Many firsts for me this year. 1st Fred Whitton sportive, South Downs Double, 1st 10hour enduro with podium finish and started cx racing. Hope 2012 to be full of highs to.
Bike Forum
So what was the highlight of your riding year this year?
-
Posted 5 months ago #
-
Taking a wrong turn on the Gap Road route. In the rain. Getting lost. Working out that the easiest way to get back on track was a hike a bike section across country, up and down through several deep ravine like gullies.
Awesome.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Riding off Carn a Chlamain in the sunset on a crisp blue sky day last month was pretty terrific for me.
Ben Lawers with Captain Mainwairing and Italspark was another cracker of a day topped off with dinner at the Lawers Hotel. Great to finally meet and ride with the Captain.
Doing the Tour De Mont Blanc anti-clockwise with my mate Graham over three perfect days in September.
Return trip to Verbier after missing a year.
Glas Alt off Lochnagar in the evening sunshine in October was another highlight.
Riding the seven peaks in the Pentlands again for the first time in over a year.
Ridng my Salsa Fargo in Mallorca and passing roadies on the big climbs with my daughter sitting in the child seat on the back made for big smiles.
Doing a couple of dawn rides around Aviemore at Easter with my friend Paul. It's hard to beat pre breakfast rides in the Spring when the sun is barely up and there isn't another soul around.
Aye, it's been a top year for riding and one that I hope to build on next year.
The more adventure biking side of things has really gotten me fired up for exploring and putting together some epic routes around Scotland and the Lakes.A couple I didn't get round to but have planned are a circuit of Loch Lomond taking in The Cobbler and the Three Lochs Way as a day ride and a multiple pass ride from Ambleside over to Keswick. I also fancy trying a route that Gary Tompsett wrote about years ago taking in Helvellyn, Scaffel and Skiddaw as a day ride. It would be a monster day but something about it really appeals to me.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Highlight of a good year was the Tour Divide. This pic is with 300 miles to go:
101_0162 by blackhound59, on FlickrPosted 5 months ago # -
Seeing this smile on a family ride....
Posted 5 months ago # -
Riding flat bars like a boss!
Posted 5 months ago # -
@matt,
great shot, the water is splashed up!Posted 5 months ago # -
Tour de Ben Nevis for me. Brilliant day out in fantastic mountains. Right up there with the best mtn days out, bike or not
Posted 5 months ago # -
Trying track riding for the first time on one of the hottest days of the year with my friends....great atmosphere, couldnt have asked for a better day for outdoor track riding and excellent coaching from pros.
Spending a whole month touring Portugal and Spain with my bf...35 degrees most days, smooth tarmac, loads of hills, plenty of seafood and coffee and courteous drivers.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Setting off at midnight to climb Ben Lomond, reaching the summit for sunrise which was epic then descending in the glorious morning sunshine. Epic.
Pics here: http://www.trailscotland.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=557&start=10#p18326
Posted 5 months ago # -
Cool Sanny - for me it was a close one between that day on the Col de Balme and the Grand St Bernard day with Bike Verbier, probably the best single day I've had on a bike...the singletrack after we crossed the river below La Fouly...!
Love the Ben Lomond pics just above - am looking at heading north for some fun on the ice in mid-Jan
Posted 5 months ago # -
Can't narrow it down to one, but these ones stick out in my memory...
Possibly the Pila to Aosta freeride run. Amazing track and I was riding at my best that afternoon.
Helvellyn a month or so ago. Absolutely loved the descent from Grisedale Tarn.
"Magic Carpet", Peisey I think near Bourg St Maurice/Les Arcs - neverending flowing descent, what I always thought the Alps would be like. Made even more enjoyable by meeting hungry_monkey off here, who showed us round...
Surrey Hills - a six-hour ride with a good friend who has recently got back into MTB. Perfect late summer weather, miles of brilliant dusty trails and good company.
(Honourable mention to a day riding the steep tracks down under the Super Morzine lifts, particluarly "porridge")
Posted 5 months ago # -
Alps on a hardtail - so it can be done
Must get back to LA when I have the money...
