Ashton court today – bikefest already

I went up to Ashton court today for a slide around in the red muddy stuff and couldn’t believe the amount of tyre tracks and general slop going on there.

I’ve been there racing in the depths of winter before and even in the old days (with big numbers of people trying to ‘race’xc) I’ve never seen that amount of tyre tracks.

I did notice a “dirt demo” poster near the gatehouse. Anybody got any idea what’a been going on?

its been freezing for ages and now its turned wet, the ground is harder when frozen?

Fully apreciate that but all the tracks were fresh.

Looks just like it did when you put 100 or so people around a course in the middle of winter just like when we used to race in the 90’s (dont laugh, I’m old)

I didn’t put 100 or so people around there, honest guv!!

/looks shifty, pulls the peak of his fedora down and slips quietly backwards into the shadows

It would be far better if people didn’t ride LW and AC at this time of year although I appreciate that it is very convenient / cheaper to do so.

Now the price of petrol has come right down I’m trying to keep my riding to Cwmcarn etc at the weekends.

There’s a demo day being run by a local bike shop on 7 February (funnily enough there’s a trail day that day too), but I don’t think there was anything happening this weekend.

I organise the volunteer repairs to the trail and while the state they get into can be pretty depressing, on balance I don’t have a problem with people using the official trails in winter – that’s what they are there for. I wish people would go a bit easier on the unofficial trails in the winter but it’s hard getting the message out without sounding preachy. The local bike shops have always been very supportive of us, including Zero G, the one that are having the demo next weekend, so I don’t begrudge them using the trails.

maybe a CX race? There was one up there a month or so ago

Don’t think there are any more CX races in Bristol until next year now, and the ones I’ve done only used snippets of the MTB trail. I think it’s just the “ooh, look, the sun’s out, better go riding” Pavlovian response that mountain bikers have, even if prior to the sunny day in question it’s been pissing with rain for the previous two weeks. 😉