Welcome back burk

Busy weekend of boozing meant no riding but did see some good TDF action, how good was Cav's win on friday? Peleton chasing right until the end and then Cav shot passed roche and sanchez :-) Anyway monday was booked for Burks first ride of the year, (mixture of bad weather and him working all hours) drove to the peaks again parked at the bottom of rushup and started along the road then went down cold side then back up to hollins cross. I was riding the etsx and figured 1 the front tyre was shot and 2 the spindly rear airotor was not upto the job, definitely less power than usual. Up to mam nick and passed oxlow house over to do dirtlow rake again (sketchy but not bad), and pindale again (nightmare). I was on the hemlock last week, did it fast and comfortably, this time on the etsx was scary, slow, getting bounced everywhere, not good at all. Dunno if it was less travel or geometry to blame. We headed over to brough and climbed brough lane to do bradwell edge. Started well but as we got into the trees it just turned to slop, deep thick mud, horrible, note for future, check condition with locals before doing this again. As we got to the steeper bit near the end it dried up and was OK, so not terrible but a bit of a let down. Back through the cement works over to castleton and up the broken road, Buirk was rapidly tiring so no messing on the drops, back up to mam nick and rushup edge climb. Climb was OK but at a gate stop I noticed my rear suspension was in the 4" travel mode, no idea when that had happened but that might explain my downhill woes, less suspension and steeper head angles so I was right on both counts, soon fixed that. We finally got to the descent (why do the walkers get a nice stone bedded route across the top but bikers get a boggy mess?) Got to the first gate where I admonished burk for (accidentally) straying onto the chicken run. He claimed it was quicker anyway, I raised my eyebrows, "faster is it?" game on! I took the sunken road he took the chicken line, I hammered the pedals bouncing over rocks trying to keep the power on (bike handling much better now), I could see burk to the side overtaking then dropping back due to obstructions on his narrow path. Getting close to the bottom it looked like burk was going to win it but right at the bottom there were cows on his line and I sneaked passed. Got to the bottom both of us blowing and laughing like loons, brilliant fun.