Sherwood Pines Mudbath

A group of four of us rode the trails at Sherwood Pines in Nottinghamshire yesterday. The temperature was mild for this time of year (9-10 degrees c) but it had been raining all week, so it was extremely muddy. Here's what my MTB looked like afterwards:

It was great fun, but the sucking of the mud made it so much harder than usual that I was exhausted by the end. The character of the course changes a lot when it's wet. Even on the harder and less muddy parts of the trail your speed is affected, as there are lots of puddles that could have tree roots at the bottom, so you can't safely splash through them.

Annoyingly we had to stop after the first quarter of the course to get one of the hire bikes changed, as it had bad brakes, gears and wheels. Another Sherwood Pines Cycles classic. The hire bikes are cheap, but we've had so many problems over the years that it's hard to avoid the conclusion that you get what you pay for!

Some more pics from the day:

Sherwood Pines: The Revenge

Made it back to Sherwood.

Two laps with neither illness nor injury this time. My legs felt very fatigued towards the end, but I felt pretty good.

Managed a complete lap almost without stopping as well:

Bad year for trail riding

About a year ago I was riding The Kitchener Trail at Sherwood Pines and had an unlucky fall onto my elbow, which broke on impact. A couple of hours later I was having this swanky accessory fitted to hold the tip of my olecranon onto the rest of the bone:

This put me out of commission entirely for six weeks and prevented me from riding the trails again for months afterwards; though this was partly because I felt strong enough to go out around January time and the weather was hideous for months after! I have been to Sherwood since and suffered no accidents.