Overall Results

The results are out for the Hope Series 2, both for the final race (Race 3) and the overall series positions.

I managed to retain a respectable result even though I couldn't compete in Race 3, managing the keep 14th place overall. Matt managed an excellent 12th place in Race 3 and a great start.
Follow the link to get the pdf version of the results:

Overall Positions

Race 3 Positions

Last weekend saw the first ride after the back problems, which are now clearing up. Just a short ride and not a blistering pace, so a good re-start after 2 weeks off. Re-starting riding a little less frequent has given me chance to get the wheels into the wheel builders for a replacement for the broken spoke and needs a little truing.

Gears are the next issue that need sorting, I have a feeling a next cassette and chain might be required with the amount of gear slippage under heavy load even after aligning the gear changes...

Hope Series 2 Lee Quarry - Race 3

Injuries - I hate 'em.

A few days of serious back pain led to a trip to the Osteopath on Saturday, and with it any chance of starting Race 3 evaporated. I was completely gutted, especially having convinced Matt to join me and enter the last race.

Attending the race as a spectator really opened my eyes to the size of the Quarry, particularly how the track loops back and forth which provided lots of viewing from a central vantage point(and no wonder Cath was able to put good videos together with much of the action coming past her a number of times). I followed Matt and gave encouragement where I could, knowing the first race was simply going to be a shock to the system.

The layout of the track looked great. The back of the quarry right through to starting line was basically downhill (this I'm going to have to come back and try without it being race day). Unfortunately, the down side to this is the fact that the start-line up to the top of the quarry (which in most people's eyes is quite an evil climb) was included in every lap!

I'm glad I visited the race as a spectator, I managed to chat with the chap who allowed me to use his photos on the previous blog, but also nice to chat with a few racers who I'd spoken to at previous races.

I'll post the overall race series positions when they are available, but the race series after 2 races had me with 60 points from the 28th and 14th place finishes. That put me in 9th position for the Weekend Warriors overall. I don't expect to keep that position with the huge number of competitors from today, which is disappointing that I couldn't race today to try to maintain that good series result. After my first race just a few weeks ago, I'm really happy to be part of the top ten at this stage and maybe in the next series I'll be able do something similar.

I'm definitely going to enter the next race series at Lee Quarry, many thanks to the organisers again. Check out the video of the last race, following Matt as he has a great ride.

Race 2 Results

From Hope Series 2 Lee Quarry - Race 2 - Sept 2009

The Hope Series 2 - Race 2 results are in and I've somehow managed to get 14th position!
http://www.brownbacksracing.co.uk/race_series/downloads/Hope_XC_Race_Series%202_Race_2_Results.PDF

I'm absolutely delighted with that and actually a little bit unexpected as I had thought most other people seemed to improve as I had. So, that is a great result. I submitted the video to SingleTrack Magazine who posted it on their website along with the excellent review.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/2009/09/hope-xc-race-series-race-report/

I also asked if I could use a couple of photos from the race that one of the photographers had captured. See below for the two great shots from Steve Hyams who kindly allowed me to show his shots on here. His web site for all the photos can be found here: http://www.ikam99.co.uk/ikam99/Lee_Quarry_270909.html

From Hope Series 2 Lee Quarry - Race 2 - Sept 2009

Keeping riding and working on the fitness seems to be the order of the next few weeks, not sure if I can improve on 14th considering the last and final race is likely to be packed, but I'll try, we'll see how I get on...

Hope Series 2 Lee Quarry - Race 2

From Hope Series 2 Lee Quarry - Race 1 - Sept 2009

The second race weekend came around quite quickly and with around three weeks of regular riding (2 to 3 times per week) I hoped to make an improved ride this race.

The race organisers had changed the route this time round, some of the original course still existed though which would be impossible to remove, like the starting hill which spaces people out nicely before the first singletrack and the downhill / cattlegrid section towards to starting area. The newer sections were towards the middle of the lap and reasonably tricky, I'm sure one part was actually vertical right before and 90 degree right hand berm/turn.

I felt the consistent riding I'd been doing over the recent few weeks paid off as I started quite brightly. Only to wonder whether burning myself out of lap one would actually be the best way to improve on last time...?

