Up and down the country, clusters of riding friends navigate their way round local trails and personal challenges. The bikes help them fall apart, and stick together. Stephan Fowler brings us a tale from one such group.
‘The Tarpless Tour’ is possibly a somewhat confusing name for our annual pilgrimage to foreign lands, but all will become clear. This is a story of celebrating what mountain biking brings to a bunch of guys suffering the effects of lock-downs and just life in general.
Typical Thursday outing 
Our kids are now getting a bit good
To give you some history, our group of riders based (very conveniently) in the Surrey Hills has been together since about 2004. We’re all working Dads with one of a long line of sayings being “We’re a drinking club with a bike problem”. Our once cute and delightful kids have become great hulking, grunting teenagers with some serious biking talent that we grimace and wince at as they throw themselves over unsuitable hand built jumps without the fear of going to work the following day or paying the mortgage and food bills. Sadly one other factor of the lockdown has been the shutting down and flattening of many of these hand built tracks in our region, not the crazy stratospheric sending ramps that damage the environment kind, but the more gentle tables, small gaps, berms and generally progressive jumps that people need to build confidence on, but that is another matter entirely.
We call ourselves ’TFIT’ or Thank F***k It’s Thursday. Basically every Thursday evening, rain or shine, -5 or +28 centigrade, you can normally find a few of us skulking about the leafy hillsides around our patch wondering which pub we will be gracing that evening. Now don’t misunderstand here, we take our riding (fairly) seriously and given the amount of money we’ve spent over the years we feel we’ve done our bit for the biking industry, I mean who ever wants to be left with the shame of turning up with that old 26in hardtail with the rim brakes and twenty-seven gears? No, there is good smattering of some extremely capable long, slack and low equipment, and there is always talk of someone who is looking for their next toy, at which we rub our hands together with glee as we spend their imaginary money for them. There are many stories told (often repeatedly) around the pub table of epic crashes, great saves, near misses and awesome downhill runs, interspersed with the more fruity experiences of rescuing some very dubious characters wearing unsuitable high heels and a dress stuck in the woods at 2am in the morning. Couples being caught unexpectedly in the middle of nowhere in the dark, the brightness of our lights now leaves little to the imagination. Tales of legendary all day pub lock-ins in the Welsh countryside and frightening biker gangs, sing alongs, dart matches and Christmas fancy dress – all these events bring us together as a whole and take us back to those times and happy places.
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Now all had being going really well with this arrangement for sixteen years or so, and with us being a very forward looking bunch we even embraced the advancements in communication technology with WhatsApp. Instead of trying to organise everyone by furiously texting everyone on a Thursday evening as to where and what time we were meeting, we are now able waste hours and hours of time sending copious amounts of unsuitable humorous rants/images/links about all and sundry, some of it even including bike related material. Even now I marvel that we can have 30+ responses to some innocuous comment about a fish and then by contrast three replies about the recent Red Bull Hardline contest. These small things though really did help keep us sane during the dark times when the full extent of the pandemic struck in April 2020. A number of us even turned 50 during the lockdown which certainly put paid to a lot of well laid plans and parties. All was not lost though as we came together for some memorable Zoom evenings as we toasted each other and played some truly hilarious quizzes and games well into the early hours, my sides probably hurt more the following day than when I cracked some ribs on a tree that jumped out on me in Les Arcs one year. I mean who knew you could get so drunk pouring your own punishment shots?
But back to the Tour. Ever since the early days there have been trips to the more vertiginous regions of our own island and France. Starting at just weekends, then on to long weekends and then to a full week’s worth of fun. We’ve tried every conceivable way of managing the logistics of transferring twelve or so blokes with an awfully large amount of kit on these trips. Bike boxes, hire cars, trains, planes, long wheel based vans and car convoys all of which have their plus and minus points, but they have always got us to our destination (some in more relaxed ways than others). There have been broken bones and even broken handmade bikes along the way. Some hardy veterans have even ridden the Alps on fully rigid, single speed bikes, utter madness.
