So, I’ve not updated for a while – the vast majority of my time has been spent slaving away in front of a hot computer, but I’ve managed to get some riding in over the past few weeks.  I’ve…

EXPLORED!  Armed only with the leisure trails map and a vague sense of direction, I went off the waymarked routes.  I got lost, discussed the merits of modern mountain bike suspension with an elderly chap, passed a group of 30 horse riders, found some MASSIVE toadstools and eventually managed to navigate my way back once I spotted the Wrekin.  I also decided that I either need to invest in a proper map, or a GPS – my phone GPS couldn’t get signal!

NEARLY DIED ON THE MONKEY!  Well, that’s a massive over-exaggeration, but I did the Monkey for the first time in nearly three months.  Met up with Jez and Ian about halfway around – Ian was riding his shiny new Pitch, and Jez was probably preparing to break his Trek.

Once again, I did this on a bowl of cornflakes, causing me to completely run out of energy.  AND I got cramp FOUR SODDING TIMES – right calf twice, left calf once and the muscle above the right knee.  Words cannot express how rough I felt at the end.  If you want a rough idea, look at a zombie from a Romero film.

BECAME AWESOME!  Again, slight over-exaggeration, but I’ve now completed the Chase Skills Level 2 course!  It was massively confidence building – it was nice to hear that my issues were more down to not commiting rather than technique (normally I struggle to commit because I’m worried my technique is rubbish).  And I actually managed to lift the front wheel for the first time ever!  On purpose!

Again, my lack of fitness and practice clobbered me a bit, after 7 hours I was a bit wobbly.  So I’m now embarking on an extensive Supernatural Exercise Biking regime!  Every night I have to exercise bike through an entire episode of Supernatural.  I’ve managed a week so far!

Went over the Dog yesterday – a bit abbreviated, as I completely missed section 8.  I thought it was completely closed off, so I went straight down and then up to 9.  I was quite pleased, went quite speedy, although I was occasionally a bit concerned sliding around in the mud.  Met up with Mr Toast around section 9 and we finished the lap together – I decided to go over the little log stumps down to the rollers this time.  I contemplated the Werewolf, but chickened out – it’s annoying as it’s not the slope that bothers me, it’s just the turn into it and the turn at the end.  I know how to ride it, but I just panic, especially in the mud.  One day, Werewolf, one day!

I need to invest in some better winter clothing – my knees were aching really badly from the cold, and it does make stuff a bit more of a struggle.  Unfortunately I’ve put on a lot of weight over summer, so I’ve got to go a size up. Q_Q

I’m pleased that I’m getting to bike a bit more regularly again – my fitness levels are working their way back to their previous best.  I was actually on course to beat my previous best lap time of just under an hour, and was partway through the Tackaroo section at the 40 minute mark.  I passed a chap fiddling with his bike, slowed and asked him if he was OK, he said he was fine it was just that his chain had come off.  So I carried on, and approached another rider – he asked if I’d seen the previous chap, so I stopped and explained he was a little further back having chain issues.  The rider said he’d pop back to help him, and I set off again.  At least, that was the plan, but I was struck by a quite frankly horrific case of cramp in my left calf – the sort of cramp where you momentarily wish you could cut off your leg.  I think I startled the poor chap by falling as if I’d been sniped from the grassy knoll, wailing like a cat and then thrashing on the ground like a fish out of water.  I managed to utter the word ‘Cramp’, at which point the rider became my hero and straightened out my leg.  I have to admit, it was one of my more surreal riding experiences – lying on the side of Follow the Dog with a complete stranger holding my leg straight in the air.  It was probably quite surreal for the passing riders too.

After a false start –

“I think it’s OK now”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, thanks….OH MY GOD THE HUMANITY!” *leg goes back in the air*

– the cramp eventually subsided and I managed to carry on, leaving the unnamed rider to return to his unfortunate chain-falling-off friend.  If he ever reads this – thanks, and it really wasn’t your fault!  I get cramp in my left calf every now and again (no idea why…), and I would have had to have stopped for the Werewolf Drop any way – probably better that it happened where it did rather than there!

Calf was still feeling a bit iffy (still doesn’t feel quite right now!), so I took the remainder of the trail to Birches Valley a bit easy and ended up with a lap time of 1 hour 5 minutes.  Better than the last couple of rides, and close to my best, so I’m quite pleased!  I’ve also seemed to have gotten over my Steg fear, so hopefully long may that continue.  If I can get my fitness back up I’ll start tackling the Monkey again (taking it easy on the fireroad, obviously). And after a year of so of threatening to do it, I’ve finally booked myself in on a proper skills course with Chase Skills.  Let’s hope that 6 hours of training will finally sort my Evil Root gremlins.  And cornering and steering gremlins.  And steep stuff gremlins…

Ride: Cannock Chase

Trail: Follow the Dog, followed by first 3 sections of Follow the Dog again.

