Seems it’s all change here:

Monday Morning Debrief 56

How was your weekend?

Sweaty and dehydrating, in a good way! I rode my first 650b and 29er at the Leisure Lakes demo, which may have been a bad thing from my wallet’s point of view 🙂

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/leisure-lakes-demo-day-26-vs-275-vs-29-non-flaming-content

Gisburn. Hated it. Washed out, filthy in places, no flow, seems like you climb twice as far as you descend. Up there with Ae as places I never want to visit again (apart from the fact I’m racing in the PMBA Enduro up there!). The only good bit is Home Baked and the log rides on the short techy section in the middle of the 8.

Kirkby moor/Blawith common

Actual trails on an actual mountain bike without rain, just getting to the good bit when I remembered I had to buy sausages, so off to the super maket. Still, got a giant mint aero for £1 so not all bad.

Spin around Schwarzatal in Black Forest. Picked out some lovely singletrack traversing the sides of a deep valley. Warm, dry and no abuse from walkers which was strange.

did the new loop at cwmcarn, really good, a few boggy bits here and there but my driest ride in months, great descents and enjoyed the slightly muddy bit coming down through the woods too, loved the last couple of descents, fast and lairy stuff

also did the twrch which was great but legs were tired by the end

not helped by my POS KS seatpost creeping down slowly over the ride!

if someone had been selling reverbs (tbf id have taken a CB Joplin at that point!) in the car park id have whipped out my credit card

Couple of rides around Winchester. Cracking weather, friendly walkers. Great weekend..

Plotted myself an 80 mile route on lovely, quiet roads on Garmin Connect, but two punctures, a graunchy bottom bracket, a ferry crossing with no ferry and 7800 foot of climbing later, I wish’d I’d stayed on busier, flatter roads. That’ll learn me. 🙁

A glorious road ride Saturday, many cobwebs blown. Hill run with a hangover Sunday, different kind of blowing. A treat not to be layered up and to come home without trenchfoot, now things are finally drying out.

Kingley Vale on Saturday – got so hot I was forced to stop at a pub to ‘rehydrate’. Back up Kingley Vale on Sunday with my 11 year old lad… in the last week my local trails have gone from ‘interesting’ to ‘fun’ so I wanted to get him back on his bike.

100 miles on the road bike round Cheshire. A different kind of all-day ride, but great fun – and I don’t think I’ve ridden that far in a day in 18 months!

Nowhere.

Waiting for bikes/kit to arrive sucks big fat monkey balls.

Roadie on Saturday afternoon – 45 miles around the Peak. Smashing day once the mist had burnt off, but a surprisingly stiff headwind. Great views – stomping up out of Edale was just lovely.

Yesterday – 6 hrs off road. Bar having a high speed “bike stops/rider doesn’t moment” on the Beast (think I tagged a pedal!), a stunning day out.

Had a great spin around the Fineshade and Wakerley woods, after playing Union on Saturday I wasn’t feeling too up for it) but jeesus it was awesome being in the sun again. I was expecting it to be wetter but it wasn’t too bad. Only rode for 1 1/2 hrs but to be honest that was more then enough.
The sun is out!
Happy days!

best weekend in a long while…

Started out as a snowboard trip to Glen Coe, that turned out to be a bust so went to wales to a friends caravan I have access to in Llarnug.

Rhyl Marsh tracks Saturday Morning, Followed by a Quick scramble up Tryfan.

Sunday was Antur stiniog in the morning and Coed y Brenin in the afternoon.

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Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr[/img]

Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr

Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr

Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr

Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr

Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr

Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr

Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr

Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr

Untitled by passtherizla, on Flickr

ace fun.

A couple of hours around the local Bristol trail but due to kids/life/illness, it had been over a month since I’d last been mtbing and it was brilliant 🙂

Mate’s stag day on Saturday – round the trails at Glenlivet. Good turnout, not all experienced MTBers so another mate and I took a quick athletic spin round in morning.

Went well for the full monty ride, must have been 15 of us all in; the stag dutifully managed to wipe out on his previously good knee, thankfully intact otherwise.

Sunshine later, but *really* windy and at first overcast —

Nowhere – spent all weekend in a woodland co**&&ing. It was hard work and I was really quite tired after all of that effort. Some of them had quite a sizeable girth and took a lot longer to finish off. Still, that’s all the coppicing done for this year 😉

Local; hit all the cheeky trails that I’ve left alone over winter. Spent a good deal of time clearing timber! Just great to have arms and legs out. Then I popped into my mate and tube smith Ted James to discuss custom over tea, sitting in his kitchen covered in mud!

Rode the trail VP put out recently on Saturday morning, my first time in the Peak for a while and my first ever time down Jacobs Ladder, all in all good fun.

