The Return of the Spinks.

Well....

After his accident in Spain Eric has been in forced rest mode.

That is until last weekend.

We dragged him out in the cold and rain.

Unfortunately the rain meant I had to keep the camera at home so no pics.

This week the sun came out and so did the camera (still bloody cold though).

There were some beautiful views with the sun streaming through the trees.

...and us streaming through the trees.

...and us streaming through the streams.

...and....... Ok. Enough of that.

Here are some pictures.

Look at that sky.

Yayyy.

This Video is available in full DVD quality at all good Delbert shops.

Starring The Herts Carnival.

See them make no attempt to ride on the first day.

(swimming pool was sooo much better)

See them arse around.

See them try and ride bikes.

See them crash.

See them cross-dressing......ehem...sad but true.

Today is the 150th Aniversary of the Gin and Tonic.

First invented in India in 1858.

Tonic was the drink they used to combat malaria.

(Hence Indian Tonic Water)

The quinine in it made it taste bitter so.........

They had the bright idea of adding Gin to off-set that bitterness.

And bloody good job they made of it too.

I guess they were ..... Very very drunk at the time.

And home again.

We are all cheesed off to be home.
Here are the pictures that are on Sierra Cycling's website.
http://www.sierracycling.com/imagegallery/2008-10-4/index.php
All that blue sky..................
Hmmmm...
Enjoy.

Injury of the week.

Eric turned an ankle and is sat out the rest of the week. Great colour eh?

Poor old fella.

It turned out that he has ligament damage (and very black toes).

The good news was that it was near the end of the week.

The day after this accident 6 of us went out on the wettest, windy and coldest ride I have ever had in Spain.

Mini gave up after 10 mins.

The rest of us pushed on for another hour and a half before calling it a day and ending up in a bar.

Several brandy coffees warmed us up.

We stood there with gallons of water pouring from our clothes onto the bar floor.

He he he he..... Had to be done.

It absolutely pi***d down for the rest of the day.

We had to go and eat and drink for the remainder.

What a hard life.

Group picture.

Time to pose after a big climb.

Just an excuse to put our lungs back into our chests.

This was our last ride before rest day.

Everyone was glad to get to this point and get a good 'ol dose of downhill.

I never booked rain!

The tuesday ride started like this. But by the time we got to the mountains the sun came out. Yay.

The girls

It's always good to see girls serious about their biking.

Look what we found.

Would you believe it?

Up in the hills while riding along we came across this Casa.

We just had to get a picture of Mini-Me with it.

SMALL world eh?

(or a big world if you´re Mini)

The riding starts.

Out on the trails at last.

A great day had by all.

We had a couple of crashes (Nicky and ..er.....Nicky).

No harm done though.

Ian and Johnny are the guides.

They seem good guys and happy to throw us down mountains.

It took a little while to get used to the hire bikes but after that it was business as usual.

We had a swim after the ride and then off to stuff our faces and have a beer or two.

...or three or four or five.

It´s a hard life.

Only us.

Here we are saturday afternoon. We are meant to be setting up bikes but we won't leave the pool.

Early start.

4 am and we start off with a beer and some food. Gotta be done.

SPAIN SPAIN SPAIN>>>>>>>>>

We are now all finished with work and getting into the holiday mode.
Don't tell anyone but I've just poured a G&T.
The burning question is whether to get a few hours sleep before setting off to the airport.
We have to be off at 02:45hrs.
Hmmmm......
What would you do?

Norton Green Mini Ride.

Another great day for a ride.
Weather was probably spot on for riding.
Bright and breezy. About 16deg and with the sun somewhere trying to break through.

A few visiting Carnival members joined the ride.
Christine and John turned out. That is the first time we have seen them for ages.
The big news is that they are to get married early next year,














Yayyyy... can I be a bridesmaid?

Mini's next door neighbour John joined in the fun.














Terry turned up with young Joe but minus Debbie.
She has damaged ribs after a crash on last weeks ride.
Get well soon Debs.

The ride was good and fast with a few downhill runs of loose boulders.
Only one crash.














Mini got himself stuck in a rut and off he came.

Young Joe did get it very sideways on one descent.
He hit a big rock and nearly laid it down in front of me.
Lucky for him he didn't go down.
I can only bunny hop about 2" off the ground so he'd be in trouble.

Later in the ride we bumped into Greenhouse Garry and Becky.
We seem to bump into Garry in the most obscure places.
This time he was behind a hedge in a field mending a puncture.
Last time it was at Chicksands.
The time before that in Afan.

Anyway...
A good time had by all.














Was great to see everyone laughing and joking.

It was our last ride before Spain so........
if your not in Spain with us....See you in a couple of weeks.

Ladies and Gentlmen.....The ABE Song.

Yo yo yo yo yo....

Nickey and Mark entertain us in Afan.

The Sunday ride before Spain.

This week we are going over to Mini-Me's for a pre-Spain ride over Stevenage.

Mini is going to put his slant on the Norton Green ride.

It's going to be fun and get the legs finely tuned for next week.

Here is Min.

An old Chicksands picture taken by Mickey "Monkey" Michaels.

DB

HERE IT IS AT LAST.....CHAMONIX 06 THE MOVIE

A once in a lifetime chance to view this classic video.

Enjoy.

DB

It's been a while....as Staind said.

Hello all.

We have been off line for a very long time but now we're BACK.

Time to get some pictures and stories about 2008 up and running....

What would you like to see?

We've been to Afan for a long weekend.

Log cabins and goats mostly.

A great weekend had by all.

I was in the support team because I had just had an op on my knee.

Loads of good riding and partying.

A birthday party and.....

A special ABE song.

In may we had snow....

And also went up to Cannock to ride with Eammon.

And that kinda brings us up to date......

Chris has deserted us for a couple of months in Australia

All the local trails are still holding up well.

Today's ride was dry and dusty.

James "Mickey" tells me that it was the last day of Summer so...

It would be rude not to finish the ride with a beer eh?

And so it goes.

See you on the trails next week.......and every week.

Happy New Year

Happy new year to you all.
2007 was a funny old year.
Some were recovering from injury while others were getting injured.
We made it to Chamonix and to Sierra Nevada in Spain during the year but didn't manage the usual amount of road trips that we have come to enjoy.
We ended the year with a couple of nice rides over the Christmas period.
Our Boxing Day ride was always going to be a short Play session.

The thought of the Mulled Wine and Cake waiting at Chris's house made sure of that.
A slippy slidey ride around Sherrards Wood made us all puff like old fellas.
No surprise there then.
We stopped off to play on a couple of stunts.
Chris managed to damage his thumb while riding over Big Daddy.
Oops. We rushed to the crash site to get a better look and show how concerned we were.

Tom was seen flying over the bars while jumping in the doughnut.
I fell off a couple of times and then hit a tree while showing people how easy it was to ride down the side of some steps.
Only damage there was to my pride and the tree lights I had mounted to the handlebars.
A lovely morning it was too.
The sun streaming through the trees.
James manned the camera and looked all professional as he crouched down and tilted the camera this way and that.
He even let Gill take one picture with it.
She brought us back to the real world by shouting.....
"Which button do I press?".
Over to Chris's then for some Mulled wine and Cake.
Mmmmmmm...
Smashing. We finished the ride quite early so many thanks to Tina for getting out the shower to prepare the wine.
There will be pictures to post here soon.
(No. Not the shower ones)
(Note to self for 2008. Realise your opportunities and take them)
:o)
DB