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!).

With the improvement in my riding over the past couple of weeks coupled with my MAGICAL KYLE STRAIT KNEEPADS I decided to have another go at the Monkey.  Given that Simply Red and Keane were hogging Birches Valley, we parked up Marquis Drive.  Incidentally, I’m still not sure how to say ‘Marquis Drive’, I tend to say ‘Markee’ as if it was French, but having been roundly mocked by my brother who threatened to cut out my heathen foreign tongue I’ve been told that the ‘proper English’ pronunciation is actually ‘Markwiss’.  Say what you see, folks!  Unless it’s tortilla or hyperbole.

Anyhoo, I digress.  Started off by heading over to Tackaroo and doing what I normally consider the end section.  Flew around grinning until I got to Werewolf Drop, where I stopped, thought about it and then carried the bike down.  Didn’t want to fall off, that would be awful!

Sections  1/2/6 were closed so I followed the diversion round to 7.  Managed everything fine, including Evil Root Number One!  Well, I say fine, I got over it then stopped abruptly – but at least I got over it and didn’t fall into the bank.  This, dear reader, is what we call progress!

I managed to get up the fireroad hill up to 8 entirely in the middle ring, which I found strangely surprising – normally if it’s a bit warm I hit granny ring a few metres up and wheeze the entire way.  I didn’t stop at the top, but carried straight onto 8 – stopped at the break as I saw there was a group of lads.  They assured me that they’d be slower, so graciously encouraged me to head on before them.  No rest for the wicked!

I’m definitely getting better at 8, remembering to keep my speed coming out of the corners, especially the ones before the jumps.  One day I might actually be able to jump them!

I headed off to the Monkey at the decision point – I love the swoopy section at the start.  Then it was onto my nemesis, the link descent!  I actually managed to ride most of it – stopped before the steps, but I honestly think that next time around I’ll manage them; they’re nowhere near as bad as I remember.  This means that either my memory is playing tricks on me (not unheard of, I remember when section 14 was on the side of a sheer cliff…) or that the Chase Trails chaps have done a bit more work on them (I know they widened them).  Managed to take all of the corners with the exception of one of the last left hand turns, but otherwise I was very pleased.

I successfully crossed both the railway crossing and the road without being hit by any large metallic objects and headed onwards.  Fluffed the start of the climb and the first switchback, but managed to do the rest of them up to the top. 

I experienced a comedy over the bars dismount on the rocks on the exit to the section before Klondike Bridge.  It was on the very last rock I think – I’m not entirely sure what happened, all I know was that I ended up a tangled heap on the fireroad with my bike stuck on top of me.  Rather tragically my first thought wasn’t about my welfare, or even that of the Professor.  No, my first thought was, “I hope to god nobody saw that”, followed by, “Got to get up before anybody sees me”.  Wiggling free of the Professor, I stood up, checked that everything was in order, and got back on the bike.  I was fine, not even a flesh wound.  So I took the bike back up to the start of the rocks and did them properly, with less face planting.  Went straight onto Klondike Bridge and it was business as usual.  Except more awesome!

There’s a few protruding roots on the Monkey – not Evil, perhaps not even Malevolent, but possibly ‘Spiteful’ or ‘Mischievous’.   Managed them fine, managed the drops, including the weird diagonal one fine – I’ve definitely gotten better in that department.  I even did the first rock descent of the Monkey without incident, although I balked at the second (“Too ‘s’ shaped!”) and the third (“It’s got a sticky outy bit!”).  After the Klondike incident, I thought it was best that I didn’t push my luck.

And so, I carried merrily on my way, happily riding any woodwork, rocks and drops that came my way.  I exited the trail, and headed up the fireroad to the next section.  The bit of fireroad I’m referring to undulates – descends steeply then rises steeply, like a giant bombhole.

“AHA!” I thought.  “Physics!  If I descend with a great amount of speed, then it’ll slingshot me up the climb, minimising the need to pedal!”

I think, dear reader, that it’s fairly evident that like Emperor Palpatine, my overconfidence was my weakness.  Or perhaps my UTTER LACK OF COMMON SENSE.  I barrelled it down the hill, and as I hit the sandy gravelly stuff near the bottom I thought, “Oh dear, this isn’t going to end well” followed swiftly by, “This could actually be quite serious, shit, I’ve got Glentress in two weeks”.

I skidded across the ground on my right hand side, bouncing my head off the floor a couple of times in the process, just for good measure.  I lay there for a minute or two thinking, “Ow, have I broken my leg?”  Eventually I gingerly sat up, wiggled my fingers and feet, then stood up, pulled the Professor to safety, and sat on the grass slightly dazed, pondering whether I should phone someone. Feeling a bit dizzy and nauseous, I decided that not moving for a while was probably the best bet.  Assessing my injuries, I realised I’d taken a chunk of skin off my right arm, and had managed to smear blood on my shorts

Two chaps went by, one nearly lost it in the same place as me, but stayed on and got halfway up the next hill.  They looked back at me and asked me if I was OK, and by that point I was actually feeling fairly coherent.  I explained what happened, and said that I was fine, just a bit dusty.

Still feeling a bit shaken, I walked up the hill, got back on the bike and descended the next bit of fireroad.  SLOWLY.  Next few sections were a bit of a daze, I remember pushing up some switchbacks because I felt rubbish and thought I might pass out if I tried to climb.  Actually, I say ‘some’, I seem to recall they went on forever, but it was OK, because there were loads of foxgloves and it was quite trippy and oooh stars!

