The Cast is off..

It's time to rejoice.
Alex's leg is out of plaster.
It's been a long 7-8 weeks but she can finally get on that road to recovery.
Many thanks to all the well wishers and to all the people who have offered help and DVD's over the last couple of months.
Here is a picture of a very rare creatures leg.
All puny and hairy.
What can it be?

A practice road ride.

This Sunday we had a nice little ride to get into the groove ready for the London to Brighton.
We set off for an hour and a half road ride.
Road ride!?
Yep..
It was a lovely day for once so the ride to the transport cafe was ok if you like roads.
Actually it wasn't bad at all.
We kept to country lanes so were only threatened with "death by Ford Escort" a couple of times.
Lunch was great.
A healthy fry-up.
Hmmmm........
Most of us rode home off road which was more my cup of tea.
Shame that it had rained solid for about 5 years beforehand and that most of the trails were boggy swamps.
It made a three hour ride into a four hour ride.
(or was that me who slowed up things by having 2 punctures and a broken spoke?)
All was made better after the ride by a jolly good BBQ and plenty to drink.
Many thanks to Haydn for planning the route.
A nice touch was having the ride pass the same church twice to give us different views of it.
:O)
And a big thank you to Steve and Tracy for the BBQ afterwards.

Son of ladder.

A few weeks ago we were over Chicksands playing on all the stunts there.
Gill and Halford James both dropped off Son of Ladder for the first time.
This picture was grabbed from the video we were shooting.

Up-date on Wobbly Knee.

Just passing by Wobbly Knee on Sunday.
Took the opportunity to ride it a couple of times (as you do).
Eric has been gagging to do the drop so we waited as he sized it up a couple of times.
And a few more times.
He was making US nervous by stopping right on the lip of the drop!
Well he made it over in the end and seemed to enjoy it.
Cos he went back up for another go.
:O)
Well done Eric.

Wobbly Knee Drop.

John Stalker has asked for a picture of Wobbly Knee drop.
So here it is.
Slap bang in the middle of the Mardley Bowl.
It's a nice little step-down.
Thanks to James for the picture

May 7th Local riding.

This Sunday we had a local ride.
Left Alex at home (see below).
Plan was to have a little peep at a drop or two that we have been eyeing up for ages.
On arrival the daring Mr. Price was up for it so pads on and....
Off he went..
He made it look easy.
So. It would be rude not to follow him wouldn't it?
Off I went.
Yep. Easy.
Chris and I watched from the bottom of the drop as Nicky aproached the lip.
And off he went too...........(didn't see that one coming!)
That made us laugh.
Then Mark decided it had to be done.
Gill wasn't to be out done either.
We all felt happy with our work there.
A cirtain splinter group has been heard to say that drop is called Gay drop because it's so small.
So. Chris, Gill, Mark, Nicky.........."you gayers!"

It is called Wobbly Knee Drop really.
:O)
DB

Afan..it was a good weekend....it was a bad weekend.

Well.....
Where to start??
We went to Afan for a long weekend with all our riding buddies.
Staying at the lovely Gelli Farm we planned to ride every day and party every night.
We arived at the farm Friday morning.
Stashed all the luggage and went for a ride.
Great weather. Rather warm and dry.
Back in the evening the rest of the Carnival arived.
Saturday was just as nice.
Rode in the morning and again in the afternoon.
Terry did the traditional BBQ in the evening and we partied on down.
Unfortunately, Terry and son Mark were very ill in the night.
(finger points to Terry's cooking)
Just one of those things really because we were all eating the same food.
Sunday was a bit of a disaster.
I sat on my bike to set off on the next ride and the front hub fell apart.
As I was trying to sort out a wheel from the shop the call went out that Alex had fallen off her bike.
As it turned out after spending the day at A&E she had fractured a bone in her knee and done ligament damage.
We spent the last day at the farm sitting with her and her full leg cast watching DVD's.
We all had a great weekend as usual even if it was a little strange at times.
Next year we plan to go back to CYB and sampple the delights of the Dolgelli (SP) bunk house.

I got my wish!

I did say "I want my big bike back."
And back I got it.
And big it is.
Bloody big!
With Borrowed All Mountain SL forks bolted on.
These are set to 150mm so it looks like a Chopper bike and feels like a motorcycle scrambler.
Just sitting on it makes you want to do all those funny motor noises.
"Barrrrrrgghhhhh .. oooooommmmmm..pahhhhhg.."
(wild revving noise).
It's making me smile just thinking about riding it up a mountain.
Afan tomorrow.........for 4 days riding (and eating and drinking).
Wahooooooo...
See some of you there.
See you others whan we get back.
Have a good weekend.
DB

"Just another manic Sunday........."

