Words by Darren Pettit.
My first ever MB Swindon ride was the Big Bang Theory Ride on 5th November 2014.
I met the MTB crowd at Foxhill which is on The Ridgeway. The ride started uphill, then more uphill as we headed out towards Membury across grassy mud with one interesting sloping bank to negotiate with tree roots & holes to make it more interesting.
Phil & Kat (part of the MB Swindon committee) met us and provided a lovely cake & tea/coffee stop around 9pm, which was followed by a lovely hill climb which some ups & downs followed. We then hit a very gloopy muddy hill climb accompanied with curses under my breath, we gathered up by some farm buildings, glad that section was over.
We headed back along The Ridgeway with Phil & Kat providing one more cake stop around 10pm, then a speedy decent back splashing through puddles – great fun. After we gathered back up at Foxhill were we all went out off into the night saying our goodbyes.
The thing that impressed me was no one was left behind and we had several gather ups time to catch a breath each time. I thought the ride was challenging but great fun and I will be back.
p.s. The hat came in the post this morning.. could have done with it last night!
