This summer was such a good year for riding for me. Been out quite a bit but still not as much as I'd hoped but when I did get out, I made the most of it and the sun shone (most of the time!). So here are a few of my highlights (in no particular order!):

The main highlight – Verbier for a week. The best riding I've ever encountered. Just my kind of thing – steep (VERY steep!), woodsey, rooty, technical. Need to go back as it took me nearly a week to get the bike setup right and get my eye in! Good reason for a revisit though…

Next up, the wonder that is riding around my home… Calderdale.

Then an awesome BIG day out in the Howgills with the Manchester lot…

Then who could forget the Singletrack Classic Weekender!

Hi Kelvin!

Cut Gate in silly heat!

Bit dusty!

Rediscovering local(ish) trails on summers evenings…

So many other undocumented rides, some of them only an hour or so long from my front door.

And now we're well into autumn. Long sleeves, trails covered in a carpet on multi-coloured leaves… I love riding bikes…

Very cool indeed 😀

Bastard. All i can see out my window is grey 🙁

Plus, my summer was crap due to a broken hand at easter and then a broken collar bone in august.

p.s. is that first Calderdale one a view of Halifax? I've never seen it look so appealing!

Damn it! Every time I get to the end of summer I think "Sh1t! I wish I did more biking!"

Nice shots dude, they're the shots that make you want to get the bike out!

Smug Git! 😆

Summer?

Glen, yes the first shot is Halifax. That day was a scorcher. So hot we actually cut the ride short by about 30 minutes (after our hour in a beer garden with a pint and a sarnie!). The climb up to Beacon Hill where that shot was taken is excellent and then you're at the top pretty much for a flattish ride into the top of Headless Chicken 🙂

This summer did indeed rock as far as cycling goes lots of endurance races happy days!… although not much photographic evidence mind!

Yes Barney – those few months in the middle of the year when it hardly rained at all this year!

Verbier does indeed rock…great pics.

My summer started on Cadair Idris and the Climach-x back in April


carried on locally in the Surrey Hills

Trips to UK Bike Park

Quantocks

Chamonix

Haute giffre

Finshing off with Spain a few weeks back

we have just had 6 months of virtually dry trails down here – its been a good summer.

freeridenick

I don't know why but that first photo reminds me of Thunderbirds 😯 😛

How do you take pics like the first one? Just got a DSLR – is there some funny setting on there?

Actually its really easy.
http://tiltshiftmaker.com/

With a sense of inadequacy (compared to ^^^), have to agree, despite some ups & downs ( :-)), the summer was arguably the best since '08. Started mine with a Pitch Pro in March, + unseasonably warm weather down GT + Innerleithen, followed by a cooler but dry Laggan in April

Then down with a bang at the Bealach Beag ride round Applecross, in hellish weather, in May

The 1st of hopefully many social STW rides up the Pentlands

Trying Kenny Wilsons route 41 (?) while up home for a wedding, then initiation rides round Lee Quarry + Gisburn Forest

Oops..

And another couple of quality rides with the STW south-east Scotland collective

(with thanks to Kit for the above pic)

Hoping the heat of last June gets spread around a little next year.

Fab April, May and June – Brechfa, Brecon, Dartmoor, Exmoor. July and Aug horrid but still rode a fair bit incl. trips to CYB, degla and Marin. Then NWales again then more Exmoor. Autumn has been a little slow for riding other than Mendip.

It was better than the two previous years.

Davey – where's this one mate?

Feel like I should know it?

What a great thread!

This years riding has been great really.

A Cracking day out on the tour of coniston

Ticked off a couple of routes that have been on my "to do list" for years….

Helvellyn

Snowdon Ranger

Probably one of the best routes for a big day out was Drum mountian…

Clocked my fastest ever off road speed on this ride too….

Highlight of the year though has to be meeting loads of brilliant people from STW on our now monthly STW "Northern Chapter" rides.

Rivi…

Swaledale

Howgills… no pic as I missed it… less said the better.

Settle

North Yorkshire Moors

Industrial Fells…

And Hebden

Only downside was loosing one of my bestest riding buds to a broken collar bone and not getting out with him bar a couple of times since 🙁

Here's to next Summer!

🙁 i lost my riding mojo around april, and didnt get it back till the september really.

