I think it was Ali oops from the Calstock club rather than babara . I’ll pm you with her e-mail addy.
Sarah
Thanks Sarah.
The film people can only do Friday afternoon - I think I’ve convinced them to hang around until a bit later, but one of them is apparently a novice unicyclist and is worried about being too “on his own” (it seems I don’t count…) so if anybody else can make it slightly earlier it would be a great help. Shame nobody’s invented a teleport yet.
Rob
Hi Rob.
I should have my new rim fixed by Wednesday evening so me and the rest of the family will be at the campsite Friday midday-ish. The children has Friday of because of some teacher training day and my little Tom (8y on 20’’) is just as excited as me about the Mazda-shoot.
Tue
Hey Tue! You finally made it onto the forum 
I’m meeting the film people in the pub (Plume) Friday lunchtime, so I’ll see you there. Weather-wise I think it might be a bit like our November weekend - looks like the stepping stones might be too risky, but we’ll see - we could be lucky. This morning I got a bit of everything on the way to work - gales, hail, rain and sun, and only 4 degrees C… and it’s supposed to be almost summer!
Rob
Once you get to the M5, obviously head towards Plymouth. There are various ways to get to Princetown, but the two best ones are:
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Quickest route. Turn off the A38 at the second Ashburton junction, also signposted to Princetown, Two Bridges and the River Dart Country Park. Turn right at the top of the sliproad. Stick on this road until you get to Two Bridges, then turn left to Princetown. This road is narrow, steep and has a couple of very narrow bridges, so be careful (and watch out for animals and canoeists walking up the road!). If you’re not happy with that (it’s not that bad, I just don’t know how long you’ve been driving), or if it’s foggy on the top of the moor…
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Just after joining the M5 at Exeter you go over the river then turn left onto the A30 towards Okehampton. Follow signs to Tavistock then when you get to Tavistock you’ll see a turning on the left to Princetown. Still watch out for animals when you get up on the moor (after Tavistock), but it’s a much bigger road than the Ashburton way.
The Ashburton road has much better scenery, well worth going that way if you’re OK with that sort of road.
See you Friday,
Rob
BTW - it might possibly work out quicker for you to go on the M4 to Bristol then down the M5, rather than the A303.
A top tip for camping food is don’t worry so much about cooking stuff, bring a couple of loaves of bread and some stuff to put on it, a box of fruit, crisps, cereal and milk, that sort of thing. Obviously having the cooker is great for pot noodles or pasta or hot food, but to be honest I pretty often do weekends of camping without the stove, or only cook once in a weekend, the most important thing is having a rucksack (or car) full of food that you can just grab and eat quickly when you’re hungry, and some money for the chippy or the pub, where you can get at least one hot meal.
By the way, John and I are coming down with Phil too, so we’ll miss the filming, might get some extra riding in Malvern on Friday morning though!
Joe
mght not be able to make it on the friday night where can i find you about or 9.30/10 on saturday morning?
I will arrive on the Friday, but with no commitment to arrive in time for the media. I’m pretty sleep-deprived at the moment, and need to have a late start and a relaxed journey down.
I have forwarded Joe Marshall’s catering tips to Jamie Oliver for a second opinion.
A disposable BBQ and a few burgers and sausages works pretty well… although not as well as nipping down the pub.
We’ll be leaving from behind the Plume of Feathers pub, by the campsite. We should be leaving about 10ish, assuming we’re on time. We’ll make sure you’re there before we go 
Rob
thankyou Rob! 
what’s the weather like for the weekend?
Someone is about to post a weather forecast link. To that person: don’t do it. We’re riding anyway, and I choose blissful ignorance.
(It’s going to be sunny.)
John
(sorry John) It looks like it’s going to be damp, but not as bad as it’s been for the last couple of weeks - just light rain by the look of it. Sunday looks like it could even be dry. Tomorrow could be a bit nasty for the filming - wind and rain forecast 
Rob
The BBC weather forecast for the closest place on the map is good, no rain Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Can I suggest using this as the official weather forecast for the weekend!
Joe
Yes that does look quite optimistic… bear in mind though that Tavistock is almost 1000 ft lower than Princetown. Anything can happen on the top of the moor - very localised weather. We can only hope for luck to be on our side.