The end of the first lap felt like I'd gone off way too fast and following that with a lap of reasonable pace, I wondered if the third lap, like last time, would just hurt my lungs and legs again.

Yep, it did! Lap 3 started to hurt.

But, this time, I was able to take a bit more time to recover on the next lap or so. By lap 4 I was getting back into it. I was going up hills slower by now, but for some bizarre reason I was able to clean the up-hills without getting off and pushing, in fact completed an entire lap completely clean. I fully expected at the end of lap 4 to hear the welcome sound of the last lap bell, except it wasn't there. The range of emotions at this point was weird...thinking it was probably the end of my energy levels, but yet knowing that I'm likely to get a better result compared to Race 1, I wanted to try to kick on.

So, lap 5 was back to some pushing up hills again, but with the marshalls giving great encouragement that the end must be reasonably close, I did think I was likely to get to the end of the race at lap 5 (I thought I must have just missed the bell and the leaders would be past me at any time). As I closed in on the end of lap 5, I did get the final lap bell and knew I'd managed to get that extra lap. Even though it was going to be a hard lap 6, the bell was still very welcome and gave a great extra morale boost.

It turned out to be a good tactic to start as fast as possible, just getting that early position in the whole field and trying to keep that going helped me to keep a high enough pace to improve. Without seeing the lap times and positions, it's difficult to judge how well I did and if other people improved also as I feel I have, so time will tell on the result. Trail Guru link of the course.

Again this was very well run event and enjoyed the whole experience better the second time round as I knew (basically) what I was doing. It would have been better if people didn't go home back down the track when the race was still running (presuming they'd crossed the line and finished already), I know there were a few behind myself who might have had this problem too.

I'm looking forward to seeing the race lap times and finish position later in the week.
Here is the video footage that Cath put together for me.

No photos this time, video only, but will look online to see if any of the photographers have any.

Next & final race of the series: 18th October 2009.

Preparation for Race 2

Preparation has started for the next race.

The reason for the chain jumping off in Race 1 is now clear, the bike had a broken rear derailleur inner plate (which holds the idler gears). I have managed to source a part from a carbon fibre manufacturer and not pay the £150 for a whole new rear mech. Amazing how bike shops didn't really want to entertain helping me to source just the part that was broken, seems Shimano won't supply just the carbon fibre part on it's own as a repair item. Mmmm, strange that they put carbon fibre on anything mountain bike related and then won't offer a repair item?

Anyway, I found a guy that will make me one if I break it again and that's the problem solved. Might even buy a few and put them on ebay...? Do other people break these things or was it a one off for me?

The bike needed a service, so it's gone in for that, including rear hub re-build. Shimano hubs just need a new ball race I'm hoping. Hope they are repair items and I don;t have to buy a whole new hub :-) The rear shock has also gone off to Mojo as it sounded very 'squelchy' like the oil was not where it should have been. A couple of people in the week had mentioned it sounded like it needs looking at, so another warranty item I hope. With all that, I should be able to pick it back up and get it home on Friday, just enough time to go on a short ride before Sunday's race.

I'm looking forward to the race this time a little more as I've managed to get a lot more rides between the last one and this one. I managed to get to Sherwood Pines and a few local rides with the Wakefield mountain biking club. I do find my legs burn quite often now though, think I'm just trying harder all the time when I get to hills.

My finish position for Race 1 was 28th out of 31 in the Weekend Warrior section, so at least not last, and gives me something to build on. I've already read that the track will laid out differently, but I'm looking forward to giving it a good try.

More after Sunday...

Hope Series 2 Lee Quarry - Race 1

From Hope Series 2 Lee Quarry - Race 1 - Sept 2009

After a few weeks of waiting and deciding to enter, my first ever mountain bike race day arrived.

It was certainly a new experience, after many football matches, cup finals and playing at a reasonably good level, this was all new and nothing like any match day nerves. This was more apprehensive from just not knowing fully what to expect. Because of that, I felt slightly unprepared and how things would pan out. Even with what you think is all the right kit, it just feels alien to be on a start line waiting for a starter to give us all the signal to go.

