Of course under the cover of the trees in the Nottinghamshire woods it is always a bit warmer so it still wasn't what you'd call "cold". Six of us were riding and after the last couple of weeks of Fun Hoovering it was time for a steady one with yours truly leading.

I picked out all the usual good bits of singletrack and as we were being led by the slowest rider there was no hanging about. We reckon Eddy has a new "folly"! The last few times we have ridden the short steep climb in Burnt Stump he's failed to get up it and this week saw another failure. Obviously the p*ss taking had to be dished and savoured by the rest of us! ;-)

When crossing the old railway at one point everyone except Shakey failed to clean the awkward hop over the rails. Usually everyone just rides it easily. I don't know why there were so many of us with problems? Eddy even went back for another go - that turned out to not a good idea as it resulted in a tooth being knocked off his big ring!

Towards the end of the ride I decided to do the sandy chute down towards Blidworth Bottoms. It's one of my favourites now it's all eroded with little drops to launch off all the way down. Near the bottom of it I tried to put in a couple of pedal strokes and couldn't. I stopped to discover my chain had somehow knotted itself up! I've know idea how it got into the state it did and luckily only one link was mangled. Five minutes with my chain tool and one power link later I was pedalling again.

As it was just about beer time I opted for heading back via the road past the golf course for speed. It was a lot cooler flying along the road compared to the woods but we had pints in our hands a lot faster.