Devon TRF Group Forum

Exeter -Dawlish-Teignmouth-Bovey- 3rd January 2014

Well, another year rolls in and having recovered from the New Year Eve's frivolity and stayed above flood waters after 24 hours of torrential rain I had planned a route down to the Teign, up the valley and back home; around 60 odd miles, taking in 30 ish lanes, some new ones for me and some I did when down for a weekend a couple of years ago and that I remembered as very pleasant, not overly taxing lanes with some good views. We set Exeter services as the start point and Paul (Tigerman) on his DRZ sporting a bold rear trials tyre, Bob on his trusty TTR (due a re-bore and rings), Matt over from across the Somerset border in Chard on his CCM 404, Steve our esteemed Chairman on his 250 WR Yam, me on the famous Serow and Nick (Schoe000) on his lovely GasGas Pamp. Given Nick was coming up from the Devon Riviera, we arranged to meet him at Kenton. The lack of frost and clear sky welcomed my bleary eyes and I was on the bike sharpish and supping a hot cup of cappuccino just after 9am in the petrol station. The others arrived in dribs and drabs with Steve pitching up late with some sad arse excuse about his dog running off...... So off we set down across the flooded river Exe valley pushing south. Having spoken to Nick who said he'd be late as the DRZ would not start meaning he'd have to pamper the Pampera and ride up, we agreed he'd ring me at 9.45am and we'd arrange a meet up on the way - this by previous experience is generally a recipe for a disaster! Stopping, fishing out phones, finding numbers, finding you have no phone signal, blah blah blah. Anyway, Nick was not at Kenton and I assumed as we were now late, Nick may be ahead of us and texted him from Kenton to say - wait for us to catch you up - at least I had sent him the .gpx file of the route ahead of the run.

So into the lanes, we started on a new lane for me, just outside of Kenton, along the side of a wood, mud, a bit rutty with a few stones thrown in, a good loosener. Matt observed there were no tyre tracks ahead of us so, Nick was somewhere else! The next lane a mile down the road was at Mowlish Manor and was similar to the first lane but with perfect views across the Exe valley bathed in a winter's sun. I chuckled to myself about the crisp new trials tyre on the back of the Serow imaging Paul slithering around in the mud behind me, however, in this life you reap what you sew and seeing a sea of water ahead of me I got caught in 2 minds about which direction to take and that momentary distraction resulted in the front wheel taking on some kind of life of its own and veered off to the right as I veered off to the left, an ungainly dismount is embarrassing enough, particularly leading and so on full view - no option to jump up and carry on as if nothing had happened! Nope I lay in the muddy water, my leg pinned under the bike waiting for an OAP (Bob) to come and rescue me! Righting the bike I noticed the clutch lever mounting bracket had cracked and it was all floppy (never a good sign) good news is that most stuff can be fixed with cable ties and Bob had a load cunningly living inside of the foam protector on the cross brace of his handlebars  - what a great idea! Saved me removing 3 bungees, unwrapping the old rucksack from the plastic outlayer, unzipping the bag, ferreting amongst the rusty tools and finding my own supply. There is no substitute for experience! Anyway, Matt and I lashed the clutch lever up and we were off once more. At the end of the lane, after a bit of a delay as Bob had got cross-rutted and badgered, lo and behold Nick appeared at the back of the group. Thus allowing me to get away (I think....) with the excuse of mucking about in the water hole in order to allow him to catch up...... Nick had apparently got lost, then started checking lanes for tyre prints in a Last of the Mohican kind of way in order to track us down (not that he'd have found any tread marks from Pauls tyre....). 

