Exploring the borders
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With the 2008 XC season winding down, me and (Trek/xcracer.com rider) Nadine have been busy plotting and planning for next years Midlands XC series. Our latest recon. mission took us out to Hopton Woods in the Shropshire Hills on the England / Wales border. Scene of national xc races in the past and popular with downhillers (at one time the downhill national points series was nicknamed the Shropshire Downhill series) we were keen to see what trails were hidden in the trees.
Arriving on a sunny weekday evening the car park was empty, we had the place to ourselves and were free to go play till the place closed at dusk. With some monster fireroad climbs and gnarly descents, the 34t cog was called into action and we may have walked (ahem) some of the crazier lines carved into the hillside by the downhillers - only because we didn’t want to lower our Bontrager carbon seatposts and scratch them, honest…
With the sun setting and clouds approaching, there was time for one more trail that turned out to be the most fun downhill of all the ones we’d sampled. At the bottom it should have simply been a case of follow the fireroad back to the car… Wrong. With the sun hidden behind the trees, we had no idea which direction we were heading. Rapidly running out of daylight, it started to rain. We were now in the middle of a forest, in the middle of nowhere and no idea how to get out! Being a gentleman, I gave Nadine my paclite jacket as the rain become heavier.
Reaching the edge of the forest at dusk, we set about finding a house for some help with directions. With no money, mobile, map or compass in our pockets we were in need of help if we weren’t to freeze to death in the trees. The first cottage we found was empty… the second had lights on. When the old lady eventually answered our knock at the door, she seemed completely blase about the two soaking wet bikers stood on her entrance matt! With instructions memorised we set off into the darkness, the relief of being on a narrow tarmac road tempered by all the water streaming down it and the fact that we had no lights or reflective kit. One of these could have been useful!
By this point it was pitch black and we were completely wet through. Shoes and gloves saturated, helmet pads dripping stored up stale sweat into our eyes. A few miles and another strangers help later, we were on a road we recognised and it pointed uphill. The joy of being able to attack the climb and generate some body heat only matched by the relief of finding our car where we left it and the barriers still open so we could escape!
A quick ride turned into a 4hr epic because of the temptation to ride “one more trail”, and all the better for it.
