It’s funny, isn’t it? Three days of adrenalin pumping sport makes the real world seem really dull.

After spending a couple of weeks off the bike (due to illness) I got back on them in a big way over the weekend, pedalling up and down hills and generally riding like a complete loon.

I’m struggling with the not braking before launching myself into the air thing.

First there was the cross-country riding, pounding up Aggs Hill like it wasn’t there, with the Prodigy blasting in through my earphones. I was disappointed by Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned when it first came out, but several of the tracks have now got me ensnared, and you can’t beat their trademark pounding basslines can you?

Obviously the absolute murdering of the opening climb left me feeling broken for the rest of the ride, but it was ace nonetheless. I explored a few cheeky trails (most were completely bobbins), rode through a field of cows, got completely lost before popping out into Andoversford with one of those “Oh, I’m here!” moments, and found a weird trail that was a footpath one in one direction and a bridleway the other. I rebelled and followed the yellow arrows. Bimbling across Gloucestershire in the sunshine. Can’t beat it.

Then there was the downhilling (dude!). I nearly nailed one of the step-downs. It shouldn’t be a big thing but I’m struggling with the not-braking-before-launching-myself-into-the-air thing. Damn my sense of self-preservation. I also nearly ate the rock garden (literally). I lost the front wheel on the way in and found myself diving head-first over the handlebars. Fight or flight kicked in – everything slows down in those situations and you’re able to guide yourself into the nice soft undergrowth to one side of the trail. Sense of self preservation to the rescue, dammit! Alas I lost one of the preload adjusters from my forks in the impact. Then there was the catching shoulders on passing trees, dragging arms through brambles, pulling muscles and so on.

Despite the bruising it was ace fun. The trails are now officially scary fast. I keep replaying a couple of sections in my mind: Letting go of the brakes, flying down to the little drop, then whoop… There’s a second of silence, before the WHUMPH! Tyres reconnect with the trail, the shock takes the worst of the impact, then you’re concentrating hard on guiding the bike down through the trees – vvvvrrrruuuurrrrmmmm! You can really feel the tyres working overtime there. Brings a smile to my face every time.

The final section of the track is a monster. I had a few runs through there when everything just clicked. I was making almost subconscious corrections to my line as I dropped through the bombhole – steering without even thinking. Methinks the confidence is coming back in a big way.

Then today I came back to earth with a thump. I struggled to drag myself out of bed. I was sat at work finding that writing some HTML and some particularly complex CSS to go with it held none of its usual geek-challenge. Every website in the world seems dull, there’s nothing even remotely exciting on the telly and I’m feeling more than a little bit knackered.

Have. To. Get. Outside.

Have. To. Ride. Bike. Again.

I can’t be arsed to write a proper meaningful post at the moment. Life is getting in the way. So I thought I’d write about my bikes for a change.

I’ve got two that work at the moment, then there’s two that I plan to make into working bikes again at some point. I’ve planned this for some time though. There’s a distinct possibility that I’ll never get around to it.

The “freeride” rig

Its an Azonic Saber. I didn’t like the Azonic logo, so that had to go, and besides it’s actually made by XTension bikes – and their logo is still there on the top tube. Its great, except on the really steep stuff. I know that’s partly down to me (steep trails bring out “the fear” in me), but I don’t think the long top tube, head angle and high bottom bracket help a great deal [1].

Its rocktastic just about everywhere else though. I’ve hauled it around XC loops (slow on the ups, ruling on the downs), across North Shore style skinnies and down full on World Cup DH courses. Its a fantastic all-rounder.

The do everything else bike

Its a big old Cove Stiffee. A bit too big for me really, but its a nice enough bike nonetheless. One gear, five inch forks and the parts from two different headsets. Aye, it’s a bit of a freakbike isn’t it? Still, it was built up almost entirely from spare bits so its not too bad.

Its good for lazy summer cruises around the bridleways of Gloucestershire, and does pretty well in the singletrack too. It’s also proved itself more than capable of riding up and down snow-covered hillsides in complete blizzard conditions.

Then there’s the others

The Coyote keeps asking me to build it up again. I reply “OK, but only if I can get you a new shock”. It then whinges on about how it’ll be months before that happens and I bung it back in the garage.