So as a full compliment we set off over to Ashcombe to ride the lovely ridge lane above Dawlish Water, a lane I remember from a couple of years back when we were down from the Thames Valley and the view out to the coast still lingers. Well laid plans as they say and one click down the lane a humungous oak had sadly ceased to be, rather inconveniently right across the lane. No way under (even for a short arse like me) and no way around we about turned and plan B was enacted to ride back and cut back in via Pitt Farm, another UCR leading up to the long lane. A bit of fiddling with the map and riding around the back of the farm, we were treated to a lovely stony climb back to the original lane, but the right side of the fallen oak. From there I got my view down the valley to the sea. Is it me, or is there something about a view like that? I guess if you were a psycho-analyst, you'd say it is about looking from somewhere familiar towards the unknown (in this case may be France) with endless possibilities should you be brave enough to cease them; Zen and the art of trail bike riding..... Long Lane lead up into the back of Dawlish and another UCR towards Teignmouth which again we skirted thanks to my trusty old Garmin. A pleasant run down over Little Haldon hill through the woods provided the opportunity for a snack and 5 minutes R&R before looping around Ideford along a few UCRs which combined a stream crossing, views towards Dartmoor, stony lanes, and a nice climb towards Hestow Barton.

I must stress at this point how wet the lanes were, a day's worth of rain, may be 40mm on top of already saturated soil meant that there was water everywhere, every lane was running, water was running off fields, roads were flooded to 18 inches at least, we were potentially witnessing the birth of new rivers in some cases as water found its way off high ground using the path of least resistance. Still with a decent trail bike you are pretty much prepped for the end of the world. As I always tell the kids, tinned food, a trail bike and a shot gun and bring it on! I've got 2 of the 3 - just need the tinned spaghetti now!  (I lied about the gun  - honest). I digress.... again... another UCR at Ashwell saw use turning west along the Teign, experiencing one of the few short sharp showers we were treated to during a largely blue shy day. Ducking through Kingsteignton where crossing the bloated Teign we were treated to one of the most vivid rainbows I've ever seen, a nailed on Trail front cover if we'd been in a lane at the time. But we were a couple of miles short of an easy linking lane through the back of Seale Hayne, before crossing the A38 and a couple of Ilsington lanes, not Sims Hill as (a) its too steep.... and (b) probably being prepped for the Exeter Trial this weekend. Instead we rode along Lenda Lane, nice and steady with great views and after a ride through a ford, disguised as a tarmac road up a rather gnarly lane almost as steep as Simms but also quite long, washed out, slaty and slippery. I pinned my ears back and with deft use of throttle rather impressed myself by getting to the top without too much drama, given the right tyres that Serow can climb. Matt, Bob and Nick were close behind but there was an ominous gap to Steve and Paul.

We wandered back down the lane, but all was quiet, after 5 minutes Matt drew the short straw to ride back down. A few minutes more and around the corner came Steve not looking entirely confident I must say. Scenting fear I eagerly clicked the record button and salaciously viewed the action unfolding in my viewfinder. Steve did not disappoint with a classic "why ride up the middle of the lane" when "I can scale trees like superman", unfortunately the rather deluded Steve was stopped in his tracks by a combination of gravity and mortal failings. At the top of the lane apparently he was distracted by my videoing and the wrong compound rubber on his tyres........ watch the video and decide for yourself .  Collecting our wits together we trundled down into Bovey for a quick break at the Texaco before the last leg of the trip up the Teign Valley via a UCR north of Bovey and then down the rather lovely Little John's Walk and up around Trenchford Reservoir and a particularly snotty UCR dividing fields at Kiln Down which left us all struggling for grip. At the end of the lane as we waited for Paul I knew he'd be cursing me under his helmet as he slithered desperately seeking a morsel of grip for his famished tyres. The few lanes he could not fault though, the easy hard bottomed lanes across from Heltor Rocks where the only challenge were the very deep pools of water collected in the depressions, which was lapping up the side of my engine as she pushed an impressive bow wave. The last lane of the day was the byway down through the National Trust's Bridford Wood, switching back through the deciduous trees now without leaf, to the boiling Teign below was a great finish for a great day out. We said our goodbyes and went on our different ways to a well earned hot bath and to download the video....

Sean            

 Enjoy the vid