2017 continued part 3

The day after the enduro (previous blog) i woke up after the rough night feeling pretty good, Sam txt me to see if i was still going to ride Revolution and i decided i would go along and just take it easy. I packed the van up left the campsite and headed off towards Revs to find a cafe for the lads to meet me at. This was my 2nd time at revs and all though i love the place, im shit at riding it. Especially the steep technical stuff, but even though i was pretty tired after the enduro i still gave it a shot. 

Bit of a long video but some funny moments and crashes.

Summer was going great and it was soon time for mine and Luca’s annual Cornwall trip (i was born and grew up in Cornwall so its somewhere we go often) I had just built up a jump bike for Luca so he had a bike he could ride on holidays and in the street at home without getting jumped for his bike. This was a good chance to get him more confident on a bike and we hit the track in Portreath for some dirt jumps. I was on my hardtail but found it a bit too big for this type of riding. This year i shall be taking my jump bike. 

Luca’s first air time 🙌

And a bit of paddle boarding at the beach. 

looking through videos of 2017 it seems this blog will be more videos and less chat, i am sure i will get much better at the blogging thing when i can write the adventures as they happen in 2018, its a little harder to remeber everything we did last year so these are more warm up blogs ready for the adventures this year.

Videos from the rest of 2017.

Me and Jimmy at Degla with the kids ...

Luca full run at Steel City (Grenoside woods) He wants to enter the race but cant until he is 10. 

And myself on a full run, I shall be putting my name in for a race ticket again. Maybe this year I will get in. 

Longboards at Southport 

Me and Sam at farmer Johns 

And as featured on GMBN’s dirt shed show this was Luca’s progression session.

Luca’s jump bike I made 

And some upgrades the to the Santa Cruz 

A new jump bike for me 😁

The jump bike is for winter, me Sam & Chris all got one and started to hit rampworx skatepark. Wow this is hard ! Nothing like mountain biking at all. Chris and Sam seem to get it quicker than me and I spent my first few sessions in the bowl trying to 180. 

Once I had this nailed I started having more fun at the skatepark, until I concentrated too much on how high my front wheel was getting and forgetting to do the 180 ! I hit the deck like a sack of spuds 😩 concrete hurts and using my enduro foam knee pads seemed like a good idea as they fitted under my jeans but not good when I hit the deck. Bruised and battered but no broken bones just my ego. 

And the new winter bike 

Winter night rides have never been so much fun ! Near where I live there are some local woods up at the beacon, I would normally head up to the point and back down in a little loop that would take just under a hour. Now I go up and over the beacon and down to the canal and back up through more woods before looping back home, still in the same hour. Its great, you just get to ride twice as far in the same time. 

I took it to Gisburn and Degla when I was on my own and got round both in 1hr, over 20k of trails in 1 hr, what a thrill this is. Hopefully this year I will get out on some longer rides in the lakes and peaks, rides my Diabetis would normally stop me from doing. I still use the Santa Cruz when with the lads and at bike parks but for pedaling up hills and long distance or just getting out for a quick blast after work this bike is amazing. 

Some clips from Degla at night on the focus ...

It was time for another lads weekend away, Windhill and Bike park wales was on the menu. Did not get any videos from Windhill but what a place, we didn’t have a lot of time here as we drove down and also had to drive to Wales to get to the B&B and a table booked for tea. But we will be back one day for a full day session. 

Bike Park Wales this time was prob one we would never forget, well at least our friend Baz. Very unfortunate off on a berm and must of landed awkwardly as this happened ......

Ouch ! That is Baz off the bike for the rest of the year 😞 

here is some clips from that weekend.... 

https://vimeo.com/234380621

And that pretty much brings us up to the end of the year, but the last day of the year is also my birthday and there was time for one more ride, this time a dad and lads ride around lady Channing’s. Great way to end the year for me with my little dude Luca riding and of course friends. 

and that is how we got to today ..... I really cant thank everyone enough for the memories 2017 gave me, with my friends and with my son Luca it truly was amazing. 

Here is to some great adventures in 2018 😊

No. 6 - 2016

2016 was full of adventure and great rides, my shoulder was better and i had got over the jump that wiped me out. Confidence is higher and life is good. But i didnt get out as much as i wanted over the winter. 

This year Luca turned 6 years old, our relationship was getting even better, some great little adventures and he really started to enjoy the outdoor life with me. 

We booked the wrong tree top course and at age 6 Luca did the high course, he is pretty tall for his age so he was just high enough to go on it. He soon realised the tricky bits he could just swing and use it like a zip wire open every section haha. 

Little surf dude 🤙🏻

Anyway back to bikes..... what did we get up to in 2016 ? Let me find some rides and see, its hard to remember when i didnt have any injuries to go by for memory haha.

