You know that thing where despite the fact that it’s utterly miserable outside, you drag yourself out on your bike? You should do that more often. It’s ace fun!

I headed out with Weon & James on Sunday. It was raining, windy and generally horrible and you know what? That really didn’t matter. We had an absolutely ace time.

Owen was on a mission on the way up the hill. Once we got off-road, he went for everything. The Tramway, which is a soul-destroying drag straight up the middle of the hill was conquered first, before he took on and beat the sting in the tail of Dog-Poo Alley. I’d have managed it too if my bike had been willing to change down to the granny gear, honest guv’nor!

James is still quite new to mountain biking, so he’s keen to try everything out and absolutely bursting with enthusiasm. It’s really refreshing to see someone shouting “YES!” because they got through a tricky section in one piece and giggling like a loon when they fall off in the mud.

One trail we hadn’t ridden for ages follows the escarpment across the top of the hill above Sandy Lane before diving down into the woods. It’s an ace bit of single-track, especially when howling winds, driving rain, wet roots and James diving into the undergrowth all make it that little bit more challenging.

We finished off by slipping and sliding down Daisy Bank (cheeky!). James fell off at least once, I did that thing where your wheels follow different ruts and you end up at 90° to the trail and somehow Owen made it down in one piece.

One of the best things is the looks people give you on the ride home across town. They’re sat snugly inside their cars staring out at us: soaking wet, caked in mud and clearly having the time of our lives. Brilliant.

“Hey Olly, you just hipped off that jump.”
“You what?”
“Yeah, you rode in, took off and swung the bike around under you.”
“Sweet! I had absolutely no idea.”

I wouldn’t have the first idea how to hip-jump. The truth is, getting air still scares the crap out of me.

Say good bye to the summer, autumn’s here with a vengeance.

Myself and Weon had a fairly typical autumnal ride. We encountered everything from blazing sunshine to torrential rains with howling winds chucked in for good measure. The leaves carpeting the ground made navigating some of the unfamiliar trails an interesting exercise in guesswork. They were all still on the trees the last time I was there. Still, we didn’t get lost at all.

We blasted down dry hard-packed single-track and ploughed through axle-deep bogs. We sheltered from the weather in a forest and ate cake, fruit and chocolate. We wheel-span up slick wet grass hillsides and picked our way down rocky technical descents that had us shouting expletives as the bikes misbehaved beneath us. We kept riding until we were both completely and utterly exhausted.

It added up to about 30 mainly off-road miles all in all. I feel a bit broken now, but with that satisifed “I did good stuff today” feeling. Rocking.

I really should have cleaned the bike when I got back.

Matt’s not the only one who’s had their credit card used fraudulently recently.

I had a phone-call from Barclaycard this morning to inform me that my card had been used for some bizarre transactions over the past few days and ask if it was me. I’ve not used it for ages, so it came as something of a surprise.

They started out by buying a bus ticket over the internet. When that went through, they tried for a few big purchases. Big red lights flashed and klaxons sounded at the Barclaycard Fraud Investigation Department bunker (I guess because I rarely use the card) and thankfully, they declined most of it.

They’ve cancelled the card and are sending me some forms to fill in. It’s a good job they phoned me, or I probably wouldn’t have noticed until the next statement came through in about a month’s time.

So keep an eye on your card statements. You never know who else might be buying things on your behalf…

Sorry Anton, I couldn’t resist ‘shopping it. Here’s the original and here’s the Flickr group with a whole lot more…

We’re riding in and around Morzine in the French Alps. It seems the trail-pixies up here don’t like Orange 22x bikes for some reason:

• Nick fell off his Orange 222 in a big way within thirty seconds of starting his first ride out here a week or so ago. He broke nearly every major part of his bike and he’s covered in scabs and bruises, but at least he’s out there riding.
• Gary fell off his Orange 224 while riding the Mega Avalanche, busting a rib. He can’t sneeze, cough or laugh, let alone ride his bike.
• Anton re-opened a large wound in his leg whilst riding his Orange 224 into a tree somewhere near the Super-Morzine on Tuesday.
• Charlie fell off his Orange 222 on the way back from Chatel on Wednesday. He went down hard on his front, before bike came down square across his shoulders, doing in his clavicles. He’s on his second day off the bike.
• Literally two minutes after he got back up, I fell off my Orange 222 in a big way (trying to overtake him) and busted my right hand. Simon told me that was the biggest crash I’ve seen in a long, long time. I too am on my second day off. It’s feeling a bit better today though.

Of course, everybody else in the group is still in one piece. It’s quite clearly because they’re riding Santa Cruz, Mr Big, Ancilotti and Intense bikes.

My theory is completed by Mr Steve Peat, who fell off of his Orange 224 on the last corner of his World Championship run two years ago. At the time, he was a good couple of seconds ahead of the eventual winner, Fabien Barel. Where was this? Why, it was just up the road at Les Gets.

Thankfully, the two days riding that preceeded the accident were fantastic fun, including a great run right from the top of Les Gets’ Mont Chery course (the lift doesn’t go all the way up - you have to walk from the top of the bike park lift) and a stormer of a day riding in Chatel with Colin Williams of Team Yeti UK fame. The 303 DH rail bike does work after all, and it’s a really lovely thing in the flesh. Another one for the wish-list: I bet it doesn’t pick up enourmous rocks and fling you over the handlebars…

SMS From: Brett Mob
08.07.2005    21:23
Olly, kind of fell
off your bike and
put a cut in
stanchion :( i
asked at shop
and can get a
new crown +
stanchions 4 £70
so i'll pay for new
ones, sorry

[For the uninitated, the stanchions are the sliders that go up and down in the suspension fork]

It was Owen’s 30th birthday the other day, so to celebrate it a bunch of us descended on Go Ape! in the Forest of Dean.

Put simply, it’s a great big ewok-village style obstacle course set up to 35ft in the air. When you’re that high up, all of the front goes out the window and you can really see who’s scared - It’s usually not the people you’d expect.

The highlights of the whole thing had to be the zip-wires. They pale into insignificance compared to the Fantasticable, but they’re great fun nonetheless. Clip on, jump forwards and WHEEEEEEE! You’d inevitably crash land at the other end (unless you were Ben), filling your shoes and pants with wood-chippings. Sweet.

The pictures are up on Flickr should you be interested.