45 mile solo beer tour, the photo’s match my mood.

Not been out on the MTB for a few weeks (mainly due to my lack of skill at repairing things) so got out locally and just did 20 odd km.

40 odd km on the roadie yesterday too, in nice conditions.

It was OK.

Ha ha good work ton!

Monday morning run saw me see the sun rise, 2 hrs standing whatching the boy play rugby, cpl of hours trying fix a laptop and then!!!Late afternoon ride at QECP sessioning a drop off that I can’t get right. Didn’t matter that I couldn’t get it right I didn’t fall off, the sun was shining, it was still light at 6pm, and the children were out with friends so nothing to feel guilty about!Brilliant, brilliant day. Oh and saw the sun set on the way home.

Cathkin Braes Mountain Biking by matt_outandabout, on Flickr

Cathkin Braes Mountain Biking by matt_outandabout, on Flickr

Family ride down to the seafront with our three (two riding, one in child seat) and a mate’s family (mirage who is on here periodically for you Northern monkeys who know him) who had the same set up. His wife compared trying to keep them all sort of together whilst weaving through hundreds of pedestrians and other cyclists as “like herding cats”. A smashing day of picnic, playgrounds and chucking stones into the water.

Got back and then we went straight out on the mountain bikes for a beautiful and almost completely mud free couple of hours on the South Downs. The re-jigged Steyning Blue Run is better than ever, kudos to the builders, Steyning MTB. What a great weekend.

Yesterday was THAT day

A late night Friday meant I didn’t wake up in time for a ride Saturday morning unfortunately.

Yesterday, despite being bitten by a dog and being moaned at by two walkers whilst asking very politely to pass, had a fantastic day on the Long Mynd.

Took the new Whyte G150 up Surrey Hills for its first ride. New wheel size, 1×10, wider bars, and you know what, it felt just like a bike. Only better! And the trails were weirdly not busy. Bonus!

An hour or so in the local woods with my 5 year old son getting muddy. Most enjoyable biking I’ve done in an awfully long time.

Was working all weekend but got over to Cannock this morning and it was brilliant, so nice to finish a ride with a dusty bike rather than one clogged with mud!

Road bike on Saturday. Mtb yesterday – weather was good so I went further than I planned. My legs hurt now and I’m struggling with the stairs but it’s worth it to have got the miles in while the sun was shining.

Got the train down to St Remy les Chevreuse just south of Paris Saturday morning with a couple of mates. Lots of climbing, ended up walking a couple of climbs towards the end, got home massively dehydrated and got 10 hours’ sleep that night. Great fun, need to work on my fitness, but first dry trails for months were a blast. No clean bike though unfortunately due to some boggy bits still in the shadiest areas.

Chilterns(ish) belsize to wendover and back. Tracks drying out in places though still bog snorkelling around the ostrich/emu farm at chesham and at Sarratt bottom. Many of the hill sections are washed out down to hardcore/flint and there are numerous trees down across the tracks. (What are the legal implications of taking a chainsaw on a ride and doing a bit of trimming en-route?).

The Boot at Sarratt was great as always and very welcoming to two muddy old farts.

Overall ride – best since september.

Passtherizzla—great pics! 😀

I spent most of Sunday at a playpark and then on the motorway, home in time though for a night ride with my friend. Thinking that we’ve had dry weather for 3 days we’ll try our local long off-road route. Ditched it after half way round for a spank through the city, still had a great time.

Was planning an all dayer around Bakewell and further south but was hit by the two punctures -one tube dilemma luckily I hadn’t got too far when the second puncture hit so started riding very slowly back to car with flat rear tyre [needless to say not a soul around to scrounge tube / repair kit]. At this point I stopped to have another grob around in the pack to see if there was anything useful and amazingly found an ancient packet of Park patches. They were in very poor condition and would barely stick to the tube but lasted long enough to get 100 m from the car before finally expiring.I must buy some new patches!

Went on a nice natural ride to the south of Peebles then a quick lap of some of the blue at Glentress.
Brilliant day out.

A “late weekend” escape today, in the Beautifully sunny Wyre Forrest:

First time there, so we got a bit lost, found a bit of cheeky here and there, and spent most of the day saying “this would be an ace trail if we were riding it in the other direction……..” 😉

Massive Dartmoor loop from Bovey, Yarner, Hound Tor, Jays Grave, massive blast down from Hookney Tor, back to Jays Grave, Haynes Down, Manaton, bounced down Water, Lustleigh Cleave and back in time to see England beat Wales. Perfect day. Not a cloud, shorts, short sleeves. Two weeks ago full waterproofs.
http://youtu.be/a7f_Qk-El0I