The car park's open until 9pm now its light at night and the cafe stays open that long on Wednesdays too, with stews, curries and such available to hungry riders and walkers.
I wanted to give the black a run on my own to check if I could get around in a reasonable time, so me n the Mutt headed out straight after work to give it a go. Despite a few showers over the preceding day and a half, pretty much all is dry again. Its well over a year since I last did the black and its quite a bit different to how I remember it. The first section is relatively straightforward, but some of the bermed corners and scary to look at (they seem to be almost vertical), but no problem to ride, as long as you attack with reasonable confidence. Main problem for me are the very rough, tight and VERY steep hairpins which are strewn with loose rocks - a couple of dabs of the feet here. The descents are longer and faster than on the red, which, inevitably, means the climbs are longer and harder too, with many of them being single track which is more challenging than the climbs on the red.
Quite happy with a 1:39 time and no walking, so the climbing seems to be getting better with all the practice. And the bike was faultless again. Both the car parks were half full, and the lemon cake in the cafe was top notch, but only seemed to last about 3 minutes!
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