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So overgrown after the sunshine I had to put my full beams on for a minute!
The route continued mostly downhill on washed out trails until I reached Redbrook where I stopped for a coke and to cool down a bit, the engine fan on my bike blows hot air onto my left inner thigh and really doesn’t help when you’ve got Forcefield top and bottoms on.
Full of sugar I set off and found a problem with the bike, when I changed gear the shifter wouldn’t go back to its original position. I stopped and checked the oil but all was well, it was several mile later I realised the shifter was bent in sticking to the engine casing. Getting back to it and happily the section from Redbrook to Coleford is mostly uphill and was some great fun. I headed up and extremely steep, narrow, rocky section and at the top found two obstacles that I might have turned back from if the way back wasn’t so perilous! The fallen tree made me think I’d come the wrong way:
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Tree
I had to lay the bike on my knee and squat carry the bike under bough. After that I had a break to cool down and checked out the trials log I had to cross. While standing there a farmer showed up and started chainsawing the part of the log that crossed his field. I laid and smaller log each side and checked out the height the log in comparison to the height of the bash plate and it looked totally fine.
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Log
With the chainsaw wielding local as my trials judge I went for it. The front went up and over no worries and then
-BANG- the bash plate smashed into the log. I’d forgotten how much sag the rear has.
“Bloody hell what was that?” Said the farmer to the beached idiot.
“I’m sure it’s fine.” I squeaked with dread in my heart.
I rode up to the next town and sat under a tree expecting to find my lovely carbon fibre farkle to be destroyed and the brackets/frame/engine in tatters. It was fine, well done Catcitrus your bash plate is tough as old boots! From there to Gloucester I don’t think there was any more off road although there was some lovely back roads to blast along. There was a section shown on the GPS but it was so over grown that I think it must be from a previous version as no vehicle had been down it this year. From Gloucester to Bristol was a joyously warm motorway blast and that was job done.
TET Distance 71km, 4 hours
Total distance 174km
What I learnt this time:
When people online tell you a route is easy its best to just use your own judgement.
If you do something unbelievably stupid and embarrassing it doesn’t matter how remote you are someone will see.