I went MTB'ing yesterday. I was out with a guy who has just bought
a new MTB and hadn't been offroad before so I thought we'd get the
train to Malton then ride the trails round Castle Howard. In summer
they are not ultra technical (but plenty of fast bit and interesting
singletrack), smooth and fast.
Yesterday, was different. The mud in places was axle deep. In other
places it was axle deep but covered in leaves. In still other places
it was axle deep but managed to look firm. You get the idea.
Riding on the flat in 22x28 is a new experience for me! But I did discover
that if you let the bike do it's own thing, keep spinning smoothly and
keep the tyres soft, it's surprising just how much mud you can ride on.
Riding consisted of stretches of intense concentration ("is that bit firmer",
"avoid that rut"😉 puntucated with the fun of "pedal, pedal, mud too deep, argh!"
I manged to avoid falling full length in but my Shimano MTB boots got well and
truely caked!
There were some highlights though - one of the double track descents that's
very straight forward in summer was acutally far more fun - thick drifts of
leaves covered all the mud, so all you could do was keep the speed up, wait
for the squelch, then pedal like a [censored] and try and keep the front end up.
Top fun.
Tea and cakes were consumed in the cafe at Hovingham after 2 1/2 hours riding
and, oh, about 15 miles 🙁 Then a slightly shorter and less muddy way back
to Malton and the train. Great fun all round.
In total we were out for 5 hours (with a 50 min tea stop) and covered about 30
miles tops.
Kit wise, Panracer mud tyres are excellent. They clagged, but not as badly as
anything else I've seen, and manged to provide traction under some extreme
circumstances.
My Giant Trance coped much better than I expected as well. Mud build up was
actually much less than on my friends hard trail Marin, and the shock was
kept clean by the seat tube. The rear pivot did get covered, as did the front
mech, but I was still impressed.
Arthur
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Arthur Clune