Nightright

Tuesday night I went out for a quick spin with Si, had been commuting on road but had such a monster headwind monday and tuesday afternoon my legs were already battered. Met up at moss bank and headed up, golf course, holdens farm, 2 lads. Dropped down 2 lads, nice, wildeswood, even nicer. Decided for a change to go straight up the hill passed higher knoll farm, not tried this in yonks (school climb? commonwealth climb? can't remember what everyone else calls it), was quite dry so wasn't as bad as I thought, bet it's a bugger when wet, proper steep near the top. Up the rutted droppy climb to the pike, didn't clean that, something to work on in future. Down the steps, not done them for ages either, Si flatted on the corners just after but soon sorted that and on to ICR. On the section after the tarmac drop I could hear Si right up behind me so I started pushing it a bit, then I came to my senses, "chill Dave, you're on a hardtail stop trying to outrun him". Lots of rocks kicked up, knocked a chunk out of my crank - lucky it wasn't the frame, Si said quite a few rocks were getting flicked at him from my rear wheel - oops. Back up the hill and over to san marino. light was starting to fade but made it down pretty quick, calves were wreckin by the end, the last few little drops at the bottom jarred my legs as they started to seize up, ouch. Had to dig out our joystick backup lights for going through the quarry - sketchy, will need to bring proper lights next week I reckon. Climb up horrocks fold, drop through smithills, it was proper dark under the trees, ah tunnel vision nightriding, forgotten what it was like. Another good'un, no drama's, no mechanicals (Si's puncture apart), no bad conditions, just nice trails. Kebab on the way home - it's what emergency £5ers are for - mmm :-)