Emily Horridge guiding us around Mont Jovet, La Plagne 
Mont Jovet with Emily Horridge
We have stayed in some truly awful accommodation that even a student would’ve been embarrassed about and in contrast, been sat in the hot tub, beer in hand looking over a valley with uninterrupted views of the sun setting on Mont Blanc having just eaten some of the finest three course cuisine you could ever wish for. The very talented Emily Horridge has guided us on an epic, entirely unforgettable all day Mont Jovet route. We got lost in La Plagne (amongst others) and faced the don’t-look-down-the-precipice-to-your-left at La Varda. But every year we start planning our next excursion and get very excited about the ‘where next?’ conversations.
Often our trips are loosely named in honour of a certain person or persons, typically to celebrate a significant birthday event. Since being welcomed to TFIT around 2011 I’ve somehow been tasked with the production of the essential must have tour T-Shirt designs. Now I shouldn’t let them know, but I secretly love this chore, given I’m a graphic designer by trade it probably seems like a busman’s holiday, but thinking about the victim client or clients in question I can run riot with stupid or silly ideas that can grace the blank canvas space of the attire. Some fairly questionable and probably not politically correct elements have come and gone over the years, but all of them reflect on an event or some personality trait that matches the particular individual(s). With your initials printed on the sleeve you can’t even misplace your unique T-Shirt when it’s dumped in the communal washing machine on holiday after a particularly foul and muddy day on the trails. We’ve even had personalised sets of top trump cards, foam machines, one-off specials amongst the merchandise on offer, and as an added bonus we even had stickers this year, many of which are now in some very odd locations, abroad and at home.
2019 and early 2020 isn’t going to go down as great year, especially for one of our members, after suffering from fatigue and in bloke speak ‘a couple of problems down below’ which turned out to be Crohn’s Disease. This meant him missing our ‘Flabbergaster’ Tour to Les Arcs, but we did supply him with an emergency parcel to tide him over with a smorgasbord of things to take his mind off it. Mind you we never did see that finished knitted hoodie.
Being who he is though, this was mostly kept fairly tightly under his hat for some time, but as the months went by and having some really scary moments involving organ failure, ICU and life changing surgery, the situation improved and he opened up to us and now we can talk about all the shit (literally) that went down during this difficult time, and we can now help him out in the future. During this period it was decided that TFIT would fund and build a deck area at his house as a place of recuperation and enjoyment for him and his family. The day we completed it he barely had the strength to step out of the back door. Fast forward to June 2021 and we were enjoying a very special ‘Dave’s Deck’ party, after an earlier ride around the Peaslake hills. Complete with his famous ‘salad free’ braai [have we reached peak STW? I had to google that – Ed] with the most delicious meats that South Africa has to offer, a table tennis tournament and even special badges were handed out for us to keep. I can safely say that his energy, fun and fitness levels have come rushing back, and shows the true character of this gentleman.
During the pandemic we were left scratching our heads at times as to the latest government guidelines of stay at home, but go out to eat, stay local, do or don’t meet up for exercise etc. So we adapted. Gone were the meet ups. I was riding pretty much every other day during the glorious weather we enjoyed and I even made a series of Lockdown videos of various rides and rambling on about this and that. I explored hidden paths and discovered a a number of new downhill and flowing trail gems that have now been incorporated into the TFIT rides.
When we were finally able, we had the great idea of taking it in turns for one member doing a ‘beer drop’ at a location of their choice then riding a mystery tour with the others to try and remember where they’d left it. Some glorious sunsets and warm evenings often accompanied these rides, but come the tail end of the year it was all becoming pretty cold once the sun had dipped. In stepped a couple of guys who erected a fantastic tarpaulin with suitable fallen log seating areas complete with a life giving fire pit and we were back in business. Meet at the Tarp was the regular shout out on a Thursday, bring beer and firewood. I believe we solved the world’s energy crisis, calmed geopolitical conflicts, unpicked dodgy movie plots and possibly even came to a conclusion as to what is the best tyre pressure to run. The jury is still out however on what is the best wheel size.