The first thing to do was register and sign on, basically like signing on to marshal on a rally event, signing up to agree there are risks involved etc. I got a number board for the bike (number 44) and one to put on my back. I also got a blue wrist band, the type you get in a night club sometimes, the wrist band is really sticky on one part and once it's on, it's on. I put this on my wrist in readiness only to realise that my glove and sleeve pretty much cover it up immediately, so noticing everyone else had them wrapped round their seat tube or ankle (so obvious when you think about it) I got another and went with the seat tube option.

After signing on, off most people went, to get familiar with the course, really glad I did this as some of the course was a little tricky and just to know the drops and rocks was a good eye opener, it also gives you chance to find the line and learn the obstacles. The fact I was back at the start line pretty much out of breath from the recce lap didn't make me feel so confident, but knew this was going to be all new and fitness was going to be an issue, regardless.

The mass start put the BC racers (British Cycling) and the Weekend Warriors (my category) off the start line together. This was up a steep climb, loose gravel/quarry road, and with people scrambling for grip - weekend warriors I refer to here, I never saw the elite racers as they just cleared off :-). I seemed to find a few gaps in the heavy traffic and jump into them. So I felt like I was not last and definitely ahead of someone, that was great. But the long climb to the top of the quarry was a period where the jostling continued until the first singletrack, where wheel to wheel, we got in line. Still not last, it felt like this was going to be fun.

The race spread itself out after that, the course offered lots of steep climbing and technical descents, swooping (roller coaster) berm descents and a nice section of sandy hard work granny ring track.

I really enjoyed the first two laps, they were the easiest and most fun by miles as I was trying to race. I think by lap three I just wondered what I was doing, lungs and legs pretty much screaming at me. One long climb (only walkable on every other lap for me) I managed to clean and ride. That was a good feeling to be able to ride it (plus it was faster to ride than push I noticed, even at 2 mph! Cramp was really close after that climb, so at the top of that section I backed off a little and started to ride like I was tired and just wanted to get to the end of the event. That took a further 2 laps which meant I'd completed 5 laps at the finish. I was really happy with that but know for sure I was feeling it during the latter stages. I don't have a finish position yet, results out on Wednesday.

One complication I had was the chain/rear derailleur were not happy by the second to last lap and the chain kept coming out of the idler gears in the rear derailleur. This took about 10 seconds each time to fix but became quite annoying, I'm hoping that it was just mud causing the problem (the cleaned bike seems to be in line with no bends/breakages apparent, at least). We'll find out during the week if it's broken. Not sure how to prevent it happening again. I certainly won't want to be replacing an XTR rear deraileur. If so, XT is going on.

I tracked the ride on Trail Guru, follow the link to see how long it was.

I also have photos and video which Cath kindly took and braved the cold. I was grateful to have someone else to help, I think doing this alone would be hard work and less fun if you have a problem. (I saw one guy had the ambulance crew come to have a look at him - I heard it was his ankle but he's okay, so I'm glad to hear that). The organisers had a lot of marshals out on the course and it was very well run, and you can't beat the sound of the bell for the final lap :-)

Well, next race, round 2 is September 27th so I'll be planning a lot more fitness before then to help get to 3 laps before it really starts hurting... A great start to attending race events and really enjoyed the experience.

Back after Summer Recess

From Petronas Towers KL July 2009

It's been a while since I last blogged, including travel with work, so wanted to get back online...

Summer has had a larger effect on people being available to ride this year and running out of cash hasn't helped either. But since the last blog I've started riding with the local club in Wakefield, Bad Brains MBC and I've sent off my entry to my first ever mountain bike race - Hope Race Series 2 at Lee Quarry. Hmmmmm!

The local club ride on Tuesday and Thursday each week, rain or shine. Tuesday's is a slightly more leisurely pace, maybe a few extra stops along the way compared to Thursdays, but each ride tends to be 12 - 16 miles rides, give or take a few. Starting to ride with them in high summer was helpful as no lights were required even at the end of the ride at 9.30pm, but now (mid-August) lights are needed especially through the woods, so an investment is imminent. (actually tried some lights last night and they were fantastic, riding in the dark is a lot of fun!). Here is a link to the web site: Bad Brains MBC and also a link to the forum where they post the rides for the forthcoming week. Ride bikes, drink beer, eat cake - such a good motto!

