Home 
Information 
Join Us at the Fox 
News 
Club Reports 
Adventure Reports 
Gallery 
Links 
Calendar 
   
Back to Home

Event Report

Jerrys January Club Run
Jan-2006

January 2006 Club Run Report

 

The Shrewton Scorpion – Saturday 28th January 2006

 

The Ice Man Cometh

 

Why is it called “The Scorpion”? I hear you ask.  Well, that’s because the original intent when planning this route (several years ago) was to come up with something which hit green lanes ASAP out of Shrewton, stayed on green lanes for the maximum possible percentage of the route and still had a sting in the tail.  Unfortunately Wessex Water has softened the sting by managing the flow of the river Til such that the ford at the bottom of Shrewton 7 is now completely dry! Ho hum.

 

Nonetheless, a cracking good day’s trail riding was had by all concerned:

  • Bob Smith                      Gas Gas EC 400
  • Noeline Smith                Suzuki DRZ 400
  • Neil Chapman                 Yamaha TTR 250
  • Ted Spires                    Husqvarna TE 410
  • Chris Stanbury             Yamaha Serow 225
  • Pete Toghill                  Honda XR 400
  • Chris Walters               Honda XR 400
  • Bruce Walters               Honda CRM 250 AR
  • Jerry Abel                    Honda XR 250
At least, those were the 9 that started.  Needless to say, it was only the hard core that made it right through to the sting which had to be ridden out of principle (you know the one – “use it or lose it”).

 

I won’t bore you rigid by listing out the route, suffice to say that it starts and finishes at Shrewton and encompasses four fords (Stratford Tony, both Winterbournes and the aforementioned, albeit dry, Shrewton 7) and the two main ox droves south of Salisbury.  It’s available as a .GDB Garmin file for any fully paid up Wiltshire TRF member who would like it.

 

I’d been keeping track of those who might turn out and with all the ifs/buts/maybes it could have been anywhere between 8 and 16 trail riders!  Definitely a case of two groups, then.  The weather was pretty appalling the day before, however, (freezing rain and sleet) and so those of a more temperamental nature were clearly discouraged.  Sure enough on the morning in question (which was VERY cold) there was a cry-off from one contingent of about 4 trail riders who shall remain nameless.  At least they had the grace to admit that they were complete “wusses”.  (If anyone knows of the correct spelling of “wuss”, please let me know).

 

We duly departed at about 10:15, per schedule and were soon in the spirit of things and nicely warmed through by the physical effort of coping with ruts, which had frozen walls so that one had no hope of changing lane.   Your tyres would simply fail to bite and you remained in the rut you were trying to climb out of.

 
 
We headed out towards the German Village (Copehill Down FIBUA for those of an anorak disposition) and were challenged by some rather aggressive soldiers.  Now this was interesting because the main protagonist had less idea of where he was on the map than we did!  Also, we had previously noted that there were no red flags flying and when this was pointed out he simply reiterated that it was a live firing exercise.  I am, (as ever) prepared to be corrected, but I’m pretty sure that for live firing our illustrious army friends MUST fly the red flag.  I strongly suspect that we would have been within our rights to follow the planned route, but ultimately, this guy had a gun, about fourteen mates with guns, two Land Rovers and helicopter back up.  Discretion was the better part of valour, then.  We duly diverted south to the A360 and carried on regardless.

 
 
As mentioned, it was COLD and so much of the lying water was, in fact, ice.  I can never resist the temptation of a good big puddle (glacier) and so duly dived in.  Big mistake.  It was so frozen that my front wheel kept trying to climb up on to the frozen surface, much to the amusement of all concerned.   I assumed that all would follow in my tracks, given that I had literally broken the ice for them.  Oh no.  Only Mr. Stanbury was man enough for the job but a lump of ice inserted itself between sprocket and chain, duly dismounting the latter.  Fettling ensued and we were soon on our way.

 
 
From there it was plain sailing (but hard work) all the way, with an early lunch at Esso Stapleford and a later fill up at Esso Barford St. Martin for the stroker guzzlers.

 

Much amusement was generated by my frantic kick starting antics after water ingress due to a rather too enthusiastic passage through the second Winterbourne Ford.  Heartiest guffaws came from those whose bikes were blessed with that little black magic button.  Fortunately Pete “let the pro have a go” Toghill came to the rescue just in time to avoid a major sense of humour failure!  My excuse is that it was purely for the cameras.  With any luck there should be some pictures attached to this run report.

 
 

Heartily reassuring to note that TRF code of conduct was maintained all the way (with possible exception of 25 mph speed limit, but that said we were always down to walking pace for walkers/horse riders/dog walkers).  Equally importantly no one got dropped nor felt unduly pressurised and all seemed to be having a whale of a time, which is as it should be to my way of thinking.  Let us not forget in these troubled times that trail riding should be FUN!  (Gets off soapbox).

 

Ted “claimed that one!” Spires kindly pointed out during the course of the day several lanes which are subject to byway claims put in by him and one major diversion was undertaken in order to avail ourselves of some of his hard work.  Well worth the effort too, resulting in a spectacular climb back to the ox drove.  This is part of the annual Arbuthnot trial, apparently.

 

The usual attrition kicked in mid afternoon with Chris S. peeling off somewhere near Fovant followed by Neil (mumbling pathetic excuses about needing to go to work) followed by Bob & Noeline, Ted & finally Pete “maintenance, what maintenance?” Toghill who busied himself at that point changing out his non operational tail lamp as dusk was quickly gathering.  We cruelly left him to it in order to make best use of the remaining daylight.

 

Eventually three of us (myself plus the two Walterses) made it back to Shrewton just before nightfall, noting that the surfaces of the puddles were starting to go crystalline as they froze up again.  Yes, we did complete the “sting” – it would have been rude not to!

 

The vital statistics:

 

  • 99.9 miles covered, door to door – Shrewton.
  • 18 mph average speed
  • 5 hours and 21 minutes riding time.
  • 63 mph maximum speed (that was on a dual carriageway somewhere, obviously your honour).

65% off tarmac.  (That’s my estimate, not a GPS statistic).

 

 

Jerry

 
© AmberArc 2024 Visitor Count = 59905

BackTop