This became our little haven of sanity, we always had a policy of leave no trace and litter was never tolerated, the fire pit was always extremely well doused at the end of the night (after several beers there was often a queue for this task) although stowing the now gently steaming fire pit back to its hidey hole was not so well contested. At one point one of our number, or the wood whisperer as we like to call him, had whittled a fantastic set of wooden jumps (another lockdown project of course) and these provided much entertainment, but it wasn’t to last.
This venue was off the beaten trail, not hidden as such and of no consequence to anybody, but as usual the misery Wombles decided that they couldn’t have people out enjoying themselves in the countryside and one afternoon there was a very unhappy message on WhatsApp saying ‘The Tarp has gone, along with the jumps’. WhatsApp did turn fairly blue for a while and we stoically accepted that though it had been fun while it lasted, we would now need another plan. Some very miserable freezing evenings followed. Luckily though the weather did improve and we were finally able to get to the pub again as a group of six, where thoughts turned to our next Tour.
Obviously the 2020 Tour had been binned, but minds were very much focused on the 2021 Tour and after some deliberation and frankly ridiculous title names it was decided it had to be the ‘Tarpless Tour’ in honour of our now roofless meeting spot. Given it was a year where five of us would mark our half century on this earth, we really wanted this to be a banger.
A beautifully appointed and spacious Chalet was located in the heart of Morzine, with the now compulsory hot tub. Deposits were taken and eleven of us committed to the venture with an extremely optimistic view that everything would be fine by July, wouldn’t it? As it turns out it wasn’t all ok and despite appointing a very reluctant Covid Officer Chris or COC for short to guide us through all the booking of various tests, red tape and paperwork, we were whittled down to a final eight contestants for the main event in early July. When the day finally came round for the incredibly early departure time of 3.30am to be at the Tunnel in time we stood in disbelief at the waiting area that A) We were on our way, and B) That literally no-one had asked to have a look at the bundles of paperwork and downloads on our phones that proved we were Covid free. It was actually happening and we knew just what was awaiting us once we got to the mountains.
An easy cruise down with plenty of overpriced coffee, snacks and convenience stops saw us arrive late afternoon just as the UCI Downhill Competition was packing up in Les Gets. A quick shop in the Carrefour saw us well stocked with further snacks, beer and wine to see us through the first few days. The catering team had dropped off our food for the evening, and as we clambered into the hot tub we thanked our lucky stars.
Covid Officer gets the all empowering high viz jacket AND a clipboard 
Stickers came in handy on more than one occassion
This isn’t going to be a long spiel about all the runs we did and how we shredded every turn, shralped every berm and styled all the jumps (as that would be a lie). We kept having a sly look at each other and just knew how fortunate we were to be here and in each others’ company, we really were as Monty Python said “Lucky, lucky bastards”. The lifts were incredibly quiet, most of the bars even more so, yes there was quite a bit of moisture about on some days, and keeping rubber side down at times was tricky. We mixed in bars with the likes of Laurie Greenland, Loic Bruni and Andreu Lacondeguy, spied Tahnee Seagrave having breakfast one morning as we cycled up to the lift and learned a few home truths about each other after several glasses of red wine when playing a card game called ‘Bad People’, NOTE: Do not play this game with children or family! We watched the incredible endurance and pace of the UCI XC riders on the Sunday afternoon in what were some truly atrocious conditions, and basically used just about every inch of the available trails that the region has to offer. Some of it we styled and others we slithered and slid down. During all this there was one guy in particular who just couldn’t stop grinning, or babbling about how awesome a particular descent had been. Yep, it was our very much restored friend and this was such a tonic for all of us. For the whole week we rode, drank and ate. We watched in awe as England qualified for the Euro Finals, much to the chagrin of some locals. It was perfect, the Tarpless Tour had truly delivered.
We couldn’t see the line through this section. 
Genepi anyone? 
This is why we go to the Alps
I very much doubt that our state of well-being would be in a very good place without TFIT, it kept all the plates spinning while the world was going into a nose-dive. With the intellect, humour and sheer bloody mindedness of the people in this group we continue to ride and have a good time. Long may it continue. It really isn’t about how, or where, or on what bike you ride, but about who you share your ride with. So roll on this Thursday.
