I reckon I've had about £60 of raspberries already!!! And there's still so many more that are ripe and ready to be picked/munched.

I've already had some awesome beetroot, broad beans, peas and gooseberries from the allotment. Sweed looks to be doing fab as does the kale which is just massive already.

Had a few bad croppers. Parsnips seemed to have failed to produce… I have about 5 coming up. I'm trying celeriac this year aswell – hopefully that'll do nicely.

yeah I'll take a hit for that… it should have been Ingerland or moreso ingerlund.

Can't be arsed is a great phrase though and one I've used many times in relation to getting a job 😉

DISCHARGE – Great band though.

"Engerland! Engerland!Engerland!Engerland!Engerland!Engerland! Enger – – – – land!!!!!!"

– all those monkeys that shout out about being English during world // euro cup etc etc – and how much they hate the Germans when most of them are German themselves. So funny but somewhat annoying at the same time and the hatred is incredibly ironic.

Pikey and Fag. Anybody that uses those words just makes me wanna see them DEAD.

Gogol Bordello – Trans Continental Hustle

Daniel Quinn – Story of B

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_B

My Combat 18 shirt is just on the floor next to the bike.

Fox Houses Pub is a cool place to stay. 5 miles from sheffo and you can doss around burbage etc

yeah its me – heavy weaponry… heavy bike.

yeah we went to Meiringen but just to meet my girlfriends Swiss side of the family and visit the falls where Holmes met his end and the incredible gorge whose name I cant remember.

The other DH track from Murren I think is the one that takes you to Gimmelwald – we didnt have time to do that. The DH track we did went from Grutscha down to LB.

We did find quite a bit of singletrack but most of it did take some looking for. The bike shops and the Tourist info while providing maps for all the bike routes were a little vague about singletracks. Its legal to bike anywhere in Switzerland apart from a few paths marked no bikes but I think they are trying to create a balance bwt hikers and bikers. In that respect they sorta avoided telling us where some of the great singletrack was. They seem to put alot of cinder/gravel down on tracks aswell ….. seems a little insane considering the gradient in places. Some of the bike signs were a little confusing in places. But if we got annoyed or confused a little we just looked up at the Eiger or other mountains and went ….. wow!!!!!!!!!!

We bumped into quite a few bikers and we were our usual jovial selves but just got cold shoulder from virtually all of the other bikers if not all. Perhaps we didnt look serious enough in baggy shorts and tshirts. From the lycra clad xc types to the fully kitted DH types – they pretty much ignored us. oh well, twas funny when we blasted past the fsussers on the dh on our crappy hard tails.

One question though…. why are there so many americans in Switzerland.

Also didnt realise there were so many Serbians in Swissland. They all came out onto the streets when they beat Germany. It was really strange to see hundreds of serbs walking down the street waving flags and giving the 3 fingered nazi salute. Urrgh. felt weird to see that.

Couldn't get all the way up to faulhorn – too much snow!!! Tried though.

Same with the schynige platte to first. We aimed to hike between the two but there was just too much snow with big cliff drops – very narrow snow covered ledges where the path was!! Had to turn back. It was ok walking in the snow where there was a fairly steep slope but the path narrowed with a cliffedge and we bailed… Still managed a 6 hour hike but had to head back to the station as there was just too much snow higher up.

The main descent from Murren to LB is tops. Starts where the cable car ends. Its an awesome DH track – pretty steep in places and there's rocks and roots aswell.

There's quite a few beards out there in st land….

Yeah the BO is damn cool. Did alot of hiking aswell. Infact the best single track I found was on a walk. We took the Gondola outta grindelwald to First and walked to the lake – Bachalpsee. There's a singletrack from that lake to Waldspitz. Would be beautiful on a full susser, great track with some techincal rock sections/drops – we walked it, woulda loved to have rode it – let me see if I've gotta a pic of part of it…..

Its not the greatest pic to give you an idea of the track – it goes down the left of the pic. There was another track on the right side of the valley. Both looked fab.

GB / Lenzerheide was great aswell. Would like to snowboard there!!!

