02/07/2010 by Missus Toast.

Now with added Llandegla!  Bought a rather attractive RSPB pin badge of a flower - last year’s black grouse one is now pinned to my biking wallet.

My arm is healing up well, by the way, although the biggest graze is still oozing.  And iodine hurts. Still, nothing can dampen the raging excitement for Glentress!  Only a week away!

Posted in The Map of Joy, Stuff | No Comments »

04/06/2010 by Missus Toast.

Erk, forgot to upload the latest Map of Joy update after the Peaks!

It’s going to be a bit of a challenge getting stuff marked off this year, as we’re a bit short of holiday. We can give it a bloody good go though!

Posted in The Map of Joy, Mountain Biking | No Comments »

17/04/2010 by Missus Toast.

Right, so it’s been a mental week.  Cambelt on the Micra failed last weekend, possibly explodificating the engine.  I say ‘possibly’ - the Nissan dealership were quoting £500 just to find out what was wrong, and quoted “£5000 - £6000″ as the possible full cost of repair - basically a new engine.  Given that the car was only seven grand when I bought it five years ago…no thank you.  I’ve had nothing but problems with that car, so it got flogged as a non-runner.  Au revoir, you honkering pile of French shite!

Alas, this does mean that we’re without a car - hiring temporarily, definitely wanted to get to the Chase this weekend, for obvious reasons!  And we’ll also be looking for a new, towbar friendly car.

Although in a way it’s a relief to be shot of the Micra, but it came at a bad time.  If we’d known that the car was going to die, we might have spent a bit less on biking products… but on the plus side, I now have my new niche ride!

That’s right!  STEEL IS REAL!  This, dear reader, is my commuting touring adventure steed - although predictably enough, once it was built up, I thought, “I’d quite like to take that over the Chase”.   Speaking of built up…

Fortunately it was actually quite cheap to get running - most of the parts are Mr Toast hand-me-downs, mostly from his Stumpjumper HT.  Just need to get a decent saddle on it, and we’ll be sorted!  The Inbred fits really well - I was a bit cautious about the size given it’s a 14″ frame, and obviously the last 14″ frame I had was tiny.  However, Inbreds are a good bit longer, and according to their site 14″is good for riders of a minimum height of 5ft 2!  But yeah - seems to be a perfect fit.

I was initially hoping to get some sort of hideously garish pink monstrosity - I think I might be hitting my midlife crisis.  Sadly, although Scandals and 456s are available in pink, it was white or black with the Inbreds.  I settled for the white, so he matches the Professor - it’s a lovely pearlescent white as well!  Mr Toast said he was quite glad, but he can talk - he has a brown bike.  BROWN.  We do not speak of it…

Anyhoo, when it came to naming, I wasn’t sure what to call the Inbred.  I thought steel - British Steel - Judas Priest.  But I couldn’t call him Judas, that’s just asking for trouble, and I’ve had enough of that lately.  I did toy with ‘Peter’, in tribute to late Type O Negative frontman Peter Steele, but that might have sounded a bit odd - we know people called Peter…

So, I went with what was, in all honesty, my first thought.  He is an Inbred.  I shall call him Cletus.

In other news, my Chase Trails membership pack came through today, including parking pass and car sticker.  Now, if only I had a car!

The coaster this time round is a good ol’ size, and in a rather attractive blue.  It now has pride of place representing Cannock Chase on…THE MAP OF JOY 2010!

Well, I’m off for the evening…MONKEY TOMORROW!

Posted in The Map of Joy, Stuff, Mountain Biking | 2 Comments »

02/01/2010 by Missus Toast.

Yes, it’s the 2010 Map of Joy!  All the 2009 mementos have been removed, the black ‘Done’ pins replaced with white ones, and it’s now ripe to record a new year’s worth of adventures.

