Fanylion Mountain Bike Team
Official site of the Fanylion Mountain Bike Team. Includes mountain bike ride guides, gear reviews, bike maintenance, team reports and rider profiles of the Fanylion Racing Team.
Petersfield
August 10, 2002, South Downs
Doom and Gloom, Fire and Brimstone, Has Hell Frozen Over? A sad weekend, and possibly Team FanyLion’s first failed outing? Read on...
Team Shack and I drove down to Anthony’s house on Friday evening, arriving at 11pm, Team Starkey having arrived earlier in the evening. A couple of quick beers and straight to bed, ready for a good early start in the morning.
Saturday morning, and my sleep had been intermittently disturbed by monsoon-like conditions outside. The new day showed no change, and it looked like we were going to get very, very wet. Team Murray was getting a train down from London to Petersfield, and was under orders to arrive as near to 9am as he could to give us a good start. Colin was having none of this however, and was keen to spend as long as possible in his stinking pit, choosing to get a train that arrived at 10 (so he said: the train eventually arrived nearer to 10:20).
After collecting Team Murray from the station we eventually arrived at the Queen Elizabeth Country Park, the start of the ride, at about 10:40. By the time we had unpacked the bikes and got changed it was 11 o’clock, and we were starting the ride an hour and a half late, no thanks to Team Murray.
The planned route appeared in Mountainbike World about 2 years ago, and was supposedly 47miles long, due to take 5-7 hrs. I reckoned it could take us nearer 8-9 hrs as we would have to keep on stopping to check the map in order to follow the route. Our delayed start was far from ideal as we were now potentially not going to finish the ride until 8.30pm!! I needn’t have worried however…
By now the rain had stopped, and the odd patch of blue sky could be seen peeking out from behind the clouds. It was still fairly cool, but probably ideal biking conditions, if a little wet underfoot/undertyre. The first fire road climb out of the park was a good way to open up the lungs and get a sweat on. We were soon all ripping off layers as the sun came out and it looked like being a nice day. Colin’s new Specialized Hardrock was looking good (though riding sketchily on slick tyres), and new Team member Anthony was looking fit and fast, leaving Team Starkey in his usual position, protecting the rear of the group from attack by marauding Japanese snipers.
The fire road then dropped away for a quick blast down towards the village of Buriton, and as we neared the village, a singletrack route on rough rocks fell steeply beneath us, and we shot down at great speed, beneath a railway bridge and out into the village, all grinning and assured the ride would be good fun and a total success. How wrong could we be?
The next section of the ride was on tarmac, and we plodded along on narrow winding country lanes for about 6 miles, heading for the woods past the A272. As we entered the woods we were greeted by trails composed of sand (very bizarre), and the recent heavy rain had transformed the track a into horrible, wet, sludgy quagmire. We fought our way through and into the woods, though our chains and gears were grinding and graunching horribly due to full scale grit influx.
When we appeared from the woods it became apparent we had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and we had to take a road diversion to get back on track. This happened a couple of times on the ride, and at one point we completely missed out a long off road section, due to missed turns. Maps just aren’t large scale enough to see every little detail. Very frustrating.
After having a very pleasant lunch stop in a field, we set off again, long tarmac sections interspersed with unchallenging farm tracks and muddy, gloopy lanes through woods. Not very rewarding mountainbiking, though the weather was now fine, warm and sunny and it was pleasant enough simply being outdoors in the fresh air.
Then disaster struck. This would be the turning point of the ride. After a fast section through the trees we took a sharp left turn up a narrow track, except Anthony at the back missed the turn. Mental Retard Sheldon didn’t think to shout as Anthony zipped past, and Anthony was gone. As he rounded each new corner without seeing the rest of us ahead, Anthony sped up faster and faster, thinking we were just ahead around the next bend. By the time he realised we had turned off somewhere, Ant was a couple of miles away and with no idea where we were.
Anthony rang on his mobile phone and we tried to describe where we were, but he couldn’t locate us. Colin went off to find him but came back about 20mins later on his own. We drew sticks and this time Phil lost. He too came back 20mins later on his own.
