Bit of a ropey day, this one.  As Mr Toast and I were heading Oop North to his cousin’s wedding, we couldn’t get our normal amount of biking in.  However, we couldn’t go a weekend without biking, so we went to the Chase and hired some bikes for a quick pootle around Follow the Dog.

Being a bit of a shortarse, I couldn’t go on a full suspension, or even on a Trek 6 series, so I went around on a Trek 4 series.  It suffered from the usual issues of me riding a bloke’s bike – the saddle was uncomfortable, and the forks practically imovable.  Yet it really wasn’t too bad, and I kind of liked the slightly wider bars.  Mr Toast was a bit disgruntled with his bike, as it wasn’t particularly well set up for a perfectionist like himself.

Well, I came a cropper almost from the start – did the first section fine, went to do the second section…and skidded on the rock at the very start.   I capsized sideways, am now sporting a large painful bruise to my left leg…and landed face first in a bunch of nettles.  Fortunately I didn’t swell up too badly, but it really shook my confidence, which was already a bit ropey for being on a hire bike.  Got back on a more even keel towards the end, but sadly quite a bit of the trail was closed today. 🙁