It’s fairly similar to last year’s, with a couple of additions and changes.  Main additions are the 7Stanes trail centres - Kirroughtree, Mabie and Ae.  The cunning plan is that this year we’re going to spend TWO weeks in Scotland - one around the south-west border, probably near Mabie.  Hopefully we’ll have time to hit Dalbeattie again, but we’re not counting on it!  The second will be our usual anniversary trip to Glentress in July.  Huzzah!

Thetford, Afan and Coed-Y-Brenin are still on the map, hopefully we’ll actually ride them this year!  I’m strangely intrigued by Thetford - it’s a bit lonely in the south-east, and as you can see from the map, looks a bit…flat.  It’s not a part of the country I’ve ever been to before, so I’ll be interested to see what it has to offer.

Tomorrow will be our first biking related ‘engagement’ of 2010 - the first ‘Big Build Day’ of the year! So, you can probably expect an update from that over the next couple of days…once I’ve thawed out!

Posted in The Map of Joy, Mountain Biking | 2 Comments »

01/01/2010 by Missus Toast.

Ah, 2009.  The last year of the ‘noughties’, and the last year of me being in my twenties.  Alas, there are still no hoverboards or flying cars, but it wasn’t too bad overall.

After my knee operation at the end of 2008, I resumed biking, kicking of 2009 with a few different demo days.  I quite fancied the Lapierre Zesty 514 L, but I realised that most other women’s specific bikes didn’t really fit me that well…

Whilst at the Bike Radar demo day, entranced by a border terrier, I signed up and became a member of Chase Trails.

In February I created the ‘Map of Joy’, pinpointing places across the UK we wanted to visit for biking purposes.

The first addition to the Map of Joy was a pair of rather lovely mini-coasters from Chase Trails, and Cannock Chase was set up as home base.

The first sojourn to non-Cannocky climes was to Dalby, when we visited the Toast-in-Laws.  I ventured onto the Dalby red route for the first time, and thoroughly enjoyed it - although I chickened out on some of the downhill drops.

Not these drops though!  Although I suppose they’re more jumps than drops.  Didn’t jump them though, that would be silly…

In April, my quest for a full-suspension came to an end as we welcome Professor Von Stumperson, a 2009 Stumpjumper FSR Elite.  Unfortunately, me getting sorted with my bike also signalled the start of Mr Toast’s rear-hub woes.  Even now, he gets a twitch in his eye if you mention XT wheels…

The most depressing of the rear-hub instances was after making the 2.5 hour drive to Llandegla.  Still, at least the Professor and I had a good time whilst Mr Toast sat glumly in the café for a couple of hours.

In May, we helped marshal the Nice Price Special at Cannock Chase.  The weather was actually pretty nice on the day, but had been spectacularly grim in the days before hand, leaving the course a slidy mudbath - so, pretty much a traditional MTB event!

The end of May saw the first ever Bike Radar Live at Donington.  It wasn’t originally on the Map of Joy, but it got added with various bits of tat.  It was a great weekend - good atmosphere, great weather, and there’s something distinctly charming about flying around Donington race track on a tandem and folding bike.

It’s a shame that we won’t be going to Bike Radar 2010, but unfortunately it a) clashes with our anniversary, so we’ll be in Scotland, and b) is in Kent.  Kent!  I mean, really?  Kent?

June saw me venture to the Peak District.  As I was holidaying with my mother, it meant that my bike adventures would be strictly solo.   Well, apart from that day when I hired a wheelchair bike and strapped my mother to the front.  Other than that, it was adventuring around Castleton, going up Mam-Tor, and generally admiring the views.

In July, Mr Toast and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary.  And what better way to celebrate it than throwing ourselves around some of the finest trails in Britain! We revisited Glentress, went around both the blue and red routes at Dalbeattie, and flirted briefly with Innerleithen.  If you count ‘flirting’ as ‘crying whilst carrying your bike’.

