Riding a route (or even just a trail) you know well in reverse is a good way of making things different. It can make familiar trails seem like totally new ones. Initially however we were on familiar terrain heading through Asfordby Hill. Choc's head wasn't on it yet and he failed to get out of a bomb hole type of feature first then skirted round a little drop which I did.
We left this play area and headed towards Asfordby Farm and then on to Saxelbye in fairly strong headwinds. Both of us were feeling the hills in our legs. I reckon my long weekend racing last weekend definitely took its toll? At Saxelbye I pedalled up the short, steep bit of singletrack near the railway bridge and got the camera out to get Choc on his way up. He had never cleaned this little climb and once again failed! As there were only the two of us it was time to put this little demon to bed. He had a couple more goes with me offering some advice as well as taking photos. On his third go he cleaned it easy :) Nice one!
Next up we headed for our favourite cheeky downhill. At a road junction on the way I hesitated unexpectedly for a fast approaching car and Choc and I collided. Ooops! No damage done and we went on to the fun trail. At the bottom Choc took my camera to get a picture of me crossing the skinny bridge. I rolled down the slope on to it and was right on the very left hand edge. I daren't pedal or anything until I was across! The photo was a bit blurry so I had another go for the camera; this time picking my line a bit more carefully. However due to the shade of the trees the photo still wasn't brilliant.
The rest of our route meant crossing several field bridleways that I was not expecting to be pleasant on the hardtail. One was particularly bad but the rest were not as bad as I expected. The hooves had obviously been on them in the dry helping to undo the roughness they had caused in the wet.
Back in town we headed to The Welby for a couple of pints. They were on me as Choc hadn't brought any money!! You're in the chair next time mate!