19/06/2011 by Missus Toast.

I’ve been sadly remiss with my Map of Joy updates!  This year I decided to take a different approach -  rather than making a list of the places we were hoping to visit and ticking them off as we get there, I’ve gone for *drumroll*…

THE MYSTERIOUS MAP OF JOY!

Which is like the old Map of Joy, except we fill it out as we go along.  It’s less of a crushing disappointment that way at the end of the year when we realise we haven’t managed to visit half of the places we were hoping to!   Keeping on last year’s theme of slacking I’ve not actually posted this year’s yet, but in my defence we have had a lot on.  Well, wait no longer!

OK, slightly overdone build up when it only has three locations on it, but look!  A medal!  From Mountain Mayhem!  Over-excited blogpost to follow soon!

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

12/06/2011 by Missus Toast.

Yesterday I did something a little different - a social ride with most of our Mountain Mayhem team.  It was good fun for the most part - it was great seeing parts of the Chase that I don’t normally see, and riding new stuff.  Had a few mishaps though - we rode a section that was quite loose and squishy.  Not being used to riding non-surfaced stuff threw me off a little… but not as much as me yanking the front brake after doing a log drop.  With a dramatic flourish and a scream worthy of Wilhelm, I lost control of the bike.  Fortunately Jez was there to catch the screaming hobbity missile that was me, although I did manage to knock him over in the process.  Strrriiiiike!

Second off was a bit later, again on a bit of a singletrack descent.  The funny thing about natural stuff is that it’s often like a spider web, with lots of other tracks leading off it, and sometimes you can lose the track.  Well, you might not, but I did.  I was kind of in the middle of the pack, having lost the faster riders at the front and… er, holding up the faster riders behind me.  I was sooooo close to the end, but couldn’t quite follow the track and…why, hello front brake!  WE MEET AGAIN!  Over the handlebars, face first.  Into brambles.  Managed to roll over, tangled in my bike, and Ian helped me up.  I was whimpering, more pride hurt than anything else, particularly with the indignity that I was stuck like an upturned turtle and stuck in the brambles.  Managed to remove most of the thorns from my person.  Mr Toast finally found us, and said, “Oh, your face looked scratched!  You know, like the scratches you get from brambles, but on your face!” To which I replied, “That’s because I just faceplanted in some brambles”.

“Oh!”

On the plus side, I rode a bombhole and did a little jump off the end - I’m informed I actually got air.  On purpose!  Really need to sort the panicking/front braking thing though- I think a good chunk of it was trying to keep up with people on unfamiliar turf.

We ended up at Milford, which brought back memories - the only time I’ve been to Milford previously is when I was doing GCSE geography something like 16 years ago.  The Wimpy is still there, as is the Little Fawn cafe, which does really good chips.  Unfortunately the weather had turned a bit sour at this point, and I was a bit sore and mardy.  And, for the first time this year, I’d come out without my thermal. Bloody typical, for weeks I’ve been lugging it around as unneeded baggage, and the one time I needed it I didn’t have it!

Mr Toast and I headed back, and ended up at Tackeroo.  Despite feeling exceptionally surly and sorry for myself, I forced myself to do the last section of Follow the Dog.  It’s amazing how easy Follow the Dog seems after riding natural stuff, which is probably why everyone else has a lot more confidence.

Today I had a few interesting bruises and scratches, plus severe aches and pains.  However, I think this might be partially down to my new gym routine that I started Friday.  Well, if you’re going to beat yourself up, might as well do it properly!

Ride: Cannock Chase

Trail: Random stuff up to Milford, end of FtD

Highlights:  FtD and a little more FtD.  Actually trying stuff

Bad bits: Faceplanting

Post ride food snaffled: Chicken burger and chips, omnomnom.

Good dogs seen: There was a most excellent schnauzer, but the absolute best was a small jack russel riding with another rider.  He was wearing a neckerchief.  The jack russel, not the rider

Posted in Mountain Mayhem, Mountain Biking | 1 Comment »

12/06/2011 by Missus Toast.

This ride was quite a milestone for me, as it’s the first time since I started riding that I’ve done all of Follow the Dog without any rest stops.  Yes, it’s taken me three years to get to this point, but I got there eventually.  My riding was actually a bit off - I felt a little skittish and off-balance, and I felt slower than when I’m at my best, but that might have been down to not having my usual breaks around the fireroad hill.