The bike race is at Lee Quarry (near Rochdale), a place that the Singletrack magazine use for the Singletrack Weekender amongst other things. The basic race format is 1h30m and complete as many laps as possible. There are three classes, I entered the Weekend Warrior, but the options were: Elite Racer - (BC racing licence required); Weekend Warrior - experience of bikes and riding with reasonable fitness; and finally Have-a-go-hero - New to it all, but lots of enthusiasm to try it out.

I've no clue as to whether the bike will be good enough, I'm sure the Stumpy FSR can handle it, I just mean that I saw photos from the last race series and everyone who seems to be quick, is on a hardtail (I need to get Stumpy HT ready!!). The rest are on full suspension but maybe short travel versions, like the Specialized Epic, Cannondale Rize or Scott Spark. My Guess is the people on full suspension are Weekend Warriors, making the most of their rig and racing it. So, we'll see how it goes. I'm used to taking sandwiches when I go for a full day out on the bike, so that'll be weird not eating half way round. Don't guess that's the spirit of a race anyway. I am quite excited but apprehensive too.

Race dates are Sundays - Sept 6th, Sept 27th, Oct 18th and I hope to hear I made it onto the entry list soon.

I'm trying out Sherwood Pines this weekend, should be easy-ish trail riding but that's good to try another trail centre and get others to come along too. Aiming at the XC Singletrack routes and not the family trails of course :-) I'll see if I can get TrailGuru working on here too.

Sunday's ride is also posted on TrailGuru, see link here: Newmillerdam

Ride at Temple Newsam in June: Temple Newsam

Stumpy Project Update 1

From Stumpjumper Hardtail Project

The hardtail project bike has now started with the frame cleaned up. It wasn't too bad, just wanted a little sparkle to get it completely clean whilst I wait to source the next few parts.

I picked this up with bottom bracket, Cane Creek headset (although past experience with CC isn't fantastic up to now) and the seat post/clamp all included. Weight on the scales 'as is' 1950grams. Note: that includes the piece of string holding the headset on :-)

I have the intention of adding XT components throughout as I don't think I need to go up to XTR, however, we'll have to see what eBay has to say on that and when XTR parts are the same price as XT I'll probably go for XTR.

I also want to make it as light as possible with the budget, but think I'll be wise to buy good forks, and wheels/hubs as the expensive items. I'll go for either 90 or 100mm travel on the front as this matches the geometry the bike is designed for and wouldn't want to upset that too much. Think Fox F100 RLC would be a good choice or Magura Durin Race? All depends on who's got them available when I'm looking to buy. Will possibly aim at nearly new or slightly used as this should drop the price by approx £200.

Brakes - I'll probably stick to the same as the Stumpy FSR so that I only need to keep one type of spare pads in stock and the bleed kit can be used on both etc. Just makes sense and the Elixir are fantastic anyway.

I'll keep a photo blog of the build, expect it to take 6 to 12 months for the cash to materialise and not spend it on things like holidays instead. Plus the garage needs the lights wiring in to help with seeing what I'm doing in Autumn/Winter, and could do with a bike stand...so eyes peeled!

More to follow as and when I make changes. Photo blog here

Wharncliffe Explorer Version - June 09

From Wharncliffe June 09

Our first trip to Wharncliffe Woods after just way too much excesses from the night before needed further exploring to find the right trails.

This time out, Nick and I managed to start and stop enough times to check and find the trails on the map, hit the big downhill section and survive (some guys told us it was the Steve Peat section), then continue on to find the rest of the 18km loop. I even managed to get TrailGuru working again and here is the link.

We started in the upper section, parking on the Greno side carpark and heading right into the rooty/twisty trail in the trees. The first thing that hit us was the amount of standing water and large puddles on the trail, which definitely hit us all over. No rear crud guards so mud caked us pretty much immediately. This was way more than what we'd come across at the previous trip, seemed to be just on account of the tress providing a lot of shade and shelter so the ground never really dries out.