Thanks for the comments guys. Much appreciated. I know they are not the greatest or the craziest. Its funny but I always find that you hardly ever take photos at the best spots cos you are too busy riding it!!!

Yeah Phiiil is right. Looks a bit OTT to carry a few bikes but they were shifting alot of gravel up to Murren from Lauterbrunnen and I guess we just hitched a ride.

Interlaken was tops, found a nice park up for the van in Wilderswil just up from interlaken on the way to the Eiger/Jungfrau, where we mananged to get a few free nights in our van but we camped quite alot at a campsite in Grindelwald…. and then later in the holiday we came back and camped in Latuerbrunnen meaning we could hit Kleine Schiedegg from the other side… oh yeah Murren was cool. The DH section that follows the cable car is pretty serious… well for us on HTs anyway. Though I still think it would have been pretty serious on my full susser aswell. Was tempted to hire a stumpjumper for the day at 65 swiss francs in LB but resisted.

Was lucky to get 3 1/2 weeks in Swissland. Spent a fortune but I think I could almost live there. Time to learn Switzer Deutsch…

OH yeah DDG rocks!!!! Though I do love my santa cruz.

Lenzerheide last week

oh thats cut gate is it??? heard a bit about that.

You get to the stream at the end of howden res and heading away from the res you cross the stream either by the ford or on the wooden foot bridge. you carry on the track a little and then turn off right at a sign saying bikes -> bridleway. you follow a stream for a bit that you crossed by bridge or ford and then climb steeply up to the skyline. the descent is cool.

Ok I'm off to my fave down hill tracks on blacka moor.

cheers guys

It would be more eco to not go!!! 😉

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=howden%20reservoir&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

hopefully you'll see it on this link. I've looked at the map closer and I think the track may go over to langsett reservoir.

The singletrack comes down from the moors and follows the stream until it hits the off road track by the ford/bridge. I think the main track is called cold side. I've gone up cold side before and that more or less comes to a dead end but still a nice road to come back down on.

This singletrack goes right up on to the moors. I checked it out after seeing a group of bikers come down it. Was there on Monday enjoying the swimming at slippery stones and thought I'd check it out. Rode it on a hardtail but think it has even more potential for a FSer.

I generally snowboard in Chamonix but I'm psyched to go and bike there sometime. I've heard good things about the tracks above Argentiere.

Just come back from Interlaken. Sweet over there. Went up the valley towards Grindelwald and Lautenbrunnen. Did some great tracks in that area.

Thanks for some of that fab info!!! Will deffo use some of the advice. Psyched to use the trains and post buses.

I just wish i could take my DH Norco aswell as my HT santa cruz… oh well. It'll still be amazing!!

Has anyone camped around Lenzerheide??? We're hoping to hit a few spots where we can park our van for free but aim to do quite a few campsites aswell. The grindelwald and lauterbrunnen campsites look aswesome. Think I've found a decent one 3km outside Lugano.

seems to be a fair bit of rain there at the mo but Lugano seems to be stonkingly hot at the mo!!!

Looks like I'll deffo do Murren.

Cheers for that info guys really helpful. I'll deffo check out the site at Lauterbrunner aswell

I think we're gonna hit Murren aswell, looking at a few tracks around First aswell. Really psyched about the views. Heard there's all year round snowboarding possible, so I might hit some slushy snow on a board aswell.

I think we're gonna get a 5 day train pass and do a little walking aswell and then head south to Lugano and then up to Lenzerheider.

Looking at some kyaking on the two lakes nxt to Interlaken aswell. Might be fun.

Thanks guys!!

I even think some cycling groups are up for this type of resurfacing. I remember the porter clough valley tracks being resurfaced. There was a sheffield cycling group at the end of the track doing a survey. They were incredibly surprised when we told them we thought they had just made the track incredibly crap and boring when compared to what is was like previously.

The Roman road from ringinglow has also suffered a little from some covering which has meant that motox and off road vehicles now drive faster on that section creating a dust storm etc. Some consolation is that the rain/water run off does erode these surfaces quicker than the natural geography.

Hopefully my two fave dh tracks leading off hathersage road on blacka moor will not suffer any resurfacing fate!!!