After Follow the Dog I stopped at the cafe for tea and a cookie (ideal fitness nutrition…) then did some pootley fireroad.  I decided to venture onto the old section 3, which is still rides remarkably well although it can be easy to lose the trail at times.

I’m going to keep trying to get around with no stops, as I think that will improve my fitness and lap times.  Given that Mountain Mayhem is in two weeks it’s probably a bit late to be worrying about it, but better late than never!

Ride: Cannock Chase

Trail: Follow the Dog

Highlights:  Doing FtD with no rest breaks

Bad bits:  Being a bit inept

Post ride food snaffled: Cookie

Good dogs seen: Schnauzers, a spaniel and its pup

Posted in Mountain Mayhem, Mountain Biking | 1 Comment »

29/05/2011 by Missus Toast.

Apologies for the lack of updates - there’s been a lot going on in Toast Towers.  For a start, Toast Towers has relocated to Warwick.  This has been deemed “A most excellent move”.  14 miles cut off the journey to the Chase, several quality takeaway establishments in delivery distance and access to super fast cable broadband.  The biggest day to day change is that I no longer drive to work - I normally bike in on a daily basis now, or occasionally take the bus.  This has done wonders for my fitness, plus I get to see ducklings every day, and sometimes baby moorhens.  It’s impossible to go to work on a heavy heart when there’s little balls of fluff swimming about!

Mr Toast has also just fixed my PC, which has been playing up for months and becoming increasingly unstable.  After a long process of elimination it eventually became clear that it was the heart of the PC itself that was giving out - the motherboard, the memory and the processor.  To their credit, they were ten years old and have been overclocked for the past six, so they were retired in good grace.  Now my PC is (touch wood) fully back up and running - a great relief, as it was impossible to use most of the Adobe Creative Suite programmes.

So, what have I been up to on the biking front this last month and a half?  Well over Easter we went Ooop North to Mr Toast’s parents, enjoyed good company, silly dogs, excellent food and Dalby!

Dalby was interesting.  The furthest I’ve ever biked in one day (that I can think of) was the Ladybower loop we did last year, which was 22 miles.  Dalby is 24 miles.  Despite my chronic lack of fitness (I hadn’t started biking in at this point), I decided that I was, for the first time ever, going to give the full red a punt.  Fitness aside, I felt a warm glow of satisfaction as I began the initial climb up the shared blue and red.  On previous years I’d struggled both with fitness and technique, but this year it wasn’t an issue at all.  If nothing else, at least that was better!

Dalby is a curious track - most the difficulty comes from the length rather than any of the features.  However there was the odd section that I walked - normally involving steep downhill gradients, loose stones and drops on corners.  Most of it though - no problem.  Mr Toast did have a problem, however - we were fairly early on in the ride when he stopped, frowned and said, “What the hell is that clicking?”

Whilst he investigated, I did what any dutiful wife would do and promptly starting taking photos of The Professor.

By the way, that knee pad hanging in the tree?  Not mine.  Not entirely sure how or why it got there, I can only assume that somebody is a massive tosser.  Eventually Mr Toast’s investigations revealed that the thread had come off one of his pivot bolts.  We decided to continue… cautiously.

I have to admit, by about two thirds of the way through, I was utterly shattered.  Although the singletrack is generally fairly easy going, Dalby does have a lot of switchback and fireroad climbs.  I definitely would have enjoyed it more if I had been a bit fitter - as it was, it quite often seemed as if there was a lot of excruitiating climbing with little payback.  However, stubboness combined with encouragement from Mr Toast meant that I was going to see it through to the bitter end.  I finished Dalby in a slightly delirious state, chuffed that I’d managed to ride that many miles, not pushed up a single hill and ridden some features I wouldn’t have dreamed off a year or two ago.  And on return to Mr Toast’s parents’, there was a roast chicken dinner waiting for us.  RESULT!

