I DON’T WANNA A HOLIDAY IN THE SUN
It was somewhere high on the Cairngorm plateau in late October 2019, hunkered down behind a boulder and hastily pulling on more clothes as we sheltered from the ferocious gale that had made riding almost impossible, that we made a pact. Our next trip would be somewhere warm and sunny.
The weather gods had not been on our side for that particular trip, nor any of the ones I’d shared with my friend Rachael over the previous few years. We were beginning to think we were cursed. Either that, or we were choosing holidays in the wrong places at the wrong time of year.
Fast forward to 2022, and we are midway through a three-day trip pushing our bikes uphill in knee-deep muddy water, struggling to look up thanks to the horizontal rain blasting our face, somewhere on a bleak moor in the west of Cornwall.
“This is getting towards type 2 fun” shouts Rachael, and I can’t help but smile at the realisation that we are yet again in the situation we’d planned to avoid. “Well, maybe actually only a 1.7,” she continues with a grin.
GROUNDHOG DAY
There were a few factors that had led us to this point. The last couple of years have given us a greater appreciation for what we have here on our doorstep in the UK. Our eyes have been opened to exploring the variety of terrain we have packed into a relatively small space, and often overlook in
