Thursday night quite a large gathering of MTB’s at the Cat 23 in total.

Bikes of all shapes and sizes;
* Hardtail
* Full sus
* 29er’s
* 3 x Fat bikes…

We set off at a leisurely pace towards the Clypse track, although the Fat bikes seemed sluggish on the road as soon as they hit the trails they sailed away, tackling the rough muddy track with next to no effort.

After a quick regroup at the start of Honey Hill we moved off, Honey Hill has changed a lot in the last few weeks, the stones have been washed around a lot and made a clear line harder to find, even a few of the more fit riders were dabbing or struggling to get a clean run.

At the top of Honey Hill we suffered a minor casualty with John Nippress turning back, a lack of riding and a lot of Xmas cheer taking its toll, although to give him his due he did turn up to the Saturday trail build.

From here we sped along the road to Conrhenny, where we took in the newest finished sections then had a quick loop round the outer track, then the final descent down the ski run and through the puddle, which was surprisingly dry, although 2 bat bikes had gone through first so that’s where most of the water went!

After briefly shouting encouragement at a passing roadie…. We then hit Baroose, Coops hot on the tail of Lamby with me bringing up a close 3rd until the hedge decided I needed to stop for a moment.

Another brief regroup and we rode the chicken run, a little road section across the top of Baldrine, and then back up through the Egg Man. Obviously not everyone got the memo as we rode straight past the LA pub and up to the Plough track, which seems to get longer every time we use it, plus the farmer had kindly left a lot of slurry and sludge through the yard.

Another road (ho hum) section linked us to Conhrenny Farm where we said Goodbye to the Laxey contingent who needed to get back before the gates closed, leaving the last of the island to head back via Lower Conrhenny Rd, and the Enemona… The final push down the Clypse proved too much for Westys rear tyre but fortunately his pit crew (Molly) were on hand in the car park to do a change, thankfully it wasn’t a fat tyre as we didn’t have a compressor to hand. We said our final Goodbyes in the Cat Car Park before saying Hello to a pint and some biltong…

Bikes, Blood, Bogs and Beer a great night.

Sinbad