We returned to Dalby a few days later, Mr Toast’s broken Pitch meant that we were unable to take our planned excursion to the moors.  Mr Toast was forced to hire…

A Kona Fire Mountain!  The only hire bike big enough for Mr Toast was slightly battered, but with a bit of tweaking he managed to get the gears running smoothly.  He cursed slightly, and I was forced to giggle - when we’ve been to Dalby in the past, he’s been the one on the fancy pants full susser and I was the one stuck on the hired hardtail.  However, something happened as he got used to the bike.  He started to like it.  It had been some time since he’d ridden a hardtail off-road, and the first time he’d ridden a bike that big (look at the seatpost!  It almost looks sensible compared to the height of the handlebars!).  Despite our initial plan of just exploring the fireroads, we ended up doing the last quarter of the red route.  I chortled slightly as the hardtail was a great equaliser - it was much easier to keep up with him!  I’m glad we did the last part of the red, as I’d been utterly wiped out when we’d got to it a couple of days earlier.  It was nice to ride it relatively fresh.

So, that was Dalby.

We’ve been over the Chase most weekends, work allowing, and the past couple of weeks have seen a marked improvement from me.  I’ve been able to get up the fireroad hill in middle ring, which sounds like such a stupid little thing it’s almost a non-event, but it’s something I’d not managed to do this year until very recently. The number of breaks I’ve been taking have also been getting shorter.  In fact, today, the only time I stopped was at the start of the fireroad hill, to take off my thermal.  Other than that, I refused to stop, moving from one section to the next.  Thank you, daily commute!

Slightly panicking though as we’ve got Mountain Mayhem in less than three weeks, with Mr Toast frequently reminding me of the length of each lap and the greater degree of climbing. Still, what can possibly go wrong?

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12/04/2011 by Missus Toast.

So, it was another lovely day, and back onto Follow the Dog again.  I really need to get my fitness, strength and confidence up for June… and for myself, really.  Mountain biking is so much more fun when you’re not about to throw up.

This day was a bit special because not only did I do Follow the Dog in reasonable time (about an hour… OK, section 11 is still out of commission, but we don’t talk about that), but I then did up to section 8, and still had energy at the end when I had to meet Mr Toast!  I’m definitely rolling stuff with more confidence now, and I think I may have identified my cornering woes - on the Professor, I have a tendency to put my weight back whenever I’m out of the saddle, which is fine on descents… and also fine if I’m crouching down a little.  What I’m actually doing is getting towards the back of the saddle, but still being quite upright - I think I need to make more of an effort to centre my weight more and get a little lower, it seems to make a massive difference (well, it feels like I’m going faster! :P)

I also had a pop at Messrs Root and Slab.  Root I attempted on my second run of 7, and I cleared it with my front wheel easily.  I put my feet down though - I think if I’d kept pedalling I could have made it.   I didn’t exactly have the smoothest run into it though, my right foot had slipped off the pedal and I’d only just managed to get it back into position as I hit the root.  Next week!

Evil Slab (nee Root) had me trying to take the left hand line - actually avoiding the slab and tackling the two roots that are there.  Bottled it and put my feet down just before it though. -_-

Generally took everything a lot smoother this week and overtook quite a few people and didn’t get overtaken much - although given the weekend crowd, not really surprising! :P  I even seemed to have a few occasions where people were using me as inspiration - including at the end of section 8 where a bloke was telling his son to how to roll the end and said, “See how she got her weight back and straightened her arms a bit”.  Which was funny, as I actually took the exit a bit iffily and had my weight further forward than usual, but not enough to cock it up.

I love seeing a range of abilities on the trail, it’s inspiring to see where you came from to where you could get to.   I love seeing little kids on their 20″ and 24″ wheels riding around FtD, enjoying the woods with their parents.  I love seeing people in jeans on their Halfords specials - some struggling and having a borderline asthma attack as they light up their cigarettes at the top of eight, others casually rolling Werewolf Wolf (although I’d prefer it if they wore helmets…).  I love seeing nutters going around Follow the Dog on jump bikes - who needs a comfortable ride or gears? I love seeing women with their blokes taking their first steps into mountain biking, trailing behind nervously as their menfolk leave them for dust.  I love seeing women with their blokes leaving their blokes for dust.  I love being overtaken by men that are twice my age and probably four times my fitness. I love seeing people on expensive bikes who are actually a bit rubbish, and realising that I fall into that category.  There are so many people riding the trails, it’s great to see the variety and makes you realise there’s so much more to mountain biking - even just trail centre riding, on this one trail - than what’s presented in MBUK and the like.  Long may it continue!