It needs a decent shock though. The Fasttrax one that came with it is completely useless. The thing is, if I get it a nice shock it’ll want some new forks, wheels, gears, brakes, finishing kit, paintwork…

Then there’s the LTS3. That was my first ever full susser. On the one hand it handles pretty sweetly. On the other, the rear suspension is useless, it squeaks and I don’t think the frame is altogether straight anymore. The perfect candidate for a rebuild then.

I think i’ll make it a single speed again. The last time I did that I got lampooned because apparently single speed bikes can’t have suspension, riser bars or any of that stuff. Pah! We showed ’em – right up until I broke the forks. Then there was the needing the bits for something else. Then there was the putting it away in a garage about 130 miles away for ages. I’ll put it back together one day though.

[1] Wow, can you hear me talking myself into getting something new there? Its amazing how easy it is to convince myself that I need a proper DH bike…

On Sunday we went along to Cwmcarn, South Wales, to see the British Cycling NPS Downhill Round Two, which is basically a load of people on expensive bikes flinging themselves down a gert big track to see who can get down there fastest.

It was quite a bizarre experience, arriving and wandering through the car park, seeing faces you’ve only ever seen on the likes of Earthed 2 – Steve Peat, the Athertons, Cunny and The Don to name but a few. The new track drew quite a large crowd, both curious locals and mountain bike fans. Its got a fantastic “stadium section” at the bottom of the track with a whole series of vulture-friendly jumps and massive bermed corners.

We stood and watched at the penultimate corner for an hour or so and saw a couple of massive stacks – the sort that you can see going wrong from the moment they take off. One rider hit the tabletop at full speed and immeditately became detached from his bike – he came down like a bag of spanners, and got a massive cheer when he got up and rode the rest of the course a couple of minutes later. A bit later we may have caused one a bit further up the course. We gave a rider a massive cheer as he came around the corner into the final section. Accordingly he went huge off of the next jump – only to crash big stylee as he hit the next berm. Sorry mate!

Our very own Alex Marshall took fourth place in the open category . He was clearly gutted to have missed out on a podium. He was knocked off at the last minute by a rider who got to re-do his run. Good effort nonetheless. In the end Steve Peat took the elite category by just 0.6 seconds from Gee Atherton, with big bro Dan Atherton finishing third. In the end I think it came down to whether you did the final hip-jump or not. Gee did it, Peaty didn’t and that was all that separated them. Rachael Atherton took the elite ladies.

I’ve bunged a load of photos in The Gallery – there’s Steve Peat, Gee Atherton, Oscar Saiz and god knows who else in there.

Its amazing how much a bit of exercise can cheer you up. I got back from work, the sun was shining and my bike was calling out to me. So off I went. I didn’t really know where I was headed, which is probably why I ended up doing an unplanned ascent of Cleeve Hill. On a singlespeed mountain bike. I must be off my trolley.

The last time I went up there it was covered in snow. Not this time though. I went up the Aggs Hill / Mill Lane route — a nasty climb to begin with, then an easy bit past the resevoir and GCHQ’s back door. After that there’s the brutal ascent to the gate, before a nice gentle off-road climb up to the quarry where the motocrossers hang out.

There was a comedy kid on Aggs Hill, riding a knackered old two-stroke trials bike. No helmet, no number plates, and he was ragging the nuts off of it. He went past me in a cloud of blue smoke. I’m pleased to say that I got further up the hill than he did.

The climb nearly killed me. I surprised myself with just how much of it I rode though, only walking the really steep bit in the middle – and that was more a lack of fitness and resolve than outright strength. I’ve been up that way so many times in the past (not so much in the last couple of years though) and its always a killer. Boy, was it worth it though. I rode out of the trees onto the final bit of the climb – a dry, dusty trail, the sun beating down on my back and a gentle breeze to keep me cool. It was just plain lovely.

After sitting by the quarry in the sun for a while, I remounted and rode along the road to the masts, where I stopped and watched the kite-boarders for a while (I’d love to have a go at that), before heading over towards the golf course. The view from there is phenomenal — out over the racecourse and across the whole of Cheltenham. Its only when you see it from there that you realise just how far you’ve climbed, which is always satisfying. From there I rode down the rocky little descent and back into the trees, following the bridleway to Southam, which true to form, was an absolute quagmire. Great fun in a never-quite-sure-which-way-the-tyres’ll-go-next kinda way. In the space of half a mile myself and my bike went from being relatively clean to being absolutely caked in mud. Winner!

