Going downhill fast

Last saturday, following an unsociably early start I ventured along the M4 to Cwm Carn with the Head for the Hills posse (well Rog & Dunc). It turned out to be an awesome uplift day, dry conditions (until near the end) and 9 or 10 uplifts. I'd like to think I'm starting to get my lines dialled there but the reality is there's a long way to go...still bring on FOD and the next uplift - this is how to do it!

Oh yes there was a pro photographer there, hence the proliferation of action shots...

Ouch

The lure of the big one proved too much... I was ready, I was confident, I was practised, I crashed!!!!! :(

Can you dig it?

A wet friday night meant this morning would be ideal to do a little trail improvement at Milton Gore, so armed with new spade, bucket and rake I drove up to Coldharbour.

I had in mind a rebuild of an old jump with a sweet landing transition. Unfortunately some trail pixies had rebuilt it be ridden the wrong way. Two hours of hard manual labour later and I may have created something useful - or maybe not!

I also found a natural hip across the road which I just tidied up with the rake but you'll have to ride with me to find where that is!

Rich

The Beast

It was big as a house with teeth the size of cars, I could feel it's roar, like hot breath on the back of neck and could hear the clatter of a thousand claws on the road as it chased me... all I could do was pedal faster in the vain hope of out running it and make a feeble attempt to defend myself...

But I had no hope that day, my time was near, luck was my only saviour............



Mark2

Aston Hill - for a change

Date : 10th April 2011
Location : Aston Hill
Riders : Grievous Andy, Simon and his mates!

The weather today was awesome - nice and sunny and dry, meaning the trails were spot on. For a change, I joined Simon and his mates at Aston Hill for a little jaunt and a trek around a new park, which none of the guys had ridden.

We set off from the car park at around 1030, and followed the XC loop which contained some nice flowing single track and a decent downhill section. Hitting the lowest part of the hill meant a big climb to come - and boy was it a climb. Tom would enjoy that one, lots of twists and turns.

Next we decided on a proper downhill track and hit a medium difficulty trail. Challenging it was!! Nice and quick at the top section and about half way down a drop onto a rooty section. I was leading and there was no rolling this drop - this was a drop!! I had no choice but to push the bars out and go for it.... made it..... only to hear a yell and crash behind me. Mick following close was not going fast enough at the drop and the front wheel dropped over (a la me on Grievous Angel!!!), straight over the handle bars and landed on his head. Slightly concussed, he eventually made it to the bottom of the trail.

Next came the Four cross track, rolling into the green DH3 trail, which was a nice flowing downhill. After which a number of the guys bailed and so left around 9 of us. We enjoyed that so much we decided the next route would be the full green DH3. Fun!!

3 more bailed at that point and the remaining 6 hit the red route down. Nice and technical without being too tricky.

A good day out, and a good alternative to try for the over the hill crowd. There are a number of other downhill routes which I think we'd all enjoy. Sufficiently technical and challenging for us - definitely worth a day trip - or at least a good 4 to 5 hours.

Check out the website :- http://www.rideastonhill.co.uk/

GoPro

I couldn't wait any longer for Andy's video of Dunnie crashing into the tree on Milton Gore to appear on "You've Been Framed". And then for us to be £250 better off. The money I hoped to put towards a helmet cam that we could film more comedy crashes on, but too many are slipping though the net now.

So I bit the bullet and bought a GoPro helmet cam. A bit bulky, looks like a small brick on your head. Everyone gives you that "What a prick!" look as you ride by... (I have proof on video funnily enough!)


Me, I don't really care... I'm use to the "What a prick!" look... I've been getting ever since I took up mountain biking.. what I do care about is the awesome footage I'm getting off this little gem of a brick stuck to my head.

Check it out below!



This is the first video from the GoPro of a new trail (I'll leave it unnamed for now) and snippets from the rest of the days riding.

If you haven't checked out my last video "Kick Gap Drop" where I put my crappy filming skills with the Cannon 550D to test and my crappy jumping skills, go to my YouTube Channel and check it out.

Laters

Mark2

Shocking!

Just thought I'd post a quick pic of my recent Nicolai pimping...It's now fitted with a CCDB (Cane Creek Double Barrel) coil shock, 1 x 10 XTR transmission (including a slightly ridiculous 11-36 cassette), PointOne podium pedals, Race Face SixC 740mm bars and a 50mm stem. It rocks!

Peaslake Drop

Note: I've re-edited the video from the original post, to add in some more stuff. Watch again if you've already seen it.

As per Richards post below, here is a quick video of last weekend. We did a load more stuff but I'm working with a new camera, so a little behind... more to come.



Mark2

PS I've now also got a GoPro head cam and the footage off it looks awesome... get ready for some new videos soon.

Big Bikes Rule

This weekend I've been mostly riding with Mark2. We managed to get out on both days and have been stoked by (generally) dry trails and spring-like temperatures. Whilst the rest of the OTHers have been notable only by their absence in the last month I've been reacquainting myself with my Nicolai and Mark2 has been getting used to his Scratch.
It really is amazing how much pilot error can be compensated for by 7 inches of travel!
We've been hitting a few choice features as well as plenty of new trails, hopefully Mark will be along soon to post some video highlights.
Maybe see you guys out there some time?
Rich

One down from riding - Fettling

There is only one thing better than spending a warm sunny spring morning stripping down your bike, digging out the grime from the deepest depths of the bottom bracket, cleaning everything with copious amounts of GT80 (Not the brakes Dave) applying fresh grease and rebuilding the bike to within an inch of its life....


.....and that's riding your bike on a warm sunny spring morning!