Myself and my good friend Lisa spent a few days in New York last week. Blimey. They do BIG very well out there.

We weren’t there for long, so we decided that the best strategy was to pick a few things and visit them. In the end that went out the window in favour of wandering around taking in as much as we could before collapsing in a heap.

Unfortunately I went down with a full on man-cold a couple of days in, so Lisa had to put up with my coughing fits for the rest of the trip. I didn’t let it slow me down at all though. A trip to a local pharmacy sorted me out with some Comterex, which did a pretty good job of masking the worst of the effects.

Blueberry muffins in a lake of syrup for breakfast? Aye, that’ll do me.

We carried on regardless, wandering round the city. The weather swung wildly from one day to the next, going from bright and cool one day to howling winds and driving rain the next — and right on back to bright sunshine again the day after.

We stopped off at all the big names: The Dakota Building, Central Park (beautiful), Times Square (bright and flashy), Broadway, Battery Park, the Staten Island Ferry (taking in views of The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the Brooklyn Bridge), Ground Zero (where many of the surrounding buildings are still being repaired three years on), Tiffany’s, Trump Tower (home of possibly the most ostentacious shopping mall on earth), the New York Public Library (an amazing building), St. Patricks Cathedral (another amazing building), the list goes on…

We stopped off in traditional diners, cafes, sandwich bars, coffee shops and good old McDonalds (it tastes much better over there). Blueberry muffins in a lake of syrup for breakfast? Aye, that’ll do me.

Sadly it was all over far too soon. There was so much more that I wanted to see but we just didn’t have the time. We both really want to go back — for more than just a few days next time. Maybe next time I’ll be able to finally meet up with you Stuart?

There’s some more pictures from the trip over in The Gallery.

Oh, and steam really does come out of the ground, just like in the movies!!!

We spent today playing up on Leckhampton Hill. I took the oppurtunity to play with my new camera.

I haven’t got the hang of action shots yet at all – I struggled to get the riders even vaguely in focus. More experimenting needed there methinks. The light wasn’t great either, which is never very helpful, but thats life. I had a bit of fun playing with the macro modes, getting nice close-ups of various bits of the bike, as you can see below.

As for the riding itself, it was ace. I struggled with the mud a bit to begin with, but once my confidence started to return I really enjoyed myself. I was starting to flow really well until blammo! My chain device decided it wanted to lose the chain — for the first time in months. Maybe it was something to do with the chain having more mud than lube on it, or perhaps running the chain a little too long isn’t helping. Maybe one of the grub-screws coming loose had something to do with it. Either way, a few minutes with an allen key sorted it out, and it didn’t come off for the rest of the day.

We rode most of what Lecky has to offer today — everything from tight nadgery singletrack to flat-out wide open rocky chutes. It really is a great mountain bike playground. If only it was a little bit bigger…

You can see the pictures over in The Gallery.

I joined the Cheltenham Film Society a couple of weeks back. I went along with some friends of mine and was surprised to meet a few other people I knew there, including my aunt and uncle Helen and Stephen. Its a small world isn’t it?

Anyway, tonight’s film was House of Sand and Fog, starring Jennifer Connelly (who always surprises me by actually being a good actress) and Ben Kingsley.

It was very clever, in that throughout the film, you never quite decide where your sympathies lie. A large part of me wanted Behrani [Kingsley] and his family to win out, yet I didn’t want Kathy [Connelly] to lose out at all (even if she did bring her downfall upon herself somewhat). The only person that you really end up disliking is Lester [Ron Eldard], who starts out as the friendly policeman but ends up being a bit of a psycho nut job.

Its a fantastic film, but its really not the most light-hearted in the world. In fact it verges on being downright depressing. I got to the end and thought “What the hell is she going to do with her life now?”

Myself and Ben [not Kingsley] were discussing it on the way home — is it even possible to make a really good happy film? Its just that the really good films always seem to be gritty, intense psychological dramas (or that seems to be the way at this film society). Is it even possible to portray shiny happy intense gritty realism?

I never did get around to writing about Afan. So I will, right here.

Way back in early October, the 9^th and 10^th if I remember correctly, Will, Dom, Owen and myself headed down to Afan Argoed, in south Wales, for a weekend of mountain bikes and fun.

We stayed at the bike friendly Oakridge Guest House, run by Barrie and Jill – which we would all highly recommend. Give them a shout on 01639 645210 if you’re heading down there. We ate at their local pub – the Colliers, where the food isn’t half bad, and the identical twin waitresses are lovely. [Thanks to ickle Nicky A for passing on the info!]

Saturday AM: The Penhydd Trail

This trail is as ace as it ever was. It starts with a fair bit of climbing – singletrack to begin with and then a bit of a slog up a fire road. I really struggled here – but then thats not too surprising. I was on a downhill bike, running 2.5″ super-tacky mud tyres and chasing three mates on lightweight zippy cross-country rigs. We were amply rewarded at the top though, by Desolation and Brashy Track, which are ace bits of flowy singletrack.

After another climb, we reached what used to be the pinnacle of the trail: the Hidden Valley – its still a really cool singletrack descent through the forest, but its somehow lost some of the flow it once had. Maybe if I was on a lighter bike again…

These days though, the rest of the trail shines through. One more climb, and then its awesome singletrack almost all of the way to the end of the trail, with just a couple of short stretches of fire-road.

We reached the end buzzing and very much ready for lunch. So we went to the cafe and had just that. Mmmm, fried food.

Saturday PM: The Wall Trail

So named because thats what you’ll hit on the way around. Its horrible – climb after climb after climb after climb. Long soul destroying fire-road sections interspersed with bits of steep technical singletrack. Pure horrible nasty evil pain. For ages. We had to stop a number of times for chocolate and water and to get off and push. Its really not a fun experience.

And then you get to the section named “Last Decent Zig-Zags” and all is (almost) forgiven. Having been unable to keep up with the rest of the group on the ascent, here’s where me and my bike came into our own.

Running purely on adrenalin, I pedalled off down it. Owen kept up for little while, but the advantages of 205mm disc brakes, 2.5″ tyres, loads of suspension and plain old confidence saw me ride away from him as the trail got more and more flowy. I was riding no-brakes through sections where I shouldn’t have been able to, relying entirely on my tyres for grip and pinging off rocks on the outside of the trail to stay on track.

Its an ace downhill, but its not adequate payback for the slog up there in the first place. Especially as theres still a couple of miles of fire-road back to the visitors centre…

Sunday: The Whites Level Trail

This one is situated a few miles up the road from the main Afan visitors centre, at Glyncorrwg – where they’ve opened up a new visitors centre complete with bike shop and showers!

Its well worth the trek though. I thought that the Traquiar trail up at Innerleithen was one of the best trails in the UK, but this one kicks its bottom hard. There’s a long ascent to begin with, but its really well done. Its quite a technical singletrack climb up through the forest. You’re concentrating so hard and having so much fun clearing all of the obstacles in your path that you don’t really notice the gradient too much, and all of a sudden you emerge about a squillion feet up the mountain.

And we all know that what goes up generally deserves to come down again. So we did. The descents are awesome. Rocky, rooty, technical and really really flowy. Flowy to the point that Will tried a bit too hard and took a nice big gouge out of his arm. Ouch!

Its simply put, one of the best man made trails I’ve ridden. Just fantastic.

New Bike Time

Now Dom had spent the whole weekend whinging about his bike – a Carerra something-or-other. Towards the end of the weekend he knackered something on the rear hub. Now, he could have just gone out and had it repaired. But no, he’s used it as an excuse to go out and buy a Cannondale Jeckyl, complete with Lefty fork! Rock on dude!