Virtual Turkey Burn Ride Report: MuddyMatt's Adventures

 

This is the fifth of several Virtual Turkey Burn reports I received this year. This time from the United Kingdom! NOTE: I VERY lightly edited the submissions where I found a mistake. Images are credited to the authors. Thanks for reading these and for submitting a report if you did so. Remember that some of these reports fall on double-post days, so be sure to scroll down the page to make sure you don't miss any content!

I've been a long-time reader of Mark's writing for many years. As the founder of the Muddymoles  website in the UK, I know just how hard it is to generate content day in, day out. I know I can't manage it with my regular job and responsibilities. That Mark's thoughts are worth listening to make the Guitar Ted website even more valuable to me. So, it was time to contribute something myself. The Thanksgiving Virtual Turkey Burn Challenge was just that opportunity.

MarkJ (L) and Muddy Matt

 Now, I'm not American. As a Brit, the Thanksgiving weekend is not a tradition we celebrate, for obvious reasons. In fact, its easy to see that some populations in the US might have a problem with it too. But my take is it is a moment to celebrate family and community and that has value to me. I like to think this weekend of riding for me was enhanced, knowing others were making their own attempts at Mark's challenge. 

Unfortunately, I have been carrying an injury for at least the past 18 months and this year it has stepped up a level. Readers of our Belgium battlefields trip will know about my neck and headaches (I'm pleased to say I am seeing a slow recovery). The outcome of my injury situation was to take on Marks' metric century challenge in two or three bites, accompanied by my brother in law (called MarkJ). 

Thanksgiving Thursday 

We started Thursday morning, at 7:30am in temperatures that averaged 27 American degrees or -3 Celcius. We both work for the same employer (a long story!), which has offices some 15-17 miles from our homes. We decided we would commute by bike, making a 37-ish mile round trip. In the UK, we've just had a period of exceptional rainfall. In some places, significant flooding, in others a steady build up to saturation point. Our location about 25 miles south east of London is currently saturated and a night of heavy rain on Tuesday night tipped several of our local rivers over the edge. 

  Riding in to work on Thursday morning, we found it an eventful journey. We both have gravel bikes ('early' Euro adopters in 2018 thanks, to Mark's influence) and our route mixes tarmac and trees. Laden with panniers heavy with laptops and work clothes, it was hard work and on several occasions we had to take care on the icy, untreated back roads. Elsewhere we found roads flooded where rivers had burst banks, notably at Wonham Mill where an overnight flood to a depth of three feet had closed the road. Despite this, two cars attempted to cross during the evening, and our commute found those two cars the next morning with wrecked engines, abandoned in the middle of the water! Expensive mistake... 

 

Fortunately our ride home in the evening was less eventful, but we still found large puddles some 40-50 feet long and deep enough to cover our feet as we rode through. 

Friday night is MTB night. 

The Surrey Hills enjoys some of the best MTB riding in the south east of the UK. A combination of good access rights and a county history of heavy woodland has resulted in a large network of riding which we can access just a mile from our front doors.

 After a day working from home, we headed out about 4:00pm in improved 41F/5C temperatures, this time meeting a friend, Lloyd for a 20 mile loop around the hills. We can cover all of that without going anywhere near any of the busy roads around us and with a clear sky we had a great, predominantly XC style ride in the darkening evening. 

(L-R) Muddy Matt, MarkJ, Lloyd

 

I'll be honest, I love night riding on MTBs, especially now technology lets us ride confidently. Despite the rain earlier in the week, the trails remain surprisingly good off-road. That said, with a name like Muddymoles you have to embrace the slop whatever the conditions! 

Our 20 mile loop included 1,800ft of climbing, taking us to the training gallops behind the Epsom race course (horse racing fans will know the Epsom Derby), before looping back to take in a couple of gnarlier trails. I won't name them because some are rather euphemistic(!), but I enjoy the vibrant eco-system we have of local riders. Inevitably, they end up attaching imaginative names to trails - so much easier than saying e.g. 'left at the next tree' when you are deep in the woods. In fact, Lloyd often plans a ride made up of acronyms for us to work out what trails he's referring to! My preference on a Friday night would have been to finish with a pint or two of local craft beer as reward, but family duties called for each of us this particular occasion. 

Wrapping it up on Sunday: 

 Totting up the miles, I now had 57 of Mark's 62 metric century miles in the bank. So it was time to head out a last time to complete the job. My brother in law, MarkJ, had picked up a head cold but managed to complete 12 miles on Saturday morning solo, so he was already basking in success.

  I found a brief window in the late afternoon between heavy rain showers. This time, another gravel ride to another interesting place, Wisley airfield. This was requisitioned in WW2 from local landowners and never returned. It was used for newly constructed Wellington bombers to take off from, as their factory at Brooklands (a few miles up the road) didn't have the space required. They were crated over, re-assembled and flown off to action. 

The airfield is now set for development for housing but remains derelict, a rather eerie place even during daylight. But, I like to include it in a loop of local heathland and canal towpaths along the Wey Navigation. It's the same area that H.G. Wells described in War of the Worlds where the Martians first landed! 

By the time I returned home, temperatures were in marked contrast to Thursday's sub-zero conditions with a pleasant 57F/14C showing on the Garmin thanks to a low sun. Positively balmy! At the finish I had another 22 miles completed, making it 79 miles for Mark's Thanksgiving Challenge. 

 My thanks go to Mark for being the prime instigator of the whole idea and best wishes to all who took part, I hope your efforts were equally helpful to both body and soul. 

Thanks for reading!

Thank you, MuddyMatt! I encourage my readers to take some time to read the MuddyMoles site. I have it linked in the right sidebar on this page. Or you can click the links in Matt's report here and bookmark the site. 

I have to say that I sometimes enjoy reading the MuddyMoles site just for the trail and place names they use in the UK. It's as if every nook and cranny has a proper name there that reads like something out of a storybook. Here we just have "hills", "flats" and miles and miles of empty farmland with no names for such places at all, for the most part. 

Next will be the traditional FN&V. Then on Saturday I will run two more VTBCR reports that I received after the ones I have already published. 

Stay tuned!