Singletrack Staff Blog

The North Downs in this case. I spent the weekend ‘darn sarf’ catching up with old friends plus a spot of riding..
Saturday was a fabulous golden August day, buff trails and a seemingly flatter North Downs than I remember! (The Calderdale hill reps might be paying off after all) Joining me for the ride was my good friend Stephen plus a bunch of his freinds James, Richard and Natalie. Now Stephen rides and a fair bit and so does James, but Natalie and Rich apparently never do and the North Downs for a big loop now seems rather ambitious in hindsite.

Nirvana Cycles in Westcott Provided a couple of hire bikes for them lids and tool kits and were off, a little later than originally planned but hey ho…

James had a spectacular crash early on after involuntary brake grabbage and propelled himself down a drop in which i’m sure did the world of good for the confidence of our new riders.

After that I can only assume that the ride would have seemed entirely up hill to them (it always does at first doesn’t it) though Holmsbury hill’s views over the surrounding countryside seemed to ease the pain…

By the time we were climbing up the bridleway to Leith Hill some of our party were ‘quite’ tired.. Natalie had started to push and I think Rich as well, Both of them though uncomplainingly pushing on.. We’d taken a lot longer than planned

By this time I realised we were going to be late to Nirvana cycles, so rang to explain the situation..

“tough”

“I’ve had this with people like you before”

I explained we were late i was sorry and were on our way back , but was told not to bother the door would be shut and how annoying people like we were (not as politely of course) .I asked about Natalies hand bag she’s left there and was told they’d put it in the bin for her to get.

I understand his annoyance at us being late but not the way he was with us, Natalie & rich may well have been potentiol customers for all he knew, and a little bit of politeness goes a long way.He could even have said no with out being so alienating. As someone who used to run a shop there was many a Saturday evening where I had to stay late as customer had a race to go to or an emergency… they’d normally sort me out a beer and I hope remebered it when they were looking where to shop. Nirvana obviously thought otherwise..

Knowing we were scuppered we took refuge at a lovely pub in coldharbour and had dinner both Natalie and rich had done amazingly and I hope would be out again, riding with newcomers that put in that much effort is ace and reminds you of your own forays off road and just how hard it is!

I ended up loading up the van with all of the bikes driving them to London where James picked them up in the morning and dropped them off, only after another shitty phone call from Nirvana,where he told us that he had waited after telling us he wouldn’t !

So a great day really only mildy messed up..thanks to Nat Rich and James and of course Stephen for a great day, and I only hope Nirvana were having a bad one and are not normally like that ;]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Blogroll . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.