Highlights:  Going at speed, not dying at the top of the fireroad, much better lap time.  Chatting to various people at Swinnertons and in the cafe.

Bad bits:  CRRRAAAAAAAMP!  Not even calling cramp ‘Charley Horse’ can make it endearing

Post ride food snaffled: 1/2 Choc-chip shortbread, Quavers and a cup of tea

Good dogs seen: A most excellent minature schnauzer – they’re definitely one of my favourite breeds, and I’m thoroughly jealous of people who own them. They’d probably be rubbish trail dogs though, but quite good at looking disapproving when you chicken out of tackling an obstacle.  There was also some sort of weird Jack Russel chihuahua cross – size and colouring of a large Jack Russel, but the facial proportions and ears of a chihuahua

Today’s ride was a good ride.  The sun was shining, the trail had actually dried out for the most part, I rode fast and I didn’t throw up.  That’s not to say that there wasn’t room for improvement – my fitness levels have definitely taken a turn for the worse, struggling more than usual up the fireroad hill and progressively more out of sorts after section 8.  My just under an hour laptime is now extended to just under an hour and quarter thanks the longer breaks I’m taking.  Still, nowt a couple of evenings a week on the exercise bike won’t help to fix – sadly biking into work is still a no-goer due to overtime.

I’ve recently developed a bit of a neurosis about the Stegosaur at the start of section 6.   I can’t quite explain it – I’ve always been a bit iffy about the last couple of rocks onto the bridge, but last week I completely bottled them.  Even though I’d been vaguely panicking about them on the way there, I forced myself to ride the entire thing and it was fine.  OK, sorry, that’s not exactly the most thrilling story, but it was… fine. In the past I’ve had a few shaky moments where I’ve nearly gone off the right hand side of the bridge, but today was no problem.  Took the rocks onto the boardwalk with my usual style and grace (plough into it full speed), also no problems. Bottled Evil Root Number One… and hell, might as well admit it now, Number Two as well.  It’s always easier taking the path of least resistance when you’re on your own – I was planning on riding with the Pearson Posse, but alas, we didn’t get to the Chase until 3-ish again.

On the plus side, from what people said it was a lot quieter than it had been in the morning.  Still managed to pass quite a few people though – in a minor miracle, I think I actually managed to overtake more people than overtook me for the first time.  I did feel very fast and confident on the trail, but unfortunately a bit wheezy between sections.  Still, no near fainting or passing out! \o/

Felt a bit guilty on the last section of FtD approaching Birches Valley.  As I approached the two drops I noticed a couple of riders edging around the start of them.  One guy had stopped right before them, and was off to the right hand of the trail.  I swear, I thought he’d pulled over for me, and I was thanking him as I’m rubbish as those drops unless I have a decent amount of momentum.  Unfortunately, I don’t think he knew I was there – literally, at the exact moment I started to pass and went over the first drop, he decided to start off himself. I startled him and he sort of fell sideways into the bracken. 🙁  I stopped and asked if he was OK, but he didn’t seem to answer.  I decided to leg it in case he decided to own me with some Bombers – I know I normally get a bit miffed if people aggressively overtake without giving me a chance to pull over.  Although in my defence, he was kind of pulled over and didn’t check to see if anyone was approaching before taking off again… still felt like an arse though.

I’m getting a bit itchy to explore more of the Chase – I know that there’s a lot more to it than FtD and The Monkey.  I’m a bit torn though –  I like riding a familiar trail, being able to see where my strengths and weakness are, and where I’m improving.  I also like not getting lost, or having to carry around and read a map, and knowing that I’m not going to plough through a breeding ground for adders surrounded by rare orchids that is off-limits due to a horrible world ending plant disease.  It’s also nice knowing that you’re allowed to ride what you’re riding, and that the chances of encountering ranty ramblers is at a minimum.  Still, I might invest in an OS map of the Chase and plot out a route on bridleways, just for a good long ride.  I’d love to visit the Milford Common area again – literally, the one and only time I’ve ever been there was on a school geography trip where we measured footpath erosion and the amount of litter around the area, to demonstrate the effect ‘honeypot’ tourist spots have on the environment.  There was a Wimpy there, and the woodland surrounding it was awesome.   It was also something like 17 years ago, so my memory might be better than the reality (even though I remember the Wimpy…).

Ride: Cannock Chase

Trail: Follow the Dog

Highlights:  Zooming around, feeling pretty confident

Bad bits:  Lack of fitness

Post ride food snaffled: Cherry shortbread and a cup of tea

Good dogs seen: Fairly bog standard today, although there was a small jack russell and what looked like a minature golden lassie.