At the end of July, we revisted Llandegla - Mr Toast had a fully functioning bike at this point!  Also along for the ride was Sir Jaggy, on his newly acquired Cannondale Prophet.  A seasoned road rider, Jaggy had limited off-road experience, but fortunately a more than healthy level of competitiveness meant that he threw himself into it with great gusto.  He also threw himself into trees, but we don’t talk about that.

Alas, although we continued riding for the remainder of the year, we never did make it to Thetford, Afan or Coed-Y-Brenin.  This was due to an unfortunate combination of work, illness and the weather.  We still kept ourselves busy though, assisting marshalling the Midlands XC race in August:

I also finally managed to ride all of the new rock features on FtD, and get a lap time of under an hour for the first time.  We also ventured outside of the trail centres when we went Oop North again, riding across moorland and getting chased by pheasants.

October was notable.  Why?  Because it was the start of THE LURGY that I’ve now had for three months.  Fortunately the only symptoms I have now is a persistent cough.  Could be worse, eh?  The remainder of the year has been me battling to get out at the weekends despite the cold -  at the moment, I’m actually giving biking a couple of week’s break in the hope that the cough will bugger off.

We helped out with a couple of the Big Build Days at Cannock Chase throughout the year, hopefully we’ll be able to get a bit more involved next year.  Really looking forward to Phase II, which will hopefully be opened Easter next year!

BIKES OF 2009

Hello to…

January: GT Carbon Zaskar (Mr  Toast’s)

April: Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Elite (Mrs Toast’s)

December: Ibis Mojo Carbon (Mr Toast’s)

Farewell to…

June: Trek 4500 WSD (Mrs Toast’s, sold to a younger and more talented rider)

October: GT Carbon Zaskar (Mr Toast’s, died due to manufacturing fault)

Posted in The Map of Joy, Stuff, Mountain Biking | No Comments »

20/07/2009 by Missus Toast.

I’m afraid I’ve been a bit lax with the Map of Joy updates, so here’s a bumper bonanza update!  Now with added Peak District, Glentress and Inners, and Dalbeattie!

Just got Afan, Coed-Y-Brenin and Thetford left.  I’m really hoping the weather picks up at some point, as I’ve heard Thetford’s not much fun if there’s been heavy rain.  Might have to add Brechfa to the list after the comment from Tim, its write up on the MBWales site sounds promising…

Posted in The Map of Joy, Mountain Biking | No Comments »

02/06/2009 by Missus Toast.

 Now with added Bike Radar tat!

Posted in The Map of Joy, Mountain Biking | No Comments »

04/05/2009 by Missus Toast.

Now with an RSPB Black Grouse pin badge and Llandegla cycle map!

Posted in The Map of Joy, Mountain Biking | No Comments »

15/04/2009 by Missus Toast.

The Map of Joy is now sporting souvenirs from Dalby, including the rather useful map and a delightful leather keyring from the Dalby Forest Visitor’s Centre.  Nothing but the best for my board!

Full-suspension quest update! On the way back from Mr Toast’s parent’s, we took a detour via the Specialized Concept Store in Birmingham.  We’d tried a couple of local Specialized dealers, but they’d either wanted a non-refundable 10% deposit to order one in (a bit risky for a bike I’d never even sat on!), or promised to get back to me, but never did.

But never fear!  The staff at the concept store were awesome - after giving them a refundable deposit, they’ve ordered in a small Stumpjumper Elite, and are going to put me through their ‘BG Fit’ test…procedure…thing. I’ve got a good feeling about this one, even planning on naming the bike ‘Captain Stumpy’.  Or perhaps ‘Professor Von Stumperson’.

Posted in The Map of Joy, Mountain Biking | No Comments »

03/03/2009 by Missus Toast.

The first addition to the Map of Joy. Admittedly, it’s from our regular haunt of Cannock Chase, but it’s rather special.  Yes, my Chase Trails membership pack arrived in the post today, complete with signage coasters.  The handy screw holes meant that they were ideal for pinning up, so the two FtD-specific coasters went up!

Woot!

Posted in The Map of Joy, Mountain Biking | 1 Comment »