After wasting almost an hour we all set off to hunt for Anthony and found him about 100 yards down the track!! He had come back and almost found us by himself, but more time had been lost. We now knew we had to crack on and get some miles covered if we were to finish the ride. We had only done 15 miles so far, with 32 to go, and it was almost 2:30pm.
Despite our best efforts, progress was hampered by the need to check the map at every turn, as we were now in amongst a maze of footpaths and bridleways. A quick hack along the Sussex Border Path (a flat muddy farm track, surprise surprise) and we were then back into the woods on a fire road climb, when the biggest bombshell landed: Anthony declared he was knackered, and was going to ride back to Petersfield by road as he was worried he would slow us down. We had covered 20miles, and the ride was effectively over.
The Team made a decision to stick together, and we would all ride back together. I decided we should ride back the way we had come, as we would not need to check the map, and it would be more interesting to ride some offroad sections (no matter how muddy and uninteresting) than ride solely on tarmac.
By 5pm we were back at the cars, having ridden 39miles, though most had been on tarmac or crappy farm tracks and flat forest bridleways. Anthony had managed the ride back OK, and had probably not realised how much energy he actually had had left in his legs. Maybe we could have pushed on and completed the ride? We will never know. Looking at the map we had only got about a third of the way around the route, and as the computer said 20 miles I figured the full ride was nearer 60miles than the 47 claimed in the magazine. Maybe we wouldn’t have completed it after all...
Petersfield proved to be OK pub-wise, and after floundering around looking for somewhere to eat we had our Team Issue steak and chips then discovered a busy boozer with young blokes, birds and trendy bottled continental lagers. Nice.
Two pretty girls came in, and as I turned to Sheldon to say “Check these two out”, I looked back at them and Team Shack was already in there talking to them! Shack the Great Throbbing Hormone strikes again. After spinning them a load of bullshit about being in a pro mountainbike team (Team FanyLion) and riding for Great Britain, Phil had obviously impressed the girls. He was blown out straight away. Good lad. Don’t change the habit of a lifetime.
After plenty of ale and Vodka Red Bull I left for bed (wearing shorts and sandals and unlikely to be allowed into a nightclub) as the rest of the Team headed for Vertigo, the local nightclub. Reports are sketchy due to mass alcohol influence but apparently the team raved like kids, drank too much, had a shout out by the DJ for the “FanyLion Pro Mountainbike Team”, and then they all staggered to bed.
Sunday arrived far too early, and after a shower and great cooked breakfast, Shack and I set off for the park to wait for the others (who were in a different B&B).
And now the second bombshell was dropped. Colin rang to say he and Anthony were going home. What happened to ‘the Team sticks together’? Either the previous days riding, or an excess of alcohol, or a combination of the two, but Team Murray and Team Showbiz slunk off home and left Phil Sheldon and myself to ride on Sunday, which was quite bizarre and a little annoying. You see, the whole reason for this weekends riding in the South Downs was to give southern team members a chance to ride without spending hours on the train or driving up to Wales, the Lakes, or wherever. In the end, Dean, Sam and Alister didn’t come on the ride, and Colin and Anthony left early. So Phil, Sheldon and I had driven 280 miles to ride crappy southern shandy trails together. As we all live an hour away from each other, this was particularly frustrating: we don’t need to spend 5hrs driving to find good trails to ride on together!
Sheldon was not keen to spend another day riding mud and tarmac and wasting time map reading, so we rode the way-marked trails in the Forest Park, which were actually quite good, if a little short. We were packed up and ready for home by 11:30am, and set off back to Yorkshire, home of big hills, rocky trails and proper beer.
I am sure that if the trails hadn’t been as muddy, and if we had more time we would have got more riding done, and even reached the South Downs hills proper, rather than wasting time in the wet lowland woods. As it was, I felt we had wasted a lot of time and money driving all that way only to be frustrated by a few events that could not have been foreseen. A weekend in the Lakes, or at CYB would have been much more satisfactory.
I am sorry to say this, but don’t expect to see Team FanyLion venturing South again in the near future.
Team Hodgson, Feeling Sad and Dejected, Over & Out.
Riders present
Team Starkey
Team Shack
Team Hodgson
Team Murray
Team Showbiz
Enjoyment level
Variable