthought is that perhaps a local headcam rental service would be a good idea.  I'm not fussed right now to spend ~£300 on a rugged helmet cam, but the opportunity to have occasional use of one to record tracks like this would be handy...