Rob
You don’t need sat-nav - once you get onto the M3 or M4, depending on which way you decide to go, you can’t really go wrong. When you get to Exeter, follow my directions in the earler post. Failing that, try a map 
Rob
Sounds great. Maybe I will have enough confidence to be a beginner there next year. I thought of you all over the weekend and would have wished I was with you if the weather had of been nicer.
PS Paul and Sarah Miller were at BUC.
Cathy
Wish I could have been there this weekend rather than gardening 
Anyway I hope you all enjoyed yourselves.
I’ll read that as Paul (surname omitted cos we all know it is Selwood) and Sarah Miller were at BUC Normally it is Sarah who gets landed with my surname - unusual for it to happen the other way round!
Anyway, we only turned up for the first ride on Saturday mostly because wet and miserable Dartmoor was not the ideal location for an 11 week old baby. We turned up late (baby wanted a feed - humph. No idea of schedules yet!) and having done the ride before with Rob, Tue and Phil in November I was fairly confident I could work out where the group were headed. Twas an interesting ride in the rain and mist, but good to eventually see some other 1 wheelers (Treepotato and gkmac). Sorry for leaving you guys, but it was a top downhill and I really wanted to ride it!
I finally met up with the rest of the group at the reservoir and had fun the rest of the way around. One of the best bits was a group of bicyclists we found. They took plenty of mobile phone videos/pics of us and I had the joy of overtaking one of them on a gentle uphill. I expected him to come racing past me on the fairly long but gentle and quite smooth decent to the Feathers, but I got there before him!
Anyway, top mornings riding - thanks to Rob for organising and all the others there for being good company. Hope the weather today was a bit nicer than yesterday - it certainly was here in Exeter (30 miles away)
Cheers
Paul
Well, that was an interesting weekend… Firstly I feel I should apologise to the two novice muniers who came (treepotato and gkmac) for the terrible mismatch in the sizes of the two groups. It’s just how it turned out, but it was a real shame - I was hoping for a reasonable group of people to be riding only as far as the reservoir on the Saturday morning, but it wasn’t to be. I hope you get over the cold soon Liz, and it sounds like Gavin had a better ride on Sunday.
Friday afternoon was when the film crew had arranged to film some muni for the Mazda website. It was an absolutely foul day, even for Dartmoor, with rain, fog and strong wind, but they turned up at lunchtime as arranged and were still keen to go ahead. Tue, Tom and I went out with the two film people and their learner unicyclist onto the moor. Their plan for the shoot seemed to be to make their man look as much of a muppet as possible - he had only been learning for a couple of weeks and it was mentioned that he had been bribed to come along and make a fool of himself. They took lots of shots of us riding about and lots more of their learner falling off. By the time they decided they had enough film we were all really cold (lots of standing around in the wind) and glad to head back to the pub. It’ll be interesting to see what the come up with - they’ve promised to send me a copy when it’s edited. After the filming I went for a quick sprint round King’s Tor on the old railway line with Tue to warm up. I rode his KH29 for that ride, which felt subtly different from my 26x3", although the actual tyre diameter was very similar and we had the same length cranks (150s). It seemed to be wanting to pick its own route through the stones much more than the 3" tyre I’m used to.
We woke up on Saturday morning to another grim day. Fog obscured all the (usually quite spectacular) views and the wind and rain was again spoiling the experience. Gritty water getting behind pads is not nice. We set off on the twelve-mile loop up past South Hessary Tor, and down to Burrator. Tue’s Tom turned out to be remarkably fast and very impressive over even the most technical terrain on his little 20" muni, so that left only Gavin and Liz to be the “slow group” - sorry again you two. When we all arrived at the bottom, Paul (S) caught up with us and Sarah arrived, as we’d planned, to collect anybody who didn’t want to ride the return uphill leg. Paul reported that Gavin and Liz were still some way back (we’d been pressing on somewhat because of the vile weather) and that Liz was feeling ill with her cold, so I rode back up the track to meet them and the rest of the group went on. It turned out they weren’t actually that far back and I met them only about half a mile from the bottom. We made our way down to the reservoir where Sarah ferried them back to Princetown (thanks Sarah). I was now fifteen or twenty minutes behind the group and I decided to sprint the next bit of the route (a flat stretch of road then couple of steep climbs) and try to catch up with them. I caught them about three miles or so later, on the long rough climb up from the Scout Hut near Sheeps Tor - luckily they had stopped for a food stop so I had an excuse to let my heart rate drop to a more sensible level! Thick mist still surrounded us, so no views of the bleak summit of Sheeps Tor or back down over the reservoir towards Plymouth. We climbed up through the old mine (nobody fell into the open shaft) and onto the final stretch across the top of the moor past Nun’s Cross and back to Princetown. A good ride, although not as enjoyable as it could have been in better weather.