Ride: Cannock Chase

Trail: Follow the Dog

Highlights:  FtD and a little more FtD.  Actually trying stuff

Bad bits:  Trying and not succeeding

Post ride food snaffled: Bacon sarnie.  On brown bread.  IT’S HEALTHY.

Good dogs seen: Well, I actually thought today was going to be a bit of a bust - two overweight labradors and a Chinese Crested Hairless Dog.  Which OK, the latter is exotic, but… good?  Pushing it a bit.  Fortunately the day was saved by a last minute labradoodle, a minature schnauzer, and a very small jack russell wearing a muzzle.  Small, but deadly.

Posted in Mountain Biking | 1 Comment »

12/04/2011 by Missus Toast.

So this fine Saturday was the day I finally decided to bite the bullet and hit Follow the Dog in its entirety.  If you’ve been reading previous entires you’ll know that my red route riding since the end of November has been limited to the start and end sections of FtD whilst I get back into the swing of things.  And oh my, how I did swing!  Took it fairly steady, and it was very, very busy - there were a few breaks between sections which were longer than I needed as I was waiting on groups of people to pass, or giving families a headstart, but even still I clocked in at a not entirely terrible 1 hour 15.

I’d been putting off the Steg for a while because I am still a glorious mincer in matters of the rocky steps on corners going onto a bridge variety.  But I did it no problems - oddly it’s no longer the turn on the rocks that bothers me, but the fear I’ll go Benny Hilling off the right hand side of the bridge after clearing the rocks.  Hasn’t happened yet, so fingers crossed!  I marvelled at the end of section 6, which was previously almost completely flat, but now resembles a pump track for tiny, tiny people.  Remember kids, go through the puddles, not around them!

Had no problems with section 7 other than Evil Root Number One, although I automatically hopped off before I even looked at it.  Having looked at it, I could swear that it’s not actually as bad as I remembered it being, as if the front had been filled in a little.  The climb up to 8 felt a little more tiring than the week before on the Fuel, but I think that’s more down to having done more sections beforehand.  8 was good fun, although by the climb out of it I felt like I’d been kicked by a particularly ill-tempered donkey.

9 and 10 were nice and fast, although I nearly came a cropper on the bowl berm.  I noticed overall that I was still feeling a little unbalanced on corners compared to the Fuel, which was slightly disconcerting.  I still went at a decent clip though.  Went into 12 fully intending to conquer the Evil Slab (nee Evil Root Number Two), but it looked far bigger than it had in the photos.  With Evil Root Number Two, I could plough into it with no ability or finesse whatsoever - the replacement actually requires a modicum of skill.  Curses!

The Tackaroo section was good fun as always, although I still can’t ride the bloody switchbacks into Werewolf Drop, never mind Werewolf Drop.  Werewolf Drop is a proper collection of my nemesiseseses…nemesi…nemesises… er, riding issues.

A 90 DEGREE TURN INTO THE FEATURE!  I still struggle on tight berms and switchbacks (see The Monkey for details), so having a sharp zig zag leading into a right hand turn doesn’t come naturally to me.

NARROW TREES!  OK, I can cope with narrow trees - I’m quite small and don’t have the Harley Davidson handlebars that are all the rage.  I can go through the trees through the bridge onto the rocks on that one section of The Monkey. But that’s approaching from pretty much straight on!  That’s different!

A DROP…SLOPE… THING!  The drop itself doesn’t actually bother me that much.  OK, it took me two years to ride the exit to 8, but I don’t think Werewolf is actually that much steeper, and looks perfectly doable if you just keep your weight back and speed down a little.  But then….

A 90 DEGREE TURN AT THE BOTTOM!  Turning!  Bloody steering!  The humanity of it all!

