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Dartmoor
27th May 2006
The weather for this one was not looking good! Early forecasts at the beginning of the week pointed to monsoon type weather continuing throughout the week and into the bank holiday weekend …… Deep joy!!
I had spoken to Dave (HFD) my riding partner and he was more than happy to ride no matter what the weather so we decided to carry on with the trip. We arranged to meet up behind the Railway Inn public house in Princetown at around about 09-30 to 10-00am on Saturday morning. I had an excellent trip down and had made some good time, I was slowed when entering Dartmoor from the A38 as the mist started to descend and vision was becoming limited, I was also conscious of the fact that the kamikaze sheep at the side of the road were not fenced in and they had a mean look to them so I avoided them at all costs.
I had arrived at the pub at 09:10 and parked behind it in the free spaces provided. I knew we would pay the bar a visit at some stage during the day so this would be ideal and the start of the ride is only meters away also.
Dave had contacted me to let me know that he would be slightly delayed due to heavy traffic on the M5 as it was a bank holiday weekend; he was running about an hour behind. This should have been good news for me as I could prepare myself for the ride and make some adjustments to my new bike before we go tearing off but looking out of my car window it was a met with constant drizzle and blanket fog so I settled back in my seat and tried to get some shut eye.
I did manage to set a waypoint on my Garmin emap GPS for the car park just in case we needed some form of guidance at a later stage. The emap was bought for this purpose as it can accurately pin point your location to within a few meters and it can allow you to free roam without to much requirements for a map or route as you can always use it to navigate back for you and for emergencies it is ideal as it can give you your exact OS map grid reference.
Dave arrived at about 10:35 and we said our greetings and we were ready to go. A quick look over our bikes to make sure everything is where it should be and we were off. This was the first time I had used my Rocky Mountain Slayer on testing terrain so I was excited and also apprehensive about this ride.
Dave took the lead and we followed a path that was positioned in-between the Railway Inn car park and an adjoining campsite and it was a gradual climb to get us warmed up passing South Hessary Tor on the left. We took this path for what seemed to be a few miles and Dave pointed out that this was the old railway line route and further into the ride we should meet up with the original track. I wanted to take loads of pictures at this stage but due to the weather and that we could not see more than 10 feet in front of us it would have been a pointless exercise. So the pictures that follow were not taking on the day.
This is the path leading away from the Railway Inn at is at the start of the route. This path soon breaks down into small stone chippings and singletrack and every 100ft or so you have to make a small jump over what seems to be strategic granite drainage gullies to allow water to pass through and onto the moor.
We surprisingly passed quite a few red socks out and about on the moors and this shocked me as the weather was atrocious and not really ideal for walking but it was not until Dave pointed out to me that we were just as bad as them, as we were out riding bikes in it!!
The trail, further in started to get more technical as we met loose rocks, divots, grass, bog and embankment and it certainly stepped up our concentration levels. Dave at this stage pulled over on to a grass verge as he managed to get most of Dartmoor’s mud and grit in his eyes. I wear glasses for eye correction so this did not present a problem to me but I struggled as I could not see a thing, the constant drizzle was splashing onto my lenses and I had nothing to wipe them with as I was soaked through to the skin. Lesson learnt, carry lens cloth!
The substrate was very gritty and sandy and was playing havoc with my camelbak as the drinking nozzle was covered in grit and every time I took a sip of water I had to spit it out to clear the pipe. This was my fault as I could have kept it out the way but like I said to Dave, I have to have something to complain about and this was all I could find so that say’s something about this great ride.
We finally completed the trail through Sheeps Tor and had come to a small road section that had taken us down to the Burrator dam, near Yelverton. It was massive and extremely tall so we decided to take a quick pit stop here, and as it was about the only place we could see anything. Apparently the reservoir supplies water to Plymouth and is a popular haunt for many a keen cyclist due to the stunning views it has on offer.
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We moved on from here and followed the road around until we came to a steep section, which we climbed for about 300 yards, and then we took a nice bit of trail along side the stream. This was boggy as hell and really sapped the strength out of us both, as it was like trying to peddle into a hurricane as every pump forward we lost traction to the rear wheel and we both were spinning up and getting nowhere fast. I managed to get up onto a grassy area that looked liked it would have good traction and this helped to free up the wheels and got us moving again.
We were now at a point where we had to follow the old train track, although the sleepers and track had been taken up many years ago, you could still see where they once laid. We found another nice bit of singletrack but sadly it was only short, as no sooner had we stepped on the gas the trail had ended.
We seemed to hit a never ending flurry of track, gates, track, gates and so on, this annoyed us a little bit as we wanted to get going and the gates were really holding us back but looking back now it was a small price to pay for such a great ride. A few miles down the track the fog was even worse and we could not see a damn thing, map reading became difficult as we had nothing to get our bearings with so I thought this was the ideal time to show my GPS off! What seemed like a cocky idea at first soon backfired on me because when I switched it on I never gave it enough time to set itself and I pressed the OUT button numerous times to expand the map. Dave had just taken this exact opportunity to ask where were we, he was amazed once he looked at he GPS, according to the emap we were about 5 minutes from Norway!!!!! Now that climb beforehand did seem quite steep but neither of us remember passing over huge quantities of water and entering another country. After we had both finished laughing I managed to set the GPS back to its proper settings and together with the map we found our location and were still on course.
The track from here on seemed to climb and climb; it was a comfortable climb but constant and somewhat gruelling at times. We could not see far in front of us, which I feel helped, as you cannot see the hills you have to climb so it took the psychological edge of it. Eventually we came to a couple of paths that crossed over so we decided to take the trail to the right, no sooner had we taken this trail we arrived at a house which really took us both by surprise as we thought we were still slap bang in the middle of nowhere. Oh, I thought, let’s take another look at the map; Dave suggested we should go left past the house onto a trail as this was the route we needed to take. At this point we both jumped as a car came hurtling past us at speed some 30 yards away, neither of us had seen the road and we were both taken back at how foggy it had became and how little we could see.
We decided to take the road and followed it down a slight hill, Dave shouted at me to stop so we could take another look at the map as this hill looked a “Fast one” and neither of us fancied having to cycle back up it if we took the wrong turning. This was the funniest thing to happen all day, Dave, after a close inspection of the map suggested that we follow this road for a few miles and then we can fire up the GPS to get a proper fix on our location to save us from getting lost, we both mounted our bikes and cycled no more than 40 yards into the fog when we came across a huge sign at a crossroads with a pub on the corner… the Railway Inn… we were back home.
Once we had stopped laughing, we managed to load the bikes up and pay the Railway Inn a quick visit for refreshments. Although we were both soaked through we had a fantastic day and one to remember. The Rocky stood up to its first real test and I loved every minute of riding it. I would like to pay another visit to Dartmoor soon, preferably when the weather is better as I feel that we missed out on some stunning scenery.
Chris Paul
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