I've tried to be an early bird, I really have. Set the alarm for 6am, and feel the benefit of riding without the hassle of walkers, cars and general hubbub as well as gaining the smug feeling of 'not missing the best part of the day'. But I just can't do it, never have. I'm just far more partial to stay up late, keeping going, getting the job done...
And with lateness brings darkness, and at around 8pm at this time of year you'd have to start thinking about the last runs of the day especially if in the woods, over-covered with trees.
But evidently this doesn't have to be the case and for a while now, talk of night-riding and even some of the perks of doing things this way have started drifting around the forums. Videos and photo sessions emerged and have been nicely collated by Goofy Mark (who has been doing this sort of thing for a while now) in the recent Remolition article entitled
Night Rider.
He makes some great pointers for the people wishing to give it a go and furthermore alludes to a relationship between adrenalin rush, speed, and reaction times; that is to say that a slower speed combined with the need for faster reaction times can be just as exhilarating. This makes sense, as I certainly don't go as quick in the woods as on the golf course, but my heart will certainly be beating harder in the woods. However, what if you were to go just as fast in the night time?.......
I had to give this a go, but where?
How did we survive without technology? Roger S on Facebook wrote:
"Night riding at Wendover Woods, Friday 6pm.
You want it, you need it, you love it!"
Hell, yeah! Plus, with a works conference finishing at 4pm at a location only an hours drive away, there was no excuse not to.
Having known Wendover from a previous life spent on two wheels, I knew there was gold in them hills, and recalled from various Remolition field reports that there was going to be fun to be had. Read about them for yourself
here or
here.
Of course, Friday night rush hour meant that a 1 hour journey turned into a 2 hour journey even on the back roads avoiding Oxford and Aylesbury so arrived dead on 6pm on at the designated meet-up spot to find Rog and Remolitions own Dan aka *WiL* padding up and ready to roll. It looked as though Daz and John of the
Dirt Monkeys were going to be turning up but not for 30 minutes or so, so plenty of time to get warmed up and a couple of runs in.
Rippers Gash. 20 minutes walk up, 1 minute ride down, or in my case, 2 minutes down as I furiously speed-check the steeper top section. Fantastic way to start the evening, and always great to ride these longer routes where you can actually think about what is going on, opposed to a lot of the usual 20 second
over before you know it stuff that I usually have to play with. In summary a nice gravelly single-track of approximately 730 metres in length with leafy banks to play with. And play with it we do. More of this later....
We couldn't return back to the car without a couple of runs on a unknown trail to the right that chews you up and spits you out back onto the main path. As we approached the trail from the top end, I had only Dan's instructions to go on
(that I instantly forgot) only remembering that there was a sharp right hander at the bottom. As I didn't know where the bottom was, I had kept going straight into a patch of nettles. That'll teach me to ride with exposed arms and legs, though like most times that this happens, I don't really feel it at the time, only when tucked up in bed, trying to sleep. Anyway, we try again, and once again I take the top section far too slowly and get caught up in some tree roots. Avoided the nettles though this time round so all good.
No time to mess around as its back to the car for cups of tea, beans, and lemonade. Daz and John turn up, introductions are made and an astonishing amount of photography equipment emerges from the boot. The light starts to fade and so the various torches are mounted and the subject of car-park jazz is discussed - not in the way I traditionally understood
jazz to be but instruments and improvisation certainly were a feature.
Back up the hill we go, half way up
Rippers Gash, branching right along a similar trail just as night falls. After a couple of hundred metres or so in a patch of darkness almost identical to all the other patches of darkness that we have passed, Roger stops to tell us we are here, at
The Gulley Run.
Was it a natural feature? Was it built by early Roman snowboarders? I couldn't be absolutely sure, but imagine a 20 metre curved path that drops in to an approximately 4 metre wide/1-2 metre high halfpipe that descends down into the darkness, far beyond that of the light thrown by my small head torch. Daz and John set-up at the drop-in whilst for for about an hour we rode as best we could, Dan and Rog riding in close succession.
Three things quickly became clear:
1) Night riding is very definitely do-able. With a reasonable sense of where the trail should be going, a torch of some sort is enough to provide enough information to ride. Granted, a small LED torch may not be enough to pick out that stray rock or log until too late, but hey, I'd have probably hit it during the daytime too.
2) Arrrrrggggghhhhhh - Purple Spot! Flash photography whilst night riding is a shock that can only be anticipated to a certain degree. Scary to lose all vision for a second or so, but fun. But definitely scary. The photos are more than worth it though.
3) The biggest problem with
The Gulley? Getting enough speed into
The Gulley was tough without an element of tick-tacking on the in-track and this was with a pretty dry couple of days. However, this is an ace trail that like
Rippers Gash I'd be keen to hit again, day or night.
How fast were we going? I don't know. How close was I to stacking each time? Absolutely no idea.
We sit down for a bit and Dan keeps us all sustained with handfuls of Maltesers. Yum yum yum! John pulls out a large handful of glow sticks and we all get very excited sticking them to the side of the boards, on the trucks, in the hubs until all three decks are all fully pimped. We are awesome!
Bit more riding before deciding to call it quits here and return to the
Gash.... Daz and John once again set up adjacent to a pair of leafy banks whilst once again we trudge up the hill. Once again, a feeling of speed but with far less visual indicators to confirm this to my brain. Feeling a small gully cross the path about half way down that in the daylight I was so keen to avoid. Picking out small dots of light in the distance that indicated where the (probably expensive) flash units were situated. Passing through the bright flashes that inhibited vision for that brief moment before making that ever complex decision of how long to continue enjoying the ride versus how long it would take to walk back up.
You're probably wondering why I'm having to describe all of the night time activities. No worries, with any luck a Dirt Monkey gallery of events will be on-line soon and you won't have to imagine any more.
In the end, I think I lasted until around 10:30 pm before calling quits, my 4 hours sleep the night before catching up with me. I had however forgotten just how far up we were and hit it at full pelt thinking to myself 'must be almost there.....another corner? Ace!' resulting in a huge grin on my face for the relatively short walk back to the car.
As I understand it, the rest of the gang stayed until gone midnight sessioning the same location, determined to get the right shot. I've been told that it shows in the fantastic photographs produced. Keep an eye out on a Remolition article coming soon - you should think
Neon Noodles but in the woods.
In conclusion, Friday night easily became one of my most memorable session of the year combining a beautiful location, excellent mountainboard trails, fantastic company and night riding - an experience that I found 100% positive though one that was almost dreamy and surreal, almost as if it was real, but not quite.
I urge you to give it a go, I suspect that you might like it.
All runs can be located via Rogers' most excellent
Mountainboard Ride Guide
Photos courtesy of Dan aka WiL @ Decreate