I got home grinning from ear to ear. Always a good sign.

I didn’t get to bed until early Saturday morning, thanks mainly to a couple of DVDs — The Forgotten (silly) and Dodgeball (very funny) — and a certain flatmate getting home from the pub without his door keys. Anyway, not enough hours of sleep later, that very same flatmate knocks on my door:

Him: “You coming to Cwm Carn?”
Me: “Mumble grumble mhrrrr”
Him: “Sweet! We’re leaving in about half an hour.”

And so we did. The main aim of the trip was to play on the new Mojo downhill track, but seeing as my DH bike is currently lacking its rear shock, I took the Big Red Stiffee.

Frustrating

As soon as we got there I remembered. I hadn’t ridden my bike since Cumfest and had forgotten to sort out the singleator. To do that I’d be needing an 18mm cone spanner. Where was that? Yep, you guessed it, its in the garage back home.

That wasn’t going to stop me though, and it wasn’t long before I was off and riding round the “Twych” cross-country trail. Unfortunately my complete lack of fitness and the aforementioned chain tension issue got in the way every time the trail went uphill (its amazing how much confidence you lose when you can’t be sure a pedal stroke won’t slam your knee into the bars), but even so it was great fun. The singletrack (clearly inspired in places by the trails at Afan Argoed) was great fun, especially the whoop-de-whoop bits, and the final descent to the car park. Perhaps the most satisfying was the short descent that goes alongside the forest drive. I was absolutely flying along there with some kids cheering me on from the roof of the big 4×4 that I was comfortably keeping pace with. Then the trail went back into the woods and that was the last I saw of them. The only problem is that its not long enough. Still, I suppose you’re allowed to do as many laps as you like…

Mynydd Mojo

I got back and found the others playing on the new DH track. Now, before you start moaning about how its not open yet and we shouldn’t be riding it yet, several of the Mojo crew who built the trail were riding it too and encouraging the rest of us. They just don’t want you doing uplifts yet.

Its proper big — like something straight out of the Alps. There’s plenty of massive berms, hips, drops, doubles and even a few bridges to play with, but its all rollable – so if you don’t fancy flying 30ft through the air you don’t have to. There were a couple of locals playing on there and making to look decidedly easy, or so I thought.

Nope, that’s nothing. A bit later Rowan Sorrell and Tim Ponting of the Mojo Racing team turned up with some mates their mates and made everybody else look silly. They were going massive off of everything they could. Really really impressive stuff. I want to go back and have a play on my full susser now.

“I’ve got a fork between my legs”

We stopped off on the way back, picked up Brett’s sister and went for a pub dinner somewhere near Crickhowell. I’m not sure quite how we got her and two big mountain bikes across the back seats of Brett’s car – it certainly didn’t look very comfortable. I’ve not laughed that much in ages.

Should you be interested in such things, there’s more pictures in The Gallery.

Just got a text from Lewis:

Keep your eyes open for a patriot with plasters on the brake handles and non working front gears. Mine’s gone missing. Bastard.

So if you happen to see a black Orange Patriot around Cheltenham that fits that description, and looks like the one in the photo below, feel free to get in touch.

Lets see what google searches a post title like that brings in…

So, I arrive home on Thursday and go bike mad. There’s a vague plan to swap bits over from the DH to the XC bike, in order to create some sort of burly XC bike with gears and enourmous disc brakes. It comes grinding to a halt quite early on, when it becomes clear that an 203mm disc brake rotor blatantly doesn’t fit into the back of the Cove. In the end I settle for just sticking a spare disc brake on the front – I’ve had the bits lying around forever and just never got around to fitting them to the bike. Unfortunately, a quick test ride around the block reveals that it quite blatantly doesn’t work anymore. So I spend quite a lot of Friday morning bleeding it, which is always a fun operation. It seems to work now though, which is a bonus.

So why am I doing all of this? Its the inaugural [and ambiguously named] Cumfest this weekend! Friends, bikes and all manner of other things all weekend up at Andy & T’s house up in Garrigill, Cumbria.

