Wednesday 23 September 2015

Back down to earth with a bump!

The Giant Anthem 2008 

The Giant Anthem 2010
Returned home after a great weekend away mountain biking in Northern Ireland to discover some lowlife had broken into my garage and stolen the two bikes above! Hanging would be too good for these little scroats, not only did they remove the two bikes which were chained together with a heavy duty motor bike security chain but they damaged the garage door beyond repair!

The B&B where we stayed in Northern Ireland, we couldn't have asked for better

Only in Ireland would you get a sign like this!

Dylan recovering after the initial climb at Rostrevor and discovering that a night on the Guinness and a mile climb first thing the next morning are not compatible........but it was funny!

The view from kodak corner halfway up Rostrevor singletrack



The rest of the guys were doing the Black while I went round the Red again.

A great trip to Rostrevor Mountain Bike Centre in Northern Ireland, surely one of the best trails in Great Britain where the trail builder has managed to incorporate the trail into the landscape giving you the impression that you were riding a natural trail all of the time, in fact you finish almost as mentally tired as you do physically as you have to be on the ball the whole time. I'd recommend this trip to Rostrevor to anyone looking for a great ride!
I came home on the Monday to discover my garage had been broken into and my two old Giant Anthems had been stolen, obviously the thieves knew what was in the garage as they disregarded everything else, only good thing was thank god I had my new 29er with me when it happened!

Sunday 6 September 2015

An Indian summer? Here's hoping!

When was the last time the sun nearly dazzled us this year......

Brilliant riding conditions in the Pentland Hills today

Just look at that sky, not seen it that blue many times this year!

I'm not actually crouching to take on Usain Bolt in a sprint, I'm lining up a photo of West Kip in the distance

Just had to include a picture of Highland "Coos" we met today, what a pair of handlebars these horns would make....
 A 6.30 am start and the temperature was down to 3C, we were glad of the climb up Castlelaw to get the blood pumping round. A slightly different route today which proved to be very interesting in more ways than one. The new track I found through the week starts off really good but unfortunately today we ended up hike a biking about half a mile up a sheep track to the top of Allermuir! The descent from there made it well worthwhile in the end though (well nearly), Over 27 miles today with nearly 3000 feet of climbing and Clive ended up winning the "falling of contest" by 3 to 1!!