In the afternoon I sent the “fast group” (pretty much everybody the way it worked out) out on another similar length ride out along the old railway line and through the valley at the bottom of Merrivale. It was the route I took Mikefule on last summer, and is very different from the rest of the moor - a sort of “secret valley” with trees, hawthorn and a stream. While they were on that ride, I went out on an easier loop of about five miles with Gavin. It gave him a chance to practice on some varying surfaces and to experiment with tyre pressures. We swapped unis on the way back - his KH24xc accelerates like a rocket with such a light wheel :), but I reckon my heavier 26x3 is easier to sustain high speed on.
Sunday was a lovely bright, clear day (at last!) By the time I got down to the campsite to meet the group for the start, Gavin had already decided to ride the King’s Tor loop again for some more practice - sounds like he had a better time of it without the wind and rain, and certainly would have had some good views down to Plymouth Sound. The rest of us decided to go for a long but more relaxed ride than Saturday’s. We rode the reverse of the second part of Saturday’s ride, making the long gruelling climb by the Scout Hut into an excellent rocky downhill run. Mikefule wins the most spectacular UPD award, rolling over on the ground and somehow managing to preserve the packet of biscuits strapped to the back of his Camelbak completely intact. At the bottom of the descent is the river, with a choice of bridge or ford. The ford was quite deep, over the axle of a 29er, as was demonstrated by Joe M, Sam (redwelly), Phil and John H, who managed to ride through it (lots of times), with Phil getting the wettest after a UPD in the deepest part. His camera, in the pocket of his shorts, wasn’t too happy - hope it recovers when it dries out! After all the fooling around in the ford we continued down the hill through Sheepstor village (where Mike dropped a pin from his GPS and we spent a few minutes grovelling around fruitlessly in the grass looking for it) and down to cross the dam of Burrator reservoir where we ate ice-creams and Tom was picked up by his mum, Jo, after a very impressive ride - I think he’s going to be one to look out for in a few years. After filling up with food we played around at the bottom of a waterfall, with Tue, Sam, Joe and Phil riding a very dodgy-looking narrow track along the edge of the “gorge” (less than ten feet drop to the side, but too much for me). With all members of the group still intact we carried on up the cycle path to join the old railway line, which would take us all the way back to Princetown. There were a couple more stops for frivolity invlolving a steep grassy slope and a pile of boulders by an old quarry before we arrived back at the campsite after a very enjoyable 16 or so miles. Having good weather really makes all the difference to rides up here. On the final approach to Princetown on a smooth sandy track I was messing about racing Joe and Sam and lost it at probably the fastest speed I’ve ever done on a unicycle. I rolled over but managed to skin my shoulder, thumb and elbow and take a big chunk out of my knee where the 661s had been pushed down by a stone embedded in the ground. Ouch :(. With the improved weather we decided to have the barbeque that had been originally planned for Saturday night, so I nipped off in the car to collect some beer and rolls and we all sat out in the back of my house eating sausages and mushroom and pepper kebabs.
Monday morning (today) Phil, Joe, Sam and the two Johns decided to ride the recently-opened mountain bike trails at Halden Woods near Exeter on their way home. It’s not too far from Princetown so I decided to go with them. The weather was generally excellent again, with just a few minutes of rain just as we arrived. We rode the red route and some of the black route, which included some really good forest singletrack and some frankly scarey drops and stunts which were attempted with various degrees of success (not by me). Unfortunately rooty slippery forest trails are not my strong point and I was riding like a muppet and really struggling to keep up (the state of my knee wasn’t really an excuse, although it probably did slow me down a bit). I’ve made a note to myself to go back there and practice.
So, mostly a successful weekend. Thanks to everybody who came, and apologies again for the lack of a proper beginners’ group.
Now we’re just waiting for somebody to build the fully-fared “superman” prone unicycle we “designed” in the pub on Saturday evening.
Rob