Mike D spent most of Friday afternoon driving myself and Rich up there in his absurdly practical Peugeot Partner (holds three people, four bikes, all of our kit, some food, drink and a big box of choccy chip cookies easily) with Green Day, the Chilli Peppers and The Pixies blasting out of the stereo. We make it fine despite driving up through some full on millenium falcon style blizzards on the M6, and begin to party in earnest. It goes a bit wierd at one point when a somewhat inebriated Bez puts a beer bottle between his bumcheeks (probably best not to ask – mainly because none of us can remember bquite why he did it). Comedy injury of the weekend occured during the bicycle-pursuit races around the inside of the village hall. Rich managed to fall off of his bike and onto a radiator, puncturing one of his bumcheeks. There’s a slightly disturbing trend developing there isn’t there? I should probably point out that both incidents were entirely unrelated and even happened in separate buildings, but that might calm some of your fears so I don’t think I’ll bother.

Saturday brought one of the best bike rides I’ve had in a long long time. A group of about thirty of us headed out of Garrigill into the hills. The amount of bike porn on offer was silly – there were at least three pairs of the rare-as-hens-teeth Maverick SC32 forks and a mad variety of machinery going from Shaggy’s fixed-gear rigid Spot all the way through the spectrum to Lee’s Orange Patriot 7+.

Within half a mile we hit snow, but carried on regardless – we’re hardcore like that. About a mile into the ride we’re all walking through knee-deep snow and its snowing, hard. I’m wishing I’d brought the snowboard instead. Most of the group turn back at this point – bunch of jessies. However, about ten of us continue upwards and onwards – some have scampered off into the distance, leaving myself, Mike, Bez, Dr Gray and Grant in the chasing pack. We never did catch up, though we did discover that you could ride through quite a lot of the snow, and when you did fall off it didn’t hurt. This meant that riding back was one of the all time classic descents, with all five of us flying over the handlebars into snowdrifts countless times and laughing most of the way down.

We finally got back to Garrigill just in time for the pub to stop serving food, so Mike and Timmah went off to Alston and returned about a pint later with ten rounds of fish and chips! Rocktastic! Cue another evening of eating, drinking and being merry – this time largely without injury.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny. A small part of me wanted to go and go and attempt to climb that hill again, but it was outnumbered by the other 96% of me, which was only really up for being downright lazy. I settled for riding around the village on Mike’s Dialled Prince Albert. It was far too big for me (even though it was about half the size of Phil “Nightfire” Tonkin’s ludicrous Ferrous 29’er), but I loved the huge handlebars on it. About three feet wide with much the same rise on them. Meanwhile, Make, Bez, Drac and Timmah competed in the Tour de Garrigill -a five lap race around the village. At the end of each lap all of the competitors got pelted with snowballs. I think Tim lasted one lap, Lee did two, Bez managed three and Mike romped away to a crushing (if a little hollow) victory.

With the riding over it was time to pack most of our kit into the car (I seem to have left my shorts on the radiator in the village hall – D’OH!) and head for home (this time with a soundtrack from The Damned and The Beastie Boys). A fantastic weekend all in all.

Big big big ginourmous thanks to Andy and T for hosting it, Mike for the lift up there and back, Matt for being mum and cooking a couple of fantastic large-scale meals, and to everybody else for making it well worth making the trip up there. Roll on next time…

Oh, by the way, there’s some pictures out on t’internet, by Simon, Rich, Lee, Grant.

Going Native by Descent World

The long awaited new DVD from Descent World came through the door this morning. If you’re not into your bicycles and your dirt you’re not really going to be up for this, bus as you may well be aware I’m somewhat fanatical about the things.

I’m happy to say its a pretty good video. Not quite up to the high standards of Earthed or The Collective, but pretty damn good nonetheless. There’s a little too much dirt jumping in there for my liking, but that’s offset by some lovely footage from Fort William, Innerleithen, Dunkeld and various other tracks around Europe. Its always nice ace seeing the professionals blasting down tracks and being able to say “I’ve ridden that!” in a way that you really can’t with most of the videos coming from the States and Canada. The only real problem is that its not long enough.

Luxembourg by The Bluetones

A while back, The Bluetones had the audacity to release a new album without telling me! The bastards! Still, I got a copy of it eventually, and the early signs are that its a stormer. Its edged Evil Nine out of my work PC’s CD drive for now anyway.

Its a different sound to their previous outings, this time they’ve gone a bit rocky and electro. For me that’s a good thing – it seems to work well with their dependably great lyricism. I’m not going to say any more until I’ve had a chance to listen to it a bit more, but thus far I’m enjoying it.