(r-l) Bob, Gilles, Tom, Ingmar, Greg & Gill
Words: Bob T. Photos: David C.
We had seven riders come along for last Thursdays MTB Ride starting at Al-Nahda-1, despite a bit of confusion, as I could not access my email in Nimr M. kindly sent out flier on my behalf for Al-Nahda-1 but with an old map for Al-Nahda-2 attached, no-one called me so I assume nobody went to the Al-Nahda-2 start point! We had Bob, Gilles, Ingmar, Dave, Gill, Tom & Greg, we started off almost 15 minutes late as Greg got a bit lost due to the map confusion but really he was lost anyway as he would have had to pass us at Al-Nahda-1 to get to #2! he was re-directed by Ingmar.
Once ready we headed for the sticks to ride the Al-Nahda-1 route clockwise, then we took a slightly different route to make life more interesting, we passed the small plantation then cut off towards the big Jebels, riding through low the Jebel area where we last rode about 4 years ago, the tracks look a bit fainter now as not many Bedu’s go that way anymore, we had a couple of short breaks as it was 42°C, so summer is here! Just before the climb up onto the ridge Dave got a flat despite having ‘Slime’ in his tube, once fixed we went up onto the ridge then down into the next valley, we stopped in the shade of a tree for a short break then set off again slowly climbing on dual and single trails.
We decided to take yet another route that we did several weeks ago, on reaching the small Wadi Ingmar took the group on a loop along the ridge of the Wadi while I short cut across the Wadi and onto the regular trail and waited for the group to arrive, we then had the official ‘Alf a Nana’ stop in the shade of a large Jebel.
Off we went again on the long slight downhill dual trail, regrouping at the turn off for the single track, Gilles is thinking of getting a full suspension MTB so Ingmar kindly lent him his MTB to try out a full suspension MTB, Gilles face said it all and after 3kms Ingmar had great difficulty getting his MTB back, next it was Dave’s turn to ride Ingmar’s MTB after we had a short stop for the old man (me) to rest, so Fran’s could well have two more customers getting full suspension MTB’s soon.
We continued on our way passing a large male camel tethered to a tree with his girlfriend alongside him, how romantic. We picked up on the scenic route back to the graded road and got to the cars just after six having completed 20kms on my odometer but the others did a couple of kms more on two extra loops during the MTB Ride.