After following the first section of impassable rocks (second time made this no better, still about impassable for our novice status) we stumbled across the right path, the downhill mountain bike trail maintained by Singletraction. This is very rocky and offers two starting points side by side (one much more steep than the other), but these both still rideable, just need some balance and balls. Definitely need balls. We opted for the lower starting point but followed it down through a couple of berms and lots of rocks strategically placed to get air if you wanted. Everything was rideable though if you didn't want to jump it, which proved lucky at some parts where the front wheel seems insanely low compared the rest of the bike when going over a drop off, it appears a consequence is a slightly buckled front wheel now.

After that, the trail hit some of the long uphills we'd seen before and then progressed much further along the top at a good speed, photos opportunity here which we took.

The trail then flowed round and onto the Trans-Pennine Trail before heading up over a very long uphill, 100mm travel and lockout selected to get up it clean.

A great workout for the legs and now we're better placed to ride it fully without trails maps all over the place.

To get a head or not?

To get a head or not? That is the question.

After just short of 6 months time since buying the bike, the head set has been making some quite serious 'clicking-I'm-not-okay' type noises whilst out on the trails, and after help with the service guys, the forks had been sent off for elimination from our enquiries.

Forks confirmed to be okay (Mojo did some extensive fork testing), so the only thing left is the head set. I wouldn't expect this to fail after such a short time, or normal off-road trail centre type riding. So, here's the dilemma, should I opt to upgrade the head set now to something like a Hope or Chris King set (retailing about £85 to £95) or just get the same head set replaced under warranty.

Something as good as the Hope or Chris King sets will definitely last forever (stainless steel races), and easily for the length of time I expect to keep the bike, but could it be a waste of cash and that I just got one-off rogue standard head set? Cane Creek is the head set in already and normally they hold up well. For example, Andy's is not showing any signs of wear and they're identical bikes with same miles on the clock...

We'll wait for the standard replacement to be fitted under warranty and returned this weekend, I'll make a decision from there. The Hope and CK stuff does look bling though...!

(BTW - New video on Vimeo of Whinlatter & Grizedale)

Whinlatter & Grizedale Forests

From Whinlatter & Grizedale Forests

Our substitute for Wild Boar 24. The weekend was spent in two forests, Saturday we rode Whinlatter and Sunday we chose Grizedale, although also known as Gizdale in some circles.
We eventually managed to get onto a campsite which would accept a group larger than two people, which proved hard work, but the Camping and Caravanning site near Staveley now comes highly recommended; facilities, pitches and even the pub on site all get top marks.

Whinlatter was a good hour drive from the campsite, but when we got there was well worthwhile. The Red Route is divided into two loops, North and South. WE ended up with a riding buddy, a local guy who knew which trails we should do first, so opted to do North then South. There were a few ‘offs’ during the day, but the final part of the North Loop has some pretty fast jumps that really can be taken at speed (once you’ve done it more than once). Forgetting the camera on the Saturday didn’t make me so happy with myself. The South loop was similar, also with a flowing finale, still with a lot of slate and rock so easy to make mistakes if wet. Luckily for Alisdair, the powder blue demo bike suited him and must have affected him too, bcse the next thing we knew he’d taken the bike back and bought a FSR XC. How’s that for impulse buying!

Grizedale Forest offered a slightly shorter route, but much less singletrack and the consensus was that we’d opted for the trail-days the right way round. There is quite a bit of fire road on the Grizedale North Face Trial. Which is all when and good at Drakes Corner for the rally in December, but a little more singletrack would be a positive change. We all enjoyed the ride through, Joff put his foot into a bog, up to his knee, so that has to be a funny moment! And some dithering old codger managed to stop still in front of us on the decking sections, not really wide enough to put your feet down, providing a slight panic moment. And Andrew not quite going round the burm would have been good to see. The downhill finish to the ride was good too, well apart from the two gates stuffed right in the middle of a fast flowing downwards section! The very final 10 seconds of the ride were met with a huge amount of rain, so getting into the car proved very wet. The Audi cleans up nicely, so it's all good.

Kirsty did well with her Scott bike, looked very much at ease with it all and pretty much did everything we did, not bad for her first red route trail sessions.

I have definitely managed to kill the first headset in the Stumpy. Riding the demo bike forks provided no change to the ‘clicking’ noise leaving pretty much the head set as the culprit. All changes arranged for my next trip to the service dept., so we’ll see how a new headset goes and my forks back in.

