The weather was very hot and sunny again. Everyone had money so we decided to do Haldon forest with a car-assist. It was 11.10 by the time Michael had finished talking to Zac and Callum F about Friday! We wasted a bit of time when Michael went up to the A380 and the had to double back to the A38, but eventually we parked up, unpacked the bikes, bought some pasties and set off around 12.10.

The routes have been completely revamped since our last visit. All the tracks start in the same place and in the same direction now, and the red track (which is the one we decided to do today) is now much easier and consequently much more fun. Clearly they have taken advice from health and safety experts.

Much of the route was new, in fact pretty much all of it was, but it still went past the bottom loop near the old black jumps. That route, which used to be red, is now black “extreme”, so Ash and Callum did it and found it had been made easier than it used to be! Overall we liked the new route a lot, but we were delayed partway round when Zac and Callum F got pinch punctures at the same point. We used Ash’s spare tube for Callum’s bike. Zac tried fixing his with sticky patches, but sadly they lasted all of four minutes and Michael had to replace them with the spare tube in his pannier -which turned out not to be punctured after all.

We got back to the car park at around 2.05, went to the café and Ash saw three old school friends there so we got 10% discount. He had a caramel slice, Michael had a milkshake and Callum O'B had a huge bowl of chips and resented even a single chip being taken!

Finally we explored the two trial areas with jumps and ramps before packing the bikes at 2.35 and getting home for around 3.10. Callum O'B went home to get some money, then they all left around 4pm.