For a lot of people, this agonising will be completely baffling.  They don’t even register Werewolf Drop as a hazard, dismiss it as a slope, etc.  And looking at it rationally, I know I can ride it.  I’ve seen people on Halfords specials wobbling down it with their brakes fully on and clearing it.  But this is my problem - what if?   Here, allow me to illustrate my thought process as I ride towards Werewolf Drop:

A lot of the time I’ll assume that at some point I’ll royally balls up and either damage the Professor, myself, or even worse, make a complete tit of myself in front of an audience.  So… I get off the bike and walk down.

Rest of Tackaroo is riding nicely, although I swear those two drops before the rollers are getting bigger, especially the first one!  I’ve also taken to riding the stumps right before the rollers - not managed to get air yet, but I’ve also not fallen off.  Woot!

Sunday was Mothers Day, and also the day of Mr Toast’s 1-2-1 skills course with Chase Skills that I sorted for him for Valentine’s Day.  In the morning I went trailbuilding before having a meal with my mother - we worked on section 11, resurfacing the most damaged areas of the trail.  I put my feeble upper body strength to as good use as I could and helped prepare the trail for the new material - for more information on trailbuilding, remember to take a peek at Chase Trails’ blog!

After trailbuilding and the Mothers Day meal, I went back to pick up Mr Toast.  It’s quite alarming going through the carpark at the end of the day - blokes seem to completely drop their inhibitions, and next thing you know, you’re surrounded by naked buttocks and swinging genitalia. Gentlemen, is there any reason why you need to get changed in public, out of doors?  Sweet Merciful Zeus, I had to get changed after trailbuilding, but I didn’t bloody do it in the carpark.  I didn’t know where to look!  WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

Ride: Cannock Chase

Trail: Follow the Dog

Highlights:  Doing Follow the Dog and not being utterly terrible.  The beautiful sunshine. Trailbuilding.

Bad bits:  Still cowardly and avoiding stuff instead of riding it

Post ride food snaffled: Bacon sarnie

Good dogs seen: A most excellent minature daschund and minature schauzer.

Posted in Trail building, Mountain Biking | No Comments »

08/04/2011 by Missus Toast.

Popped down to the Demo Series on the 26th.  I hadn’t really got a firm idea of what I wanted to ride, other than a strange inexplicable compulsion to try a 29er.

We arrived later than planned, as per usual.  First ride of the day was a Trek Fuel 8 WSD.  My original plan was to go out on the 14.5 inch model, but once I was standing next to it both the Trek Chap and myself agreed that it was probably going to be far too small.  So instead I ventured out on the 16.5 inch model, as the 15.5 wasn’t available.  Given that the Fuel 8 WSD have the same geometry as the ‘men’s’ Fuel 8s, I had a sinking feeling that it was all going to go horribly wrong.  When I tried it out for size, however, it didn’t seem too bad at all, and Trek Chap definitely earned bonus points for telling me that my legs weren’t that short and, as he set up the rear shock, that I was lighter than I claimed.

Setting off on it definitely felt a bit weird.  Not bad, just… different.  Despite it supposedly being a bigger frame than what I’m used to, I felt as if I was sat further forward than on the Professor, and a lot higher up.  As I turned into the first section of Follow the Dog, it felt very, very strange.

Very, very strange quickly turned into very awesome.  Last time I’d ridden a Trek Fuel two years ago I didn’t really get on with it - the brakes were honking (Hayes Soles), the gearing was terrible and it had annoying dual-platform pedals that always swung SPD side up when I wear flats.  This time was an entirely different kettle of donkeys - the Fuel was perfectly set up, and although I initially felt a little odd on it, I quickly got used to it.  Given that I’d not actually done much of Follow the Dog this year, I erred on the side of caution and left out the Steg, and instead headed to section eight in a rather roundabout fashion.

So, my first run through of section eight was on a strange bike after over four months of eating treacle pudding and playing World of Warcraft.  First was the small matter of the fireroad hill, and the Fuel proved it was a nice little climber.  Then onto section 8, and more awesomeness.  Perhaps I’d been expecting to be so much worse after the treacle pudding fuelled winter, but I seemed to fly around.  The Fuel seemed very stable around corners - on the Professor, I tend to lean into corners to the point of feeling that I’m starting to tip over, but on the Fuel I took the corners comfortably.  I don’t know whether it was the bike or whether I was just having a particularly good day, but I felt exhilarated that I was riding confidently at a decent clip after so long.  I’d planned to return the bike after section 8 as I didn’t want to push my luck, but I felt like pushing my luck anyway and did 9 and 10 as well.