No, I’m not dead!  Apologies for the lack of updates – alas, due to a combination of work and weather I’ve not been biking much, and when I have I haven’t got around to updating this here blog!  I’ve had a few recent adventures though – none of which involved major offs (which is suprising, given my heroics lately!).  Hopefully things will calm down a bit and normal service will be resumed shortly!

Two weeks ago we brought Mr Toast’s sister over the Chase.  Not really being much of a biker meant that she ended up borrowing Cletus, and after a few cursory warnings about how disc brakes are a bit more powerful than v-brakes and instructions on gearing we set off.

As we went around I marvelled at the different responses to mountain biking I’ve seen from non-bikers when we’ve taken them over the Chase.  The Xye Without Fear absolutely loved it, and flew over obstacles with nary a glance.  She’s now planning on getting an Orange 5, incidentally – mission accomplished!  Chris was a bit wary on descents (especially braking bumps), yet was strangely competent on technical stuff (Evil Roots, etc).  Mr Toast’s sister is more of a girl after my own heart – seeing her cautiously edge around the few sections of the red reminded me strongly of when I first started (although I’d say she is probably better than I was when I first started, heh heh).   As she struggled a bit on the red we mainly stuck to the blue, and it again struck me as a crying shame that there isn’t a blue singletrack route (ala Glentress) or skills loop over Cannock Chase – I’ve mentioned before that although FtD is regarded as an ‘easy’ red, it’s still a massive jump up from fireroads for beginners.  Alas, there’s only so much money, manpower and space available… until I win the lottery.

In any case, it was an exceptionally good day for dogs – schnauzers (both miniature and standard), malamutes and huskies.

Yesterday we managed to get over the Chase for a much needed ride, and luckily, for one day only, summer made a brief return.  I always marvel at how quickly FtD dries out, although section 8 was a bit slippy.  I started off riding really smoothly and confidently, although I did chicken out on the last few steps of the Stegosaurus – everything looked a bit wet and slippy, and I had visions of my first ride in two weeks ending rather abruptly.  I was fine until the end of section 8, where I started to feel decidedly ropey.  I suspect that my recent lack of exercise gimped me – whereas earlier in the year I’d been mountain biking both days of the weekend and also biking into work twice a week, I’ve recently been lucky to get out once a weekend and haven’t been able to bike into work because of a) weather (no showers or drying facilities at work) and b) overtime (finish after 8pm, I don’t have any lights).  I think the exercise bike may have to make a return to the living room…

On section 10 (I think) I spotted the Chase Trails chaps building some sort of wooden structure – apparently nutters will jump off it, so the rumour goes.  I would have offered to help, but they were all being rather manly with their sawing, drilling and lump hammering, plus I was always rubbish at woodwork.  Plus I started to feel chronically dizzy mid-conversation, so had to have a bit of a sit down before I passed out.   I once again reflected that perhaps a bowl of cereal and a fairy cake isn’t the best fuel for a ride…

Set off again and carried on my merry way.  Up until section 8 I’d been planning to ride until Tackeroo, ride the entire blue and finish off FtD at the end.  By the time I got to the road crossing I felt pretty awful, so I decided just to stick to FtD.  It went well, until the start of the section with Werewolf Drop – that’s when I decided to throw up in a bush.  Classy.  Carried on, pleased myself by actually getting around the turns leading to Werewolf Drop, didn’t ride it as there was the usual congregation of people carrying their bikes down.  There was a family there with two lads who managed to get down – their technique was to teter precariously over the edge, get the front wheel over the top rock, then roll down.  I thought it was going to end in disaster, but they both made it and were eagerly scouting out a route back up so that they could try again.  Ah, youth!  I had more sympathy with the chap who carried his bike down muttering, “I’m too old for broken bones!”

In other news, The Monkey Trail got a nice write up in MBR this month, with frenzied acclamations about its awesomeness.  It’s nice to see the Chase Trails crew getting some well-deserved praise from further afield – although MBR did single out the climb after the rail crossing as a reason to return time and time again.  Barmy!

We’ve returned from our annual pilgrimage to Glentress!  It was awesome, although slightly (and quite literally) dampened by the weather.  It rained solidly every single day except for our anniversary – however we were at the zoo rather than on our bikes.  There were bears.  Bears are awesome.

See?

On the days we spent at Glentress, it was exceedingly muddy, but still great fun.  The blue route in particular holds up well in the wet, whereas the red gets a little more slippy.  I found this out to my dismay as I came a cropper on a steepish corner on Pennel’s Vennel… which is the first section of the red.  Long story short, got over the first drop, took a line to the right when I should have gone left, and went barrelling down off the side of the hill, over the handle bars into a large pine tree.  To my credit, I managed to find time to scream loudly.

