My day job had to wait today, I had a more important job to do. More accurately, I gatecrashed Martin's trail riding party today. Which, as it turned out, was actually a good thing. If Martin had been on his own then it would have been a proper drama.

We had two separate couples how were there by virtue of TreatMe.com - where people buy gift vouchers for balloon trips and skydiving and stuff like that. Their gifts were a day's trail riding at AJP.

There was Simon and Tess, a couple who hailed from Cheltenham, and there was Chris and Laura - father and daughter. Chris was 60 and it was a birthday present for him. Laura got the nickname "Penelope", which she took in good humour. This was due to her tendency to squeal and scream like Penelope Pitstop whever she encountered something she didn't like. At one point, she literally did sit at the foot of a rooty hill shouting "Hey-ulp! Hey-ulp!" and squealed like a banshee as she took it on.

I told Simon that he was riding The Baby, and I explained how she hates me and can smell fear. He thought that this was very amusing, but realised it for himself later in the day.

Martin was in a bit of a mischievous mood. He's just moved premises, so we're much closer to the Plain, but this also means that we miss out a lot of the places in the morning where we give the lessons. Which, due to Martin being a bit mischievous, means that we missed out a lot of the lessons.

The first time we encountered ruts, Martin was in front, and I don't think it occurred to him that we need to show these guys how to get through them. Some fairly predictable and messy carnage ensued. I'm trying to bring up the rear and talk the guys through it at the same time as they're trying to keep up with Martin. It was difficult, but we were still having a laugh.

As we got into the woods, I told the guys to keep to the right. This wasn't one of those "when John tells you to keep to the right, you have to wonder why" times - it really was a proper keep to the right.

There are two very very simple reasons for this instruction:

1. The left looks much easier;
2. The left turns into 2-feet deep of ruts and mud when you get round the corner

Laura and Chris took what looked to be the easiest route and went left. Simon and Tess were miles in front with Martin.

I have really missed my Friday mornings getting all wet and muddy and digging people out of carnage. Until this morning. I'm knee deep in the much-missed Salisbury mud pushing at a squealing Penelope telling her "go on, give it some welly". Proper comedy.

We got to the hill where we do the whole momentum thing. We explained the technique, and up shot Chris and Simon first time. Tess had a bit of lying down going on for her first attempt - helpfully captured on her camera by yours truly (much to the delight of her hubby).

Penelope had a bit of a delayed reaction to the "go on, give it some welly" instruction. In all the hours and miles I have done on the Plain, I have never seen a bike do a complete backward somersault and land on its wheels. I saw it today. She wheelied over the top of the hill and came off the back of the bike - which flew in the air and done a 360-degree loop - almost taking Martin's head off in the process.

Simon put his bike on the side stand to go and see if she was OK, and his bike fell over. That'll be clutch lever number 1. The problem was that it was Martin's "unbreakable" clutch lever that had, em, broken so this gave us some square-peg-into-round-hole issues with fitting a new one. An ingenious little device involving a spark plug and some gaffa tape was duly invented, and Physics huffily agreed that we weren't breaking any laws in doing this although he would be keeping a good eye on us from that point onwards.

Then it was time to go down the hill again. Penelope sat at the top of the hill and was completely paraysed, apart from squealing. She simply could not get down that hill. Absolutely terrified. I was sat at the bottom and I really felt for her - I was exactly there about a year ago at the Midwest enduro sans body armour (blogs passim). You remember, the one where I sat for an hour at the top of a hill and just couldn't find the balls to get down it. Martin took her a different way instead.

When Simon dropped his bike the second time, the whole clutch assembly snapped off. This happened at exactly the same time as Chris's cam chain jumped a tooth and turned the suck-squeeze-bang-blow of his bike into more of a buck-beeze-sang-slow. Dead bike. Physics had rather smugly declared that that was 1-all.

So I gave Tango to Simon, and started pushing his broken bike towards the woods. I've never had cause to ride this bike before today, so she didn't have a name. Today, this unnamed bik became Selene.

Selene was a moon goddess, who had a bit of a thing going with a shepherd called Endymion. Endymion ended up never growing old, but instead sleeping for all eternity. Given the current state of the bike, it seemed appropriate.

Out came the towrope. The legendary red webbing strap. Footpeg to footpeg. Here we go again. The guys have got their cameras out at this spectacle - they've never seen anything like this before.

Off to the pub for lunch, some ferrying back and forward with me on the back of Martin's bike, and I am off on my own for the afternoon with the guys - no spare bikes. None. Physics scoffed. 2-1.

Fifteen minutes later, Simon's bike starts backfiring and - eventually - drops a valve. The backfire was caused by the exhaust valve not closing as the fuel gets pumped in - so it explodes in the exhaust. Martin comes up in the car and declares that they'll need to come back another day - there are no more bikes - so after a bit more towing and 2-up, I set off with Penelope and Chris. I am now on the Husaberg.

We came back to Somersault Hill - as it will now be known - and I stopped the Husaberg, took of my helmet, and started grinning at Penelope. So, are we going up or what? Again, I walked her through the technique and showed her a few times. Her dad flew straight up and sat waiting for her at the top. Heart in her mouth, she gave it a go and flew right up. She raised both of her arms in the air - "YES!!" - and forgot that she needed them on the handlebars to steer. Physics, looking to score the winner, put a hatrick in the back of the net and dumped Penelope right on her arse.

She picked herself right up, then just turned round and came back down the hill - squealing all the time. Then, just for the hell of it, she went up again. Then down. Much squealing. A very happy Penelope. A very happy Chris. Broken bikes, towropes and trauma or not - that is a success. That's what it's all about.

Back at AJP for some "sweary mechanics". This basically involves me, Martin, some broken bikes and a bunch of spanners and much swearing at things that won't come off or won't go on. Bits from other bikes are taken off, attached, tested, found to be broken, sworn at, and put on the floor. Then we get mixed up about which are the broken bits and which are the good bits, so there's a bit more attaching and unattaching and swearing and remembering to separate them into two piles.

Is this what it will be like on the way to Beijing? Would it be advisable to learn how to swear in Russian?

Today is the first day in weeks that I have not had my head choc-full of stuff. It's my first downtime in what feels like ages. Physics gave us a bit of a hard time and, on the face of it, there was a lot of trauma. But it felt like therapy. In fact, I'll invent a new word here and call it "traumapy".

I am out again tomorrow and the weather forecast is totally grim. More traumapy. Shippee ...

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