Toosday 2nd December

The Stove was first on the scene, followed by Mellonpharmer (who'd lost his helmet) and MacGyver, then Buggs and then Tinks, at the top of Upper Major Hornbrook.  Rubberjaws, who'd organised it was unable to attend.  Mellonpharmer wore MacGyver's spare townie lid and The Emperor's New Gloves, made from only the finest of rarified airs. Off up Britten they trundled, two out front widening the gap on the other three. Then it was around to the end of the original traverse trail and then back along the road and straight up Broadleaf all the way.  Into the descent, down the rocks to the stile and over.  In the second corner below this MF dropped his chain, allowing the others all to pass and then he was in for the chase. Overtook The Stove just after the rocky sections, then chased through the swoopy tussocks and wound in Buggs by the end, both of them nearly running over a small black dog not being restrained by its owners.  MacGyver led into the Greenwood mainframe with MoFo right on his tail. Good run down, with the rocks rocky and the dirt grippy. MF's chain stayed on all the way til the wee valley before the final blast, and so once again he was behind Warren who kindly waited for him on the rocky up, and beat him to the bottom much to his satisfaction. At the bottom some discussion was had and the team split into two groups for a race... with MacGyver and The Farmer of Mellons accepting the challenge of seeing whether Greenwood was faster than the road? However, McG and MF stopped pretty much immediately after setting off, thereby voiding the competition, to check out the view over towards the road below the second-to-last corner on the way down and then chatted to some stranger who stopped to chat.  The climb was honest, with only a couple of real pinches, which both nearly cleaned.  They stopped a couple of times to let riders through, including one enormous group that just kept appearing over the brow of the hill, 10, 15??!  Some of the tail enders were really struggling on the rocks, including the last one who was carrying his bike. Finally out the top, up the road and into a rapid descent of Britten back to the car, the others having won the race up the hill.