First MTB ride of 2005

Last night it pissed down with rain and hail. This morning it was clear blue skies, sunny and cold. Having hit the hay at 4am, getting up to ride at 10 am seemed like a great idea, so I blasted off into the woods on my mountain bike, cycling through mud, filth and last Autumn's fallen leaves.

Cycling past the barracks made me a bit nervy - the sound of gunfire could be heard as I set out from the house. It could have been an exercise but the red flags were flying, yet luckily no stray NATO rounds whistled across my path from the old brick rifle range.

The birds sang, the kamikaze squirrels were out (there's always at least one) and there were plenty of people down by the Fleet Pond letting their dogs provide more dirt to cycle through. Yeah, that's an unfair, sweeping generalisation but at least my cats bury theirs.

So drifting past the old NGTE was good, sweeping down through the woods to the Basingstoke Canal, along the towpath and up into the north end of Fleet for a pedal through the Velmead Woods and up to Windy Gap to stand by the trig point and look out over the Farnborough Airfield.

Then through Long Valley over sand and rocks to the Rushmoor Arena; probably covered about 12-13 miles and only seen/crossed 4 roads. Still about 5 miles from home but this is the first ride in weeks and it's getting to feel very tiring.

Past the Army Golf Course and finally on to the back of the Airfield and along the A325 to Farnborough to show the townies how much crap the bike's covered in and make them wonder...

Finally get home and I felt totally knackered. It started off as exhileration and ended up as exhaustion. So, a good start to 2005 but a lesson to be learnt - have some breakfast before doing a 20 mile mountain bike ride and definately don't cycle when you've got some stupid virus :D