The last ride of the year, the last ride of this blog, the last day of the year!

It used to be a tradition that we did a ride up in The Peak District every New Year's Eve but due to work etc this hasn't happened for a couple of years. This year it fell on a Saturday so I sent round the email and five of us met up at Peak Forest.

Yesterday was time to wear off a few mince pies! Quite a few folk who said they were going to be there tilted at the last minute leaving seven of us to meet up at Birches Valley. The plan was simple: a lap of Follow The Dog and The Monkey Trail.

After The Show Onion's attempt at bringing in change by suggesting a new start venue for this week's night ride was poo-pooed by The Committee we found ourselves meeting up at The Red Lion. It was a kind of weird scene in the car park: a load of scruffy mountain bikers assembling bikes amidst folk in their finest heading for a Xmas meal.

Our Middle East correspondent (who doesn't do too much corresponding!) Jimmy is back from Oman for Xmas and fished out a bike from The Magic Shed to ride with us. It was a mild night for us but still felt cold for him! I guess the muddy gloop was a change to dry sandy conditions too? He hasn't lost it and was late turning up!

It was an icy, cold morning as I met up with a dozen of the lads on Saturday morning for breakfast at The Fox & Hounds. Unfortunately I hadn't been able to make the annual Xmas do the night before so I was feeling better than some sat around the tables waiting for their fry ups.

I was keen to hear tales of the night before and who had taken a trophy home but the hangovers made everyone fairly quiet! Eventually I discovered Baz was "Rider of the year" and had got "The Trophy". Mick had got "crash of the year"; more for persistence and repeated attempts than for serious injury!