I was shaken rather than hurt, and a distraught Mr Toast came running to my aid – you’ve never seen a man in spd shoes run so fast!  I sat their sobbing for a bit, distinctly cross with myself.  Two chaps came down (one pushing his bike down) – apparently they heard me scream from the top of the section.  That must have been interesting for them…

That was pretty much all of the red I did sadly – given the poor weather I decided not to push my luck and stuck to the blue for the rest of our adventures, with some light dashes of freeride.

Despite my woeful performance on the red, I was still pretty chuffed with my progression.  This year I could not only get up the entirety of the Osprey carpark to Buzzard’s Nest carpark without stopping, I also did it three times in one day!  I also did a good chunk of the red obstacles on the climb up, all of the obstacles on the Admiral, felt a lot more comfortable going at speed and chasing Mr Toast, and the easiest freeride course from top to bottom, including the fly-off – which I didn’t even consider doing last year.  I also did stuff first time on the skills course that gave me a bit of grief last year… although I did fall off the long log skinny.  Oh dear.

I’m planning on doing a skills course sometime soon – although I’m sloooowly gaining in confidence, there are still very basic things that I’m rubbish at – lifting the front wheel, or any form of jumping, for example.   I’d like to tackle step up obstacles with a technique slightly more refined that charging into it full speed and hoping for the best.

Still feeling somewhat fragile in the arm department, we headed off to Llandegla again.  Most of the scabs are pretty much gone, and it’s healed up pretty well – big patches of soft pink skin though!  My elbow graze was still oozing however, and the pharmacist recommended that I keep it covered up.  I ended up bandaging the entire arm – slightly overkill, but I didn’t want to expose the new skin directly to the sun, but also didn’t want to start irritating it with sun lotion.

After completely running out of energy on the last visit, I decided to make sure I was well-fed beforehand.  For the second Saturday in a row, common sense abandoned me and I decided that the best nutrition I could go for was a bacon buttie and chips.  To be fair, it is the best bacon buttie in the UK, apparently…

Set off and managed to do the entire 3 mile climb without a break – there was a brief stop for me to raise my saddle, but that was it.  Before we started the red/blue route however, I started to feel incredibly ill.  Some might deduce that a bacon sarnie and chips followed by a three mile climb in hot weather may have contributed slightly to my nausea.  After a couple of minutes I decided to sally forth.

On the plus side, the nausea retreated.  On the down side, my arm had sharp pains from the graze – I think it had oozed, made the dressing stick to it, then the vibration of riding the bike was pulling it up and down.  I got to the end of the section, tempted to forsake the red and just go down the blue (which I’ve never ridden before).  However, I decided to WTFU and carry on with the red, and I’m very glad I did.  The following section occassionally had me whimpering as I jarred my arm, but it seemed to sort itself out  by the time I got into the trees.

Absolutely flew round the red, a lot faster and smoother than last time, and I had a lot more energy (Thank You, Oh Noble Pig, Provider of Bacon).  The route split off into the red and black, and I was sorely, sorely tempted by the black but decided to leave it for next time – with a dodgy arm and Glentress a week away, I didn’t want any more mishaps.  Mr Toast however cheerfully sailed down it.  “I’ll meet you at the end, it meets up”.

Unfortunately Mr Toast had experienced a bit of a map reading fail.  The red and black do meet up again… eventually.  However, not knowing where I stood at the bottom of the steep fireroad climb, waiting. And taking pictures.

After chatting to some blokes who said that the black met up further up, I decided to carry on – Llandegla isn’t that big, and we’d both end up in the car park eventually!

I was quite chuffed because at this point last time I’d really run out of energy, but this time I felt great.  Carried on flying round, marvelling that yes, Llandegla red is a touch on the easy side (never needing to dismount? WTF?).  Does this mean I successfully rode the fabled Not Sure section?  Er, no – the start of it has been removed and there’s a bypass.  But yeah, if it had been there…*cough*

Rode the table tops this time, still rubbish at getting air though.  Towards the end I was trying to keep a close eye for markers, as last time we seemed to leave the trail early and ended up on the carpark.  This time around I took the blue back – not sure how you get back onto the red, or even if it’s possible at the moment.  Got back to the cafe dying for a drink, ended up also acquiring some flapjacks.  Mmm, nutrition!

Ride: Llandegla

Trail: Red

Highlights:  Flying around at speed, not falling off, not fluffing anything on the trail – not even fireroad!

Bad bits:  Feeling a bit over-baconed at the start

Post ride food snaffled: Half a flapjack

Good dogs seen: Quite a few – a boxer pup, some strange posh shih-tzu type things, except they weren’t hateful little beasts

Incidentally, the graze is currently crusty, but healing well (I think!).