All in all, a fantastic weekend of riding and beers, plenty of rain and sunshine together (typical Lakes Weather) all went down well.

Photos (of the Sunday at least), can be found here. Video of some of the trails can be found here.

The Great Ayton Key Search

From Great Ayton & Guisborough May 09

So, we've all done it. We've all set off for a one way trip, leave a car at the end and we'll just drive back to pick it up from the start when we've finished. We've all been there and found some dork forgets the key to the car waiting at the finish. Yep, we all had to cycle back to the start of the very long hill on Saturday to get home. Cheers Matt!

Matt and Chibu were both in demo bike territory again, this time is was the Scott Genius and Spark, both very highly specced demo versions too (no wonder Matt wasn't concentrating on where his keys were!). I think that the Genuis (Matt) was better than the Trek Ex-8 by the way we were talking about it, however it was the carbon fibre version on test and way too much money. The Spark was also good (Chibu) and decisions about buying them now loom...

We started at the car-park for Captain Cook's Monument and, heading up towards Roseberry Topping, we peeled off into the woods (which many trees have been felled since I was there last). The roots and trails were really dry so it was easier to keep good speed through these sections and, a lot of fun. We managed to get to the top of the world, well, it felt like it at least, on the top of High Cliff (an craggy part of the hill which makes the tallest point). There were a lot of people out walking for the day we noticed, although my eyes were watering most of the time as we went whizzing past them, so I'm presuming they were walkers.

It was pretty windy most of the day and somehow George conjured up a route that had the wind at our back 90% of the day. We're still not quite sure how the luck of the Irish was working in his favour and how he managed this, particularly bcse we did a loop! Maybe it was bcse we were joined by older brother Richard, and the power two Irish have is so much greater...We'll never know :-)

Once again Trail Guru failed to work properly on the iPhone, having researched the Garmin Edge 705, this really does look like a better option for reliability on GPS coverage and record GPS tracks. The downside of this being the £240 that needs to be shelled out to pick one up. I'll keep checking eBay to see if there's one going second hand.

It was only after our downhill finale, which saw Matt horizontal and a bike pretty much doing the same (always worrying when it's still owned by the bike shop) that we realized the our finale was to be followed by the real finale, the long uphill slog to the car which any of us had keys for. No injury to the demo bike, so that was good news and slightly scuffed elbows all part of the fun!

We picked up some good photos of the day, maybe a video too after some editing. Keep your eye on the Vimeo links for further video updates.

We finished in true style, visiting a very quiet and quaint coffee shop in Kildale, for hot sandwiches and cake. Chocolate cake and lots of it! I'm looking forward to doing this particular trip again. And that's just for the cake!

With the cancellation of the Wild Boar event, next week will still lead us to the Lakes, with the couple of trail centres there to be tried out.

Wharncliffe

From Wharncliffe Woods

Slightly hungover, well, actually, very hungover, the technical XC Red route through Wharncliffe can be a little difficult in places.

It started with phone calls trying to work out what time we'd arranged to meet whilst in the pub the night before. Never a good idea to arrange times whilst late at night and drinking. At least the team name for Wild Boar 24 got sorted whilst in the pub; Pies, Pies, Pies!

So, we finally got to Wharncliffe after a trip to McDonalds to top up on carbs. Can you believe no fries before 11am? or cheeseburgers for that matter? has the world gone mad.

Matt has the demo rig of the Trek Ex-8, which was in the root beer colour. A good looking bike. The trail starts out pretty twisty and good singletrack followed by a couple of sections of rocky singletrack, which is pretty difficult to negotiate first time through without putting your feet out. The trail hops back and forth onto the forest fire-road but the hills are reasonably long, up is long and hard but also means the downhills are also fairly long. Matt enjoyed the Ex-8 although gears needed a bit of set-up bcse it was so new. Photos of the ride can be found here. Plus small video.

We were glad of the XC trail length not being too long, hangovers wearing over everyone, but next time through will be easier, as we know the route and there are plenty of extra side routes to find and explore to add extra distance onto the trail.