I actually rode the next few sections fine –  bridges, drops – and thoroughly enjoyed the descents, which I managed to ride the entirety of without stopping, crashing or fluffing the corners.  Stopping briefly at Lower Cliff, I sighed as I realised I’d run out of water again.  It had been a marvellous day, it was just a shame that I was a bit broken.   Crossed the railway again and headed up Kitbag Hill, which was positively murderous.   By this point I’d overshot the rendezvous time with Mr Toast, so sent him a text message saying that I was going to be late because I’d had a little accident, but I was OK.

I arrived back at Marquis Drive to a slightly concerned Toast, who marvelled at my injuries, and swore that I wouldn’t ride alone again.

After returning home and having a shower (which hurt… ), the full extent of my injuries became clear.  The final tally was:

• Patch of skin removed from right arm near the elbow.  Two days later it’s still oozing little yellow blobs.  I don’t know if this means it’s infected, or whether this is part of the ‘healing process’.
• Bruising around the elbow and upper right arm
• Heavy grazing around the elbow and upper right arm
• Bruised left palm
• Impressive facial graze that looks a bit like a Victorian gentleman’s beard
• One dented helmet, requiring a new one

On the plus side, the Professor seems to be relatively unscathed, as do my legs, probably thanks to my MAGICAL KYLE STRAIT KNEEPADS!  If only I’d had elbow pads too.

Or common sense.

Ride: Cannock Chase

Trail: Tackaroo and sections 7 and 8 of FtD, the Monkey

Highlights:  Being awesome on the singletrack, attempting stuff I’d wimped out on before, almost 100% defeating Evil Root Number One

Bad bits:  Failing on fireroad.

Post ride food snaffled:  Er, I think I had some crisps.

Good dogs seen: I can’t remember.  How tragic is that? Q_Q

Missus Toast – Fine Until Fireroad!

Saturday was the last bike ride of my twenties.  Oh my.  To bid farewell to the passing of my youth and welcome in the inexorable tide of middle-age, we ventured further afield than usual to Llandegla.

It was a lot more enjoyable this time around – the start of the red, which had previously been fairly battered by a combination of forestry operations and heavy rain, had been repaired and was fairly speedy going.  Strangely it was a lot rockier than I remembered – I think I still remember our first visit to Llandegla where everything was pretty much butter smooth.  I caught my pedal on rocks a couple of times, which means that either I need to look where I’m going more, or I need to increase the pressure in my rear shock…

Rather pleasingly the climb up gets easier each time we go there – to put it in perspective, the first time we went to Llandegla I had to stop a couple of times before we even got to the grouses, whereas this time around it was our one and only stop.  Well, you’ve got to take pictures, haven’t you?

Went around fairly speedily, and even managed to ride most of the Not Shore section – didn’t manage the start, but got on and started a bit further up and rode the rest of it.  It just requires a bit of oomph to keep momentum over the logs, but not so much that you can’t take the corners.  Exited it feeling a bit smug, and fairly confident that I’m close to doing the entire thing.

There are things I love about Llandegla, I things that niggle me slightly.  I love the feeling of speed you can get there, swooping through the forest, around berms and over rollery jump type things.  So many of the sections are fast and flowy fun.  However, there’s a good chunk of downhill fireroad, which seems a waste after all of the climbing, and we somehow managed to completely lose the end of the red route somewhere around the pump track, and ended up getting back to the cafe via the car park. :/  It seems a bit churlish to complain about such issues though, especially when the trailbuilders have obviously put in a lot of work fixing the start back up, and adding a pump track and skills loop, and the rest of it is such good fun.

I ran out of energy towards the end of the afternoon slightly, due to having only eaten Weetabix and half a bacon sandwich.  I did try and have a flapjack before setting out, but the ones in the cafe contained stealth banana, therefore rendering them inedible, on the grounds that banana is the fruit of Satan.  Mr Toast ate it though.

After a swift cup of tea and some Jaffa Cakes, we headed up to the skills loop.  There were a few kids there with AWESOME SKILLS, who seemed rather bemused by the height of our saddles.  Whilst they fearlessly threw themselves over the skills course at great speed, I gingerly approached the drops section.

The skills course is graded in the same manner as a lot of freeride and downhill courses, with a system of three dots.  One dot is easy, two is harder, three is hardest.  Naturally, being a massive pansy, I approached the one-dot drops with a sense of trepidation.  But they were actually quite easy – I think some of the stuff on the Monkey has toughened me up a little.  After a bit of gentle encouragement from Mr Toast, I took the two-dot drops as well – which truth be told, didn’t seem that much bigger than the last drop of the one-dot drops.  I didn’t try the three-dot drops though, they didn’t really look overly rollable!:P

The berms section was easy to ride, both one and three-dot sections.  I guess the actual difficulty arises from riding them lightning fast.  I dropped the saddle for the jumps (one-dot) – I’m still incapable of jumping intentionally – probably because I’m trying to jump and not jump at the same time.

Anyhoo, I predict that I meekness will recede slightly as my Kyle Strait knee armour has now arrived, which will increase my skill levels by four hundred and eleventy percent.  Undoubtedly.

Ride: Llandegla

Trail: Red route and skills loop

Highlights:  Fast flowy singletrack.  Doing the TWO DOT drops.

Bad bits:  Trying to pagger it up a hill and knackering myself for the rest of the trail

Post ride food snaffled: Jaffa cakes and a cup of tea

Good dogs seen: A friendly trail labrador, and… a chihuaha