The weekend trip to Dartmoor had everything - open moorland, big granite terrain, and hard climbs followed by long descents. It even involved several sets of stepping stones, unplanned excursions through 5 ft high ferns, with time left over to play on the swings!

Gareth, Lee and Monika started out from Dartmeet for Friday's ride, which will be remembered for all the river crossings and the swings. The previous day's rain had swelled the rivers, leaving several stepping stones partially submerged and requiring good co-ordination to get across them without getting wet feet, especially whilst wearing slippery cycling shoes and trying to carry a bike at the same time! For one of the later crossings, Gareth opted to ride through the river rather than using the stones, and found his wheels disappearing beneath the surface completely. Lee and Monika had fun playing on the swings, and contemplating jumping straight off into the river.

We arrived at the Plume of Feathers in the evening, and were joined by Chris who'd had to spend Friday at work. The room was booked for 10, but since we were only 4 the landlord kindly agreed to charge us only 40% of the original price, providing we didn't mind him letting the other beds out. Sounds good to us, we thought. The room was "compact" but came with a big kitchen and a shower, so for £12 a night we weren't complaining.

Late on Friday, Chris went to get into his bed, and found a very drunk guy who'd snuck in there whilst Chris wasn't looking! A check downstairs at the bar revealed that the drunk was in fact supposed to be there, and we were advised to "tell him to shut up". After much singing and snoring, he did finally quiten down, though Monika got a suprise in the middle of the night when he accidently sat down on top of her whilst trying to find his way to the toilets! It was all pretty surreal, and we had to laugh.

Lee was expecting some pretty terrifying descents for Saturday, and so he'd bought a good supply of nappies along just in case (see photo).

Saturday's ride was a 35k loop out from North Bovey, and had many tough climbs and technical descents. Gareth did the navigation using his GPS, and on the whole this worked out pretty well, except for a few U turns along the way. There was one downhill section where the paths had entirely disappeared and were covered by 5ft high ferns, and trying to pick a route through these provided much amusement.

After the ride on Saturday, we returned to Dartmeet and spent a couple hours splashing about on the stepping stones and enjoying Chris' bottled beer as the sun went down.

Sundays' ride was a quick loop over to Burrator Reservoir and back; the first half was almost entirely descending and the second was a long climb over desolate moorland back to the start.

It was then time for the journey back home again. Gareth had called the AA out to Princetown the night before to fix his passenger side window back up after it got stuck down, and fortunately it stayed in place.

All in all, a great weekend that won't be quickly forgotten!

Gareth Ashton