Jordan was sporting a new bike at the start of today's ride - a touring bike! Actually it was Michael's spare bike, but Jordan was thrilled with its performance and fully intended to blast past the mountain bikes on every stretch of road.

When Michael had persuaded Olly to overcome his tiredness we pressed on through Scoriton and Michelcombe and spent at least 20 minutes in the play park, doing our best to organise a Frisbee contest. We finally got it going, and declared Olly and Sam the joint winners, but there were at least three occasions when long sticks had to be obtained to retrieve Frisbees from the high branches of bramble-covered trees!

There's a new cafe at Holne, and today for the first time we checked it out. It's not quite as classy as the Old Forge used to be, but the prices seemed very reasonable and Michael said the ice creams were excellent!

We thoroughly enjoyed the rough track descent through Holne woods to River Dart Adventures - the leading riders enjoyed it a little too much and forgot to stop at the junction, thereby missing the final fun section of the track. We concluded an enjoyable ride with a shortcut through River Dart Adventures and the old road to Buckfastleigh.

Sadly our 2007 Dartmoor Letterbox Special had to be called off in view of the torrential rain that persisted all morning. This was the day the official Ten Tors event was cancelled and all the participants airlifted off the moor, so we didn't feel too bad for staying at Crofters for computer games!

Our planned ride to the Avon Dam - the most enjoyable and popular ride we ever run - was attended today by just Zac and Michael despite some near perfect weather conditions. Olly's birthday and GCSE revision were the chief causes of the desertion.

Zac loves the Avon Dam too, but as there were only two of us he decided to switch the ride, taking us along Colston Road to the riverside path at Staverton. We ventured into Staverton station and were greeted by the station master as Zac tried to get a milky bar from an antique chocolate vending machine. Zac asked more and more questions and the station master seemed very willing to answer them all. We ended up with Zac pulling some disused levers in the signal box and getting a full commentary on the signal and gate procedures as the 12.20 pulled into the station. Every action by the station master had to be logged in the special book in the signal box to ensure the highest standards of safety.

We're not quite sure what happened to everyone else tonight, but Ashley thoroughly enjoyed his first exploration of Hembury Fort and his tenth ride along his favourite downhill track - the Slalom. He overcame his dislike of the Hembury Hill climb by getting a percentage readout from Michael every five minutes!

A forecast of torrential rain all day persuaded us to postpone the planned car-assisted day ride to Padstow and the Camel Trail to a date in July. The Acland family decided to do other things with the day but Zac spent the day at Crofters enjoying Doctor Who videos.

After some debate we settled on Avon Dam as a perfect destination on this warm sunny evening, but progress up Dean hill turned out to be so painfully slow that we had to switch to Skerraton Down - again! Ashley and Alex were talking, and Sam was recovering from a cold, but they all promised to do better next time!

On the way to the top of the open moorland Ashley and Alex ignored Michael's advice, took their own route through the gorse and ended up in a cul-de-sac of prickly bushes with no obvious way forward - Sam said it served them right.

Views from the top to Buckfastleigh and the rest of South Devon were stunning as usual, although there was little time to enjoy them on the downhill to Cross Furzes.

Michael decided that, after Friday's ride, Ashley needed some training in the art of hill-climbing. What better hill than Wallaford Road, all the way to Cross Furzes? We called in at Crofters so Ashley could add too much squash to his water bottle, then he set about the climb with determination and ended up amazing himself and everyone else by climbing the hill swiftly and without complaint! He promised never to worry about hills again.

Once we reached the open moor at Lud Gate Zac and Ashley spent some time damming up a stream before we set off down the hill to Chalk Ford. There were plenty of deer in the park but they were all well away from the gate, so we continued on down the stony track to Scoriton before heading home for a well-deserved social at Crofters.

New rider Tom Pearson, 10, demonstrated to everyone that he's a natural cyclist by completing this evening's ride effortlessly. We had to wait part-way along Colston Road when Alex rang up to say he'd forgotten the ride and wanted to come. He soon joined us and we continued to Dartington, with Tom telling us that every other house belonged to a member of his family!

Some other youngsters from Buckfastleigh happened to be at Staverton recreation ground while we played Frisbee there in the evening sunshine. We headed home along our usual route past Riverford with Tom assuring us he would be back again next week. This had been his longest ride ever.