We'll probably not do nights out before riding too often in future.

Next Week: Bank Holiday Monday ride.
Wild Boar 3 weeks away

Lake District Easter 09

The Lake District offers plenty of technical riding, it can sometimes get a little tricky, which we found out again this weekend as Nick and I flew up Irton Pike and Irton Fell.

We started at the campsite and followed the forest road up to the base of the Pike which was a little lung busting, maps and GPS tell me a change in height of 200 metres in less than a mile. We did it without stopping but mostly bcse it felt like it would be too steep to easily get re-started. Once we got the top of the Pike, we came down the very steep rocky front face, which in places was un-rideable, particularly when hanging off the back of the seat and you stop abruptly by hitting a log, full force of the seat ping backwards and taking one in the credentials! Not much fun having the walk the bike downwards in some places so wouldn't do that route again.

Irton Fell was more difficult in getting to the top, the bridleway proved extremely soaked and flooded through Mitterdale forest, so opting for the fireroad helped. Once at the top, through the top forest section, the fell opened up in front of us. A great view and we took photos. The fell was covered in soft waterlogged bogs. I found this out first hand as I tried to cross one soft patch, but found the handlebars just drop away below me. With the wheel still going downwards, now buried below the top of the disc brake, I flew over the handlebars (luckily a soft landing in a bog!). This was easily the funniest moment on a bike since we were in the snow (or Alisdair falling off in the car park) :-)

After dragging the bike out of the bog, which took some effort - feeling like quick sand as it sucked the bike back in! - We followed the forest road back down the side of Irton Pike which we'd come up the day before, with a minute or two of downhill, good for the fun factor although the technical rocky parts of the routes can be quite hairy if you don't pick your line right. It might help if I felt I wasn't running out of brake pads.

More pads needed ASAP.

Even keeping the riding to these two loops (we also covered a little of Wast Water lakeside too) was good fun.

I can't publish the TrailGuru link bcse the TrailGuru site has crashed at time of writing (apparently due to a power failure but is now being repaired).

Next Week: Local for a 16 mile loop; Dambuster
Countdown to WildBoar24 Race: 4 weeks + 1 day

Day in Dalby Forest Trail Centre

It started with a few pranks whilst setting up, but finished with the extremely welcome site of the car park, 25 miles later!

What a brilliant day. The trails were really good, our first outing into Dalby Forest and it was really enjoyable, up to around 20 mile mark. After that, most of us were tired and it was a bit of a slog getting back home. We even managed to get Nick and Matt tired, this is some achievement.

The trail itself rode well, full suspension was probably the choice set-up as the rocky sections were likely to have added fatigue and some of the arm-shaking flat and downhill sections felt tough even on FS. The route started with a leg warming uphill out of the visitor centre car park, followed by sections of flowing down and up sections. We did notice that for each of the short down sections they were invariably followed by a similar up section, and towards the end this did add some leg burn to get home. We might have preferred a longer up so we could have longer downs, but of course this is terrain dependant. Some of the roots and felled trees strategically placed in the single track made for some pretty good air, they were really enjoyable.

We didn't use the Purple Mountain Bike Centre, but it was there at the end (or start) if we would have needed.

I didn't even try the TrailGuru application, we were out for about 5h 30mins with rests and food stops, the iPhone battery would definitely not even got us half way, so sacked it off altogether.

At Dixons hollow we stopped for a bit of a play on the swooping 4X track and the table-tops, although one guy not with us had managed to crack his ribs on the handle bars and was in a bad way. Not much first aid we could offer other to get him comfy whilst one of his mates was off for the car. Breathing was a good sign and he wasn't alone, but I hope he was okay.

In the end we all had a good day, well worth it fro the experience and I'm looking forward to the next Trail Centre we try. It should also have given us good fitness test for the Wild Boar 24 in May. Basically, we all need more fitness.

Alisdair had to claim the funniest moment though, clipping into his pedals and then promptly falling off his bike whilst stood still, before we'd even started.

Photos are online here from my camera.

Next Week: Easter break in the Lakes.

How Windy was Saturday?

On the look out for a new local trail, in readiness for the longer nights, I managed to pick the windiest weekend for ages!

