Every November sees the annual punishment of a group of mates that made Les Gets cool in its glory years.
The Punisher weekend has been running for several years and normally includes starting hungover, and riding in the wind and rain until after dark with no lights. Then we never ride together again for a whole year 'cos it was so rubbish.
This year started with a couple of pints, deteriorated into a lock in and a bar tab of £240 between us. The jokes deteriorated into laughing at rude words. Dave rudely drank less than everyone else and fell asleep.
Then the worlds longest skid competition began on the way home on my nice new UST High Rollers. Cheers.
This year we were staying with Stu - an old instructor of the Legendary Alp Active guides. He has set up the Dales Centre, which is a quality little establishment. Nice cafe, nice shop, nice village, nice pub, great trails. Stu gave us a printed route map and we set off on a 50km loop. Si even pointed out the quality of the beds, tables and bedding and the way the door shut. I hadn't noticed that but good point.
http://www.dalesmountainbiking.co.uk/
The route was epic made more so by the gales, the cold, the fact that the lunch stop village cafe was shut and pub kitchen was shut, and the fact we went the wrong way out of the village. However, the sun shone, we were out all day riding moorland tracks, moon scapes, steep quarry singletracks, getting lost and carrying bikes, falling down banks, over the bars and turning top gear over at full tilt in some sort of wild drunk chaingang down steep fields. It was actually a brilliant day out.
A quality ride, and a quality destination. Well worth a visit and much closer than the Borders Trail Centres.
His slogan is Centre of Trails, Not a trail centre.
The weekend cont'd with a night in York, a 10km Dalby running race and a Scarborough surf for the hard core. I missed it for much less punishment.
