On the drive over Stu rang me to say he was stuck in traffic and could we hang on for him? We agreed that we'd head out and do a lap of the nearest woods so he could catch us up there. As it was we didn't actually get far due to the large amount of fannying about going on (mostly Why Aye Chris falling off and changing clothes!) before he caught us up! It was definitely going to be a steady one... which was welcome after Thursday night.

As usual we started with some singletrack with me taking the lead and heading for "The Qualifier". I rolled down this and quickly whipped the camera out to get some shots.

Big E once again provided us with some entertainment as he bottled it a bit late and ended up on the floor at the bottom. Luckily I got a photo or two! ;)

He did have another go and cleaned it easily.

Conditions were as perfect as they get: dry but grippy trails and the temperature just right. I had taken the precaution of wearing some trousers that could be zipped down to shorts and I did so. First time in shorts for me this year!

Baz took over the lead and we covered quite a few of our favourite trails and some we hadn't done for a while. The pace remained steady with plenty of stops for the slower riders to catch up. Towards the end of the ride we repeated the new trail I've mentioned several times in this diary. We got a few photos on the little jump that Baz and I fixed up a few weeks ago.

I really enjoyed riding the new bike. I don't feel the need to do much tweaking of setup. However it's always weird for me to ride the woods on full suspension. It seems so easy compared to the hardtail - I almost feel that I'm cheating! :o

If anyone is interested I recorded the afternoons route on my phone? You can click here to download a .GPX file of it. Should open with Tracklogs, Google Earth or any other mapping software...