SO it's been a bit of a rubbish summer. But i'm enjoying cycling again tons now, and looking forward to getting out on my road bike again to try to get fit again.

I hate winter though…

Great thread…. mainly been enjoying local trails this year, but can't complain – it's been damn good.

i remember that swaledale ride 😉

i remember that swaledale ride

For all the wrong reasons kiddo. Healed now ?

Glad some one / people had a good riding summer as mine was sh@t!

Too right! Haven't been rained on since March (and that was in the Canary Islands). Averaged 2 solid rides/week around the North and Wales.

Thought Sunday would be the first ride of winter at CyB but no, the luck was in and had superb autumn riding. Did last 3 sections of Tarw followed by The Beast plus Dreamtime section at the beginning and with the short cut near the cafe. Four and a half hours of excellent trail centre riding. How good is Big Doug after the Pink Heifer!! :))

Knackered!! 🙂
Paul

(sorry to be vain; someone put me out of my misery & tell me you can see my pics, rather than a rake of 'kin red crosses – can't seem to get flickr working enough to see my own posted photos! :?)

Wife keeps stealing the camera to take photos of the baby, so I have no pictures – but I've had a great long summer for riding in Scotland, Wales, the Lakes, the Alps and closer to home.

Some of the best rides have been thrashing round Epping Forest trying to keep up with faster riders – and getting better at it as the weeks went by.

Was out riding yesterday in short sleeves and it still feels like summer, trails are still hard and fast.

All red crosses here…

its been good, raced a lot.

FAB thread and great shots.

Dont know how to get pics on But mainly riding in the Surrey Hills
and Swinley Forest.
Some riding in Epping Forest
Also a few visits to Coed Y Brenin and also the Climax trail near by
Coed Y Brenin
There seems to be good riding to be had near Single Track HQ

Great pics Davey. And Freeridenick, that tilt shift one is awesome; goes to show how some of the effects can be used to enhance a picture rather than make a boring pic interesting. Love the way that it enhances the detail of the rocks around the rider too.
Am I allowed to play on the pic thread even though I've not been in the UK? Hope so because here I go.
First full summer out in the Basque country and it's been an amazing voyage of discovery, finding new trails and making new friends in the sun has been brilliant. Here's a selection that sums it up for me.

The excitement of finding somewhere new:


Staying out too late and riding home in the dark:

Doing a great descent only to find a dead end and having to carry:

Getting to wear my GDT (gay disco top) and almost getting away with it:


Climbing big mountains and scaring myself silly on the way back down:


Being on the beach when I want to be riding:

Meeting great new people:

And getting drunk with old friends:

my summer was spend building a conserverty (too keep the wife happy)

then i built a garage for bikes obviously (too keep me happy)

then next week i'll be biulding up a nicolai

so next year i'll be happy

Jase – Mirfield's hidden treasures!

Awesome photos guys! Cant wait to start getting some autumn pics!

Weather for the Mega this year was amazing, I'm the one in the background about to slide down a glacier on my backside…

Met some great people off here this year and had some fantastic rides. This is the ride lowey missed!

Here's hoping its even better in 2010 🙂

half way up Jacobs at about 9am, glorious!

look mum, no mudguards!

MMM, I want to ride my bike 😆 nice photos.

Pretty good summer for me, no pics like those but the first one I've ever done with a club which inspired me to ride more places enter some events and generally ride lots.

Is it by the golf course Davey?

Great pics everyone BTW!

Yep mate – that awesome descent with the little launches and the sweet rooty corners etc. The other pic with the bluebells is over the wire fence from that descent – we were scoping out a new trail but it didn't really go anywhere… was more of a rabbit/dear run.

Top thread guys, very inspirational, just love bikes, riding bikes… bikes 😀

Ha ha! Beat you lowey!

😉

My impressions of this summer? Something like this.

I have never known another year where the wind blows so hard for so long. It seemed like every ride I've been battling into a 50mph headwind.

My summer went something along ther lines of not working for a month in June and staying at my folks in Dumfries – lots of biking. Then two months in Peru doing my thing, then another month of not working in September with amazing weather, even more amazing Singletrackworlders riding around Scotland and the Lake District. Yep – mustn't grumble I have to say.

Nice photos one and all.