Posted 5 months ago # -
Difficult year for me. Personal tragedy, family bereavements, split with the wife meant that in order to have my kids as much as I wanted I had to give up biking on a weekend.
However, its been the bike that has kept me sane this year... week riding as much as I can but the highlight was a lads long weekend in the lakes. Nothing as inspirational as the pics and stories that you guys posted above, but that one weekend went a long way to helping me get over this year.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Personally, it's a toss up between the weekend in Torridon and the two weeks on the Western Isles.
Posted 5 months ago # -
going to sound really odd,
the thing that sticks in my mind was the first day i rode to my new job, 18miles in 55mins through the lanes at 7ish in the morning, just getting warm, sun shining. nice june day.
Posted 5 months ago # -
has to be the bikefest weekend sweet sun suport team on the saterday and me racing on the sunday (even tho was shit weather) and hiting my target of coming in the top half of my group small target i no but still a target beaten lol
Posted 5 months ago # -
For me it was hanging on to Steve Wade's (of Orange fame) back wheel down the most amaing 18km descent in the Swiss Alps.
Actually that is probably the highlight of my whole mountain biking career.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Riding up from Conwy-sychnant-pass-Bwlch Y Ddeufaen- along the old roman road to the pub in Rowen and back along the back roads through Henryd to another pub in conwy. Nice simple ride. good friends on a good day with a comedy spill. What more d'ya want? Enjoyed that ride a lot for some reason. Spot on. No cars involved, no trail centres, no arguments
Posted 5 months ago # -
This Sunday, when halfway round the black route at Brechfa, Malec of this parish produced a pedal spanner so I could ride his lovely ST4 with my flat pedals on it...a very generous move as it meant he had to ride my 2001 Stinky, which is a fairly 'individual' bike in terms of ride, brakes, gears and tyres!
The ST4 was ace and I only caught a pedal and crashed once on the fast, twisty bit of singletrack just before the black meets the red run...good fun and a top riding companion who didn't mind that his riding companion was an overweight, wheezing, unfit bloke who crashed his bike Posted 5 months ago # -
I raced the single speed national champs on our demo pugsley. The course was a bit like the Somme with braking, accelerating and steering all being a bit vague. And then on dh section the highlight of my year, a lady crashed in front of me, lying face down in the deep mud, I almost made an effort to bunny hop over her, but it would have been nothing more than a gesture, so I just ran her legs over... Awesome.
I assume it didn't hurt her and she was pushed deeper into the mud... I barely felt her pass under me.
Now a lot of rot is pedalled by anti fat bike folk.... They are slow... Tyres cost too much... Just for show offs.... But I say. some people like cupcakes and normal bikes exclusively, While I myself say there is naught nor ought there be Nothing so exalted on the face of God's grey earth As that chubby prince of bikes.... The fatty. And they make you look slim.
Posted 5 months ago # -
riding the mega in july after breaking my heel and ankle commuting home in march, felt like id ever get off the sofa!
Posted 5 months ago # -
taking my new nomad carbon to morzine , awsome week
Posted 5 months ago # -
And then on dh section the highlight of my year, a lady crashed in front of me, lying face down in the deep mud, I almost made an effort to bunny hop over her, but it would have been nothing more than a gesture, so I just ran her legs over... Awesome.
Absolutely awesome! Just reading this is more of a highlight than any riding I've done.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Charlie
Posted 5 months ago # -
Riding up the Highlands, did Glenfeshie, Wolftrax, Carn Ban Mor - the weather was absolutely awful fir the whole two weeks but I really loved the riding.
Posted 5 months ago # -
A couple of rides stick out for me this year. Riding from Plymouth to Exeter off road with a good bunch mates on a cracking late summers day followed by a cracking curry was one.
The other was a ride two of us did on our day off with the Whiteroom in Sainte Foy. After asking Steveo whether he'd ridden a zigzag on the map, when he replied "No" we just had to go and explore
Big push up
DSCF3730 by burchy80, on FlickrAbout a third of the way up, looking down the valley
DSCF3717 by burchy80, on FlickrPosted 5 months ago # -
That first day back on the south downs after months off injured, It felt so good to be getting back to normal, well almost, still a bit cautious.
Posted 5 months ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.