I returned the Fuel with a big smile on my face.   Don’t get me wrong, I love the Professor, I do, but it’s nice to know that there’s another bike that I clicked with so quickly.  And Mr Toast has four bikes, and I only have two.  Just saying!  It also goes to show that:

a) Frame sizes can be pretty arbitary across different manufacturers, so don’t dismiss anything… or conversely, assume it’ll fit!

b) Just because you didn’t get on with a particular make or model one year doesn’t mean you should dismiss it forever more.  Geometry changes, things get tweaked and altered, and your own riding style might evolve.

Before I could demo another bike, I had to pick up my friend who’s looking into getting a new bike.  I was hoping she’d have a bit more success this time around - last time I took her to a Demo Day two years ago, she ended up riding a red route for the first time in her life on a carbon full suspension race bike (a Top Fuel, to be more specific).  Not being used to singletrack, the lightness of carbon bikes or full suspension, coupled with truly terrible weather meant that she had a less than pleasurable experience, and has now sworn off full sussers as a result.  So this time, I thought I’d get her on a nice, practical hardtail.  Having ridden a very basic Giant mtb for eight years, mainly for road riding, she made a beeline for the Giant stand straight away.  We ended up with…

*

Clown wheels! \o/  I’d thought I’d be trying out a Gary Fisher Superfly 29er, but they didn’t have the 15″ model available.  So I joined my friend at the Giant stand AND still managed to sate my 29er curiosity with an Anthem 29er.  The idea that there would be a full suspension 29er that I could actually ride was a stunning revelation… although the seatpost did have to be sawn down so I could get on the saddle.  My friend also ended up on a 29er, a Giant XTC.

Determined not to make the same mistake as the previous demo day I’d taken my friend on, I took her around some of the green routes to let her get to used to the bike, before leading her down the old section 3 (which she’s ridden before).  She was fine on the flat, but struggled a bit on the singletrack - again, not really surprising given that she’s not used to that sort of riding, and was on a completely bonkers bike.  Again.

Because I’m a sadist (and also because I felt it’d be a fairer test of the Anthem) we then went on the first section of Follow the Dog.  I was expecting riding a 29er to be a bit of a nightmare (but I still wanted to ride one, just because I believe hobbits should have the right to be niche too), but it wasn’t at all.  The handling was surprisingly nimble, especially given I was expecting it to be something like riding a Penny Farthing, and on longer stretches it could fly over stuff. Bloody good fun.  I’ve never really clicked with Giant bikes before, clearly they just needed massive wheels to match the name!

Alas, my friend wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about her dandy horse, and nature was calling to us both, so we returned the 29ers.  Sadly by the time we hit the Specialized stand they’d stopped letting the bikes out, so no Epic test for me.

Overall an awesome day - it seemed to be a lot better organised than on previous years, with a decent choice in bikes for both Mr Toast (he tried a Trek Paragon, a Specialized Epic and a Carbon Stumpjumper) and myself.  The guys on the Trek and Giant stands were fantastic - despite being incredibly busy the bikes were perfectly set up and they were happy to chat.   Rather depressingly it’s been the first demo day where I’ve come out of it thinking I’d quite happily own both the bikes I’ve ridden, but alas, food and shelter sadly takes priority. I’ve come to the conclusion I need one of those stereotypical wives blokes on the Singletrack forum moan about - the ones who say, “Why do you need another bike?  What’s wrong with the one you’ve got?  You could get a car for that!” Plus even if I did get those bikes, I’d still want to keep the Professor and Cletus, so then we’d have eight bikes in the house.  EIGHT.  Is there a biking equivalent of a Crazy Cat Lady?

* Photo shamelessly robbed from Giant’s Facebook page.  If you’re one of those Twittery types and can tear yourself away from Charlie Sheen, you can also get Demo Series information from @TheDemoSeries.

Posted in All the gear, no idea, Mountain Biking | 1 Comment »

01/04/2011 by Missus Toast.