Local trails are sometimes a bit too obvious to find, sometimes just right under your nose and so you look past them, well that's my theory anyway because I managed to do 10 miles without really going anywhere.

Although I did come across some random tent pitched across a path/bridleway which was rather strange, followed 100 metres further on by kids burning whatever they could find in a small wood, didn't hang about there for long as you could imagine. An interesting Saturday morning.

I did find myself in Horbury though, and for some reason I've never really noticed what Horbury was like before. It was clearly larger than the small town I'd giving it credit for, not really noticed the church or historic buildings (an old hospital building marked by stone masonry, for example). The houses in some parts were also large and hidden away, it just looked like a place of reasonable wealth in yesteryear, but still had a village type appeal.

Back to riding and although I didn't really hit too many hills, the ride was a good work out, need to now inspect the map and try to find more off-road sections in the same area to connect the sections, but I did manage to puncture both front and rear tyres which was annoying, both from thorns off bushes.

Next week: Towbar fitted to car + ride local to towbar garage, followed by day at Dalby Forest.

How to get Fit?

From Ride On

- Put yourself up against the clock!

After riding now regularly for some weeks, with many rides going past the two hour mark, I might have considered the 2 hour Novice Trail Quest route to have been something relatively easy to accomplish.


Instead, the clock really does increase the intensity and the effort goes up 2 fold. Our time was clocked at 2hours 11minutes, which was without penalties as we'd opted for the Novice option, being our first Trail Quest. We covered around 20 miles in those 2 hours, which is fantastic considering some of the long leg burning steady inclines. Plus the stop-start nature of using the SportIdent electronic checkpoints, which are much improved to the Lane Quest hand written (pen and paper) option. The distance covered just highlights the decent pace we were able to keep up.

The TrailGuru iPhone application wasn't able to keep up again, I'll be turning to a Garmin device soon for GPS mapping and dropping that into TrailGuru instead, the iPhone battery is not up to 2 hours constant GPS usage. Here is the TrailGuru part that actually recorded.

Towards the end, concentration on the uphill sections was all about rhythm and just keeping the cadence set and steady. Fitness wise - this has had a large impact and lungs and legs have improved because of it.

Photos of our ride are kept here.

On the fun factor - there was less of it than expected. We did get a few downhill sections worth the uphil section getting there, but the clock really ups the intensity even on the flat and it's always there in the back of your mind. It did feel like this was a mission than a fun event, which still included quite a few road sections that can drag.

Our scores might not be high, we scored around 100 points, but we certainly improved fitness and so the effort was well worth it. The NYMBO website is where the scores are kept, I thought the entire event was very well run, marshalls were very helpful and all things explained to us 'novice' guys in an informative manner.

Not sure how many more Trail Quests we'll do but this was a good way to keep the fitness high, however less road and more 'trail' would have been preferred.

Two weeks to the Dalby Trail Centre day out. Next week: back to local.

The Starting Post

This is the start, the first one, the beginning. Blogging the rides and routes we take through the year.

Today, we managed to get about 16 miles under our belts (or wheels) with a definite turn of Spring in the air. After the initial upwards climb, all of 50 metres into the ride, we followed the route we had found the week before and it seemed to flow a little faster this time. We all found a little disappointment in the fact the cafe was closed when we got there. Too early for them, which confused us a little as we were here last week. Today must have been just that little bit faster and we knew where we were going for a start.

I think we're all getting fitter too, back riding since late December and it's starting to pay off.

The route starts at Newmillerdam and travels out to Windsetter Reservoir and back. Basic parts of the ride can be found on Bike Radar web site.

I tracked where we were riding on the GPS on iPhone, but it's really sketchy sometimes and the TrailGuru iPhone application seems to have a mind of it's own. I have no clue what causes it to stop but it just does. More on that as time goes by.

Crash reports were a minimum, just one off, myself, in the woodland section after taking a tractor-tyre track incorrectly, it pointed me at the trees and a wheelie back online ended up with me on my side. I was off. But it was soft underfoot and if ever there is a time to come off, then this was it. No air in anyone's lungs at the time reduced the comedy moment this time round.

Next week: Trail Quest - our first time at a Trail Quest event. Looking forward to a new competition.