My Commencal Furious had been gathering dust in the back of the shed since we came back from Morzine last August. A crime really! So as we have now booked this year's holiday in Whistler :) I decided it was time to get back into some gravity assisted riding. The Stile Cop area of Cannock Chase is ideal for all levels of rider, whatever the weather so was ideal for getting my eye back in. A plan was hatched and I picked up my two teenage nephews on the way before meeting Stu and Shakey at our chosen venue.

What a difference a week makes! It was over ten degrees warmer for this weeks night ride compared to the last. The warm westerlies that caused this change had also been bringing in plenty of rain all week so I was expecting a damper and much more muddy ride than recently. I wasn't dissappointed.

Twelve people were out for this week's foray into the Nottinghamshire woods. The Saturday ride is always a bit more "social" than others with room for more mixed abilities. "Why aye" Chris was well off the pace of everyone else from the off this week. He hasn't been out much for ages and still has the worry from a nasty shoulder injury which has him wearing body armour even for steady XC like this. As we kept stopping to re-group it gave me chance to whip the camera out now and then to try to get a few shots.

Attending the weekly Thursday night nide always takes a bit of of "being organised" on my part. This time I had to make sure I got to Halfords two nights before hand to buy a new Slime tube to sort the puncture that I got at the end of the last ride. Having swapped the tube and got away with a fork stanchion wipe, chain clean and lube as the rest of the necessary maintenance my only other task was to stick my battery on charge. The next night was packing a bag with my cycling gear (not forgetting the charged battery!) so that everything was ready to stick in the car the next morning before work.