Let’s jump on YouTube and see what rides there was, oh wait i remeber one for certain ! I remember because i got a 48hr facebook ban for posting this picture haha ........ sorry but its gotta be done ! Bit of an off at Stiniog resulting in some grazes.

Told you it wasnt nice haha sorry about that ! 

Here is the video ... 

As you can see at this stage i was not very confident in going fast down rocky sections, doesnt look much on camera but as you hear, this one hurt ! 

Here is the rest of the day ...

And later on this year we hit bike park wales, luckily we had some better weather for this one.

Round 2 BPW

Summer was here and it was time for my 2nd fort bill, last year was a wet affair in a 2 man tent with David so this year we took a 6 man tent, it was roasting ☀️☀️☀️ crazy hot weather all weekend and some great racing. And I had my bike with me ! The plan was to go riding on the Monday but David fell the day before and hurt his arm so it was up to me to fly the flag and ride the fort bill downhill track.

Monday morning we get back up to the Nevis range to see most of the World Cup packed away, I got my gondola ticket and went up for the red giant, red ? Was this right ? It was more like a black to me ! It was long hard and rocky, part way down I met a couple girls who asked if was on my own, i explained my friend was in the cafe as he couldn’t ride and I wanted to say I had done the World Cup track. They said you can ride with us if you want, i was made up ! I get to ride fort William with 2 hot girls in mountain bike clothes which we all know makes them 10 times hotter 😍 well unfortunately for me the ride lasted about 5 minutes before things got technical and they had me off ! 🙈 yes the girls were much better riders than me and they left me for dust never to be seen again. 

Back down at the bottom I went in the cafe while I waited for them to open the word cup track, the wait was over. This was it .... dum dum dum I was on my way back to the top to ride the World Cup track.

Now I say ride the World Cup track.... it wasn’t quite like a ride, more like a awkward dance with my bike down a hill 😆 I was going great until I hit pinball, I walked about 4 sections basically riding the flattish bit to the next drop / rock section. After that section and a few rests I was off again towards the woods, i was doing ok and on was to the hazard hoofer. I don’t think I was ever going to actually try and jump it but I didn’t get a chance because a misplaced front wheel in a hole put me over the bars just before the take off, I dusted myself off and got out off the bush to find my arms were torn to shreds. Mega road rash. 

I got to the motorway section and hit it ...... I took off in the air, it felt great. I was jumping the bumps at the World Cup track ........ then I landed on top of the table top and had to pedal to get to the end the jumps are that big 🤣 anyway I made it, the end was in sight. I got to the Scotland arch (which wasn’t there as they packed it away) and I stopped to see if my friend David was at the bottom with the go pro ready to film me coming into the finish line (which wasn’t there as they had packed it away) he was there, camera on I set off. Down that hill after the arch ..... dam,n this was steep ! And there’s logs near the bottom.... I was through I stayed on, David said I disappeared for about a minute (ok the finish was further than I thought) and then I came into site and di the 2 finish drops and pulled a big skid in the car park. I made it, i did the Fort William World Cup track. It felt great.

Sorry about the video I had to film it from my phone as lost the file and it was only on my facebook.

Our local track Bickertrax summer nights 

Revolution bike park 1st trip - This was an eye opener at how bad i was at technical rooty steep tracks. 

Found a nice bmx / pump track on one of our camping weekends

Luca on his qaud 

Cornwall holiday 

And finally an end of summer edit from one of my fave trails steel city at Grenoside Sheffield.

Im sorry this post was mainly videos from 2016 but I had a bit of mind block from this year, not because anything major happened to cause mind block i just think it was a good year and i was happy with life so didnt have any memories that caused me to remember certain things, only good memories and some good videos. I am a bit gutted my fort bill video from 2016 is only on my facebook and i am unable to save it for YouTube as the original file has been deleted, what a year that was, so hot and busy but a great event. 

I felt like my riding had improved a lot this year and I spent a silly amount of money on bike bits and gear, the bug was kicking in full force, i am struggling to remember anything from this year. Why cant i remember much ? We had plenty of adventures ... here’s some pictures from some of them while i think more.

Aha ! Here was a good trip i took in 2016, went to Cornwall by myself as well for a long weekend (i am Cornish by the way i just live up North) and went for a pedal around the north coastal path, defo one for the list again this year. 

One from a weekend camping near Dalby ... 

Pics from BPW trips

Letting Luca loose in a boat trip .... after he had a blue ice pop 😆

And some random rides photos ...

And what is this one ... i guess i did have an injury in 2016. Can’t even remember what happened on this one haha...

And i guess thats that, i am sorry I didn’t have much to say and this has ended more of a trip down memory lane for myself, but next we have 2017 which is fresh in my mind. We may need a few posts on 2017, camper van builds, new bikes, new hobbies, lots of good times and fun.

See you in 2017 ! Well the blog anyway 😏