The route forestiere VTT attempt MKII

If you have been paying attention, you will remember that Pat, Kevin and I had a bit of an epic on our mountain bikes at the end of October (27th, to be precise), thanks to Pat incorrectly noting down the route description. Well, as the day dawned crisp, cold but perfectly clear and calm again today, Andy and I decided to have a bash at the 'proper' route, a 38km ride, initially along a single track road but then heading off onto the forest tracks up onto the hillside. This time, I had programmed my GPS with the route in order to lessen the possibilities of a mistake that could be costly both in terms of time out on the hill in the cold (and by 'eck, there were some really cold spots) but also in terms of energy expenditure, neither of which we could afford. This was also to be my first outing on the mountain bike using my new SPD pedals (I had been using baskets before but they were becoming a pain). So I was quite excited as we set off.

The first section, along the road was as I had remembered from the previous excursion.... good riding for 18km on good single track tarmac where we didn't meet a single car! Everything was working great and my Spds were a dream. We then headed off onto the forest track and the ascent started. By the time we had covered just under 4.5km on the forest track, we had already climbed 300m (without stopping!). We found a lovely sunny spot and had a sandwich which would replace some of the energy that we had expended. The woodland spread out before us in all it's autumnal glory. Quite, quite beautiful.

We only went wrong once, when we went a kilometer off down the wrong forest track due to ambiguous instructions in the guidebook. But fortunately, the GPS showed us where we had gone wrong and we were able to rapidly retrace out steps.

We were expecting an end to the ascent at some point, but it just kept on coming. We would encounter enticing sections of downhill, only to be subjected to yet more ascent round the corner. Surely it had to end soon? The profile that I downloaded from the GPS when we got home shows what we were actually up against. The lowest point is where we started out onto the route forestiere (click the image to enlarge).

With about 5km to go and faced with yet another ascent, I have to admit that we got off the bikes and walked for 50m or so. This isn't what we had been expecting. After 3 and a half hours, we finally arrived back at the car with toes that were numb from the cold and craving a nice pint of tea. Here is a summary of our exertions!

We enjoyed a lovely beefy stew (made 2 days ago) with roasted squash for tea this evening. Very yummy and much needed it was too! I think we may even have earned one of Gils' delicious Sunday patisseries tomorrow!