I’ve managed to have a good few rides over the past couple of weeks.  I’ve been focusing on getting my fitness back up on the blue, and throwing in a couple of sections of Follow the Dog.  Despite my first efforts of the year over the final Tackeroo section starting off a bit dicey, I’ve actually managed to get back into the swing of of it.  Although I did manage to skid sideways on the last berm before Werewolf and land on my side, much to the amusement of a group of blokes standing about.  Tell me boys, if you’re so frickin’ awesome why are you standing mincing at the top of the Werewolf instead of riding it?  Eh?  EH?

It’s amazing how quickly the trails recover once the frost finally buggers off - a little bit of added drainage here and there by Chase Trails (example:  the berms on the Tackeroo sections) and voila!  Perfectly rideable!  Occasionally a bit of mud and a fair few breaking bumps, but, as I keep on saying, if mud and bumpy trails bother you, you should probably question whether mountain biking is the hobby for you.

There’s lots of good dogs out at the moment - there seems to have been a bit of a puppy boom.  Last week alone I saw two German Shepherd pups and a spaniel pup, all bouncing merrily along.  Well, that’s a bit of a fib, the spaniel was bouncing, the alsations were quite dignified.

I also helped marshall the Midlands XC race last week - it mostly went smoothly, and thanks to the Follow the Dog riders for their patience and following the diversions.  Hope everyone enjoyed the day!

And now, photos!

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08/03/2011 by Missus Toast.

I’ve just found I’ll be participating in this years Mountain Mayhem.  As in ‘racing’.  Despite having no fitness, very little ability and never having raced before.

Still, I’ve got 102 days to get into shape, how hard can it be?

Posted in Mountain Mayhem, Mountain Biking | 1 Comment »

06/03/2011 by Missus Toast.

After a slightly demented week, I really, really needed to get out an ride this weekend.  It’s been a week of things that are awesome, exciting and terrifying - some of which manage to be all three at one.  In the less awesome camp though resides stumping up an eye-watering £450 for new tyres (for the car) and getting evicted by our landlord who wants to sell our house.

Still felt a bit sheepish in the car park, taking the bikes off the rack and getting ready to go out.  Mr Toast enquired when the Big Build Day was, and I instantly answered “March 6th”.  Of course I knew, I did a poster and everything.  There was a moment’s pause, and I said, “Is that today?” followed by the less than eloquent, “Shit!”. But like I’ve said, I’ve had a lot on my mind - sadly keeping up to date with what day it is seems to have slipped by the wayside. >.<

On the plus side, I did have an fantastic ride, although slightly melancholy in that it’s only the second time I’ve been out on the bike since mid-November.  I seem to function much better when there’s a bit of sunshine - with it being a few degrees warmer my knees weren’t complaining too much until the last couple of hills, and I wasn’t too bothered by my cough.  I was left thinking that I’d really like to spend more time biking - I remember that it was a lot easier when I was fitter and a stone lighter…

I did all of the blue and felt I had enough energy to do the last section of Follow the Dog.  Minced along the start of the Tackaroo section quite merrily - it was a bit bumper than I remembered, and this was my first ‘proper’ bit of mountain biking in nearly four months.  Ended up stopping on a couple of berms that were quite cut up, not because I couldn’t do them but because there was someone right on my back wheel, and negotiating cut up berms isn’t made easier with the constant paranoia that someone’s going to slam into the back of you.  So a friendly word to the racing elite - buzzing my back tyre doesn’t make me go faster, it generally makes me slow down to a complete stop. Don’t be a dick.

The trail soon smoothed out though, and I felt a bit more back to normal.  As normal I chickened out of Werewolf Drop (along with the other five mincers hanging around it) and took the rest of the trail cautiously, but with a bit more speed.  The two step drops had been worrying me a little - the first one in particular looked bigger than I remembered, but I took them both fine and without any sense of imminent death.

I really need to get more biking in and get my fitness up, as in a fit of madness I volunteered to ride Mountain Mayhem this year.

ERK!

Ride: Cannock Chase

Trail: Blue route, followed by the last section of Follow the Dog

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:  Lack of fitness, general mincing on FtD.  STONES, OH NOES!

Post ride food snaffled: 1 cookie, one ham sandwich and a cup of tea

Good dogs seen: Mostly spaniels.  Many, many, spaniels.

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