Holmbury and Pitch Hill 27th February 2014

A joint venture ride tonight with the first meeting of the Buxton / Vinci and SELOC groups.

Still a bit thin on the ground with only:

Steve (Buxton)

Piers (SELOC)

Mark (Buxton and SELOC)

Once Piers and Steve had finally found the car park, both having done a tour of the surrounding area, we geared up and set off on the planned route.

Against my own better judgment I chose a route that included some bits of Holmbury that I had never ridden before. This meant quite frequent stops to check the 'My Trails' app on my phone. This worked fine and we managed to find and ride 'I Should Coco', which was very good in places. Surprisingly no one fell off on the very deep step in the trail which took us by surprise, it wouldn't have been a problem if we had been going faster, but a new trail, darkness and slippery conditions were keeping the speeds down at the time.

After a climb back up to the reservoir, we headed over the road to Barry Knows Best, at this point Steve mentions that he thinks he has forgotten to lock his car and are we able to divert back past the car park. With insufficient thought I suggest we do this after Barry Knows Best, which meant a push up one of the steepest and longest hills I have ever had the misfortune to walk up.

Steve had the good grace to confirm that the car had been left unlocked and the climb hadn't been in vain (not sure if he was just saying that to prevent a lynching).

We then headed off to do Barry Knows Best again, so we were at least rewarded for the climb.

With my faffing about checking the route and the diversion back to the car park, I decided that we probably wouldn't be able to take in all the trails planned on Pitch Hill, so just went for Church Run, which was good fun.

A road slog back to the car park took us to about 9pm, so we bailed at this point, only just over 8 miles.

The question I know everyone wants answered is, did Steve fall off? Well you'll need to watch the video, but you won't be disappointed.

It looks like there are plenty more trails to explore in the surrounding area, so we should be able to keep the Surrey Hills rides fresh and varied in the future. Looks like I need to make the most of it before the rides get dragged back into Kent when the majority start riding again.

140227 holmbury and pitch hill.mp4 from mark holttum on Vimeo.