Well Sunday came and I had no XC bike to ride.
Up in the attic I went....you never know what you can find up there eh?
Down-stairs I came with my little play bike.
14" frame, Magura hydraulic rim brakes that rub all the time and a seatpost just about long enough for a Dwarf with short legs.
That'll do nicely!
Did I meantion it rained?
I did kind of enjoy the ride.
11 of us turned out.
We did about 4 hours of XC riding.
The ups were painful.
The downs were good fun on the little bike.
The flat bits were ok ish.
I managed to clear the scary log that marks the start of the bridalway just after the woodyard.
Been looking at that one for a year or so.
It has nasty metal spikes sticking up that hold it in place.
They have kept me off of it until this week.
That is the good thing about riding little bike. It's always up to the job if there's a stunt to pull.
Nice to have Peter join us for a Sunday ride. I guess riding planks in the wet isn't the most enjoyable thing to do.
Did I meantion it was raining?
I DID enjoy the ride but felt exhausted and a bit ill in the evening.
I want my BIG bike back NOW!
Roll on Friday.
Afan for four days....
Weh hay..........
DB

Easter Carnival

We had a couple of great rides over Easter.
Friday we rode local and Showed the Lovely Ed our favourite play areas.
There was some good riding going on.
James (Mickey) cleaned the right left corner section on the Boardwalk.
He's gonna bragg about that for a while.
Most of the others (including me) didn't make it.
The ride was finished off with a pint of beer and some chips at the golf course.
And the sun shined. :O)
Sunday we went to Chicksands to get our fix of silly stuff.
The sun came out again.
Everyone seemed to be trying something new.
Hats off to James (Mickey) who risked life and limb on the North Shore at the top of the hill.
Well done to James (Halford) and Gill who overcame the scary monsters to do the Berm drop.
They then got all cocky and both dropped Son of Ladder straight after.
It was scary to be watching but they did it safely and with style.
I daren't think what is next!!!
Another great day out.

Local Sunday ride

It's the charm of mountain biking. Every ride you find new stuff to ride.
Even out on our local trails (which we know inside out) we find new fiddly bits to fall off.....of.
While we arsed about on Herts only switchback Mickey was discovering a new dropdown for us to play on.
We got stuck in straight away.
10 minutes later we had to drag the boys away from having "one last go".

We had quite a few crashes during the morning.
No lasting damage. Only bruised ego's.

The ride finished with us sessioning a section of three log piles.
The last of these had a difficult lefthand turn onto it which saw more that one comedy dismount.

It was hard work riding home against a blustery wind but we took home with us a few stories that can be exagerated for re-telling later.

As usual. More pictures on my Fotopic website. Just click from across there (points to the right).
It's what you right hand is for!

Listen to the band.

Last night we went to "Club 85" for some gigging sounds dudes.
On, for one night only, was the Carnival's own Nicky Price who is the front man of the band Overdose.
They took the place by storm.
Best band of the night by a long way.
Highlight of the set was a rocking version of their classic "My Dreams"
The crowd was jumping, the place was rocking and we were rolling.
We'd had a few beers!

OVERDOSE

"MY DREAMS"

A local ride for local people.

This Sunday we started out on a nice sunny local XC ride.
How nice is it to ride in the sunshine and not to be cluttered with loads of layers of clothing?
We managed to do a few stunts on the way over to Hertford.
Then it was time to introduce Dyson's Drop to the uninitiated.
This is a nasty little steep bumpy drop into a dog-leg right turn before continuing down to a chalky off camber finish.
If you miss the dog-leg you hit the tree that is placed there to "Rip yer spine out!".
Well the first-timers did the drop with ease.
Stevo did it in two bite sized chunks (but it still counts).
Nicky and Debbie rode it as if they had done it for years.
I was hoping for a bit more drama from them all because, a couple of years back, this drop was, for me, about as scary as it gets.
Well done Stevo, Nicky and Debbie.
Then we went off to Hartum for a couple of steep drops.
I hear one of the lads fell off there but didn't see any evidence of that.
I was too busy exploring the slope for new drops.
I found a couple but I'd have to Kill Yer if I told you about them.
On the way home we stopped and sessioned some off camber up-slopes with drops and trees to get over/around at the top if you survived the full out blast up the slope.
Comedy moments from both Eric and James (Halford) as they missed their lines completely and just hit an unsuspecting tree.
We were all relieved that no damage was done.......(to the tree).
Big up's to all who attempted them.
We finished off with some drops off the aerodrome concrete plinth.
Not so much a XC ride as an unplanned tour around all our favourite play and stunt areas.
Roll on next ride.
:O)

Suprise visit to Chicksands

Due to a severe weather warning Sunday morning we decided to change riding venues from the Peaks to Chicksands.
The place was deserted and so we took advantage of that to do as many stupid stunts as we could.
There were two stars of the day.
No.1 was Gill who rode more North Shore than ever before.
She cleared all but the final see-saw on the section on top of the hill.
She only missed that because she was so suprised to survive the final skinny section.



No. 2 Was Nicky who after several attempts cleaned that same section and then kept coming back for more.





He had earned his luck earlier on in the day.


Unlike me who rode the log like a seasoned pro every time.
Well........
Not every time.



Great fun had by all though.

At last. Some lovely Sunshine.

This Sunday we had a great local ride.
The sun came out and you could almost believe it was summer.
The morning ground frost gave us loads of grip and no mud.
It was all so nice we decided to take a camera with us.
We did loads of stunts to pretend we were back in Chamonix again.
A few drop-off's, rooty drop-ins and Hertfordshire's only switchback.
Later in the day the sun thawed the ground enough for us to start slipping and sliding all over the place.
Oh how we laughed.
Gill and I didn't want to come back home but after 5 hours I guess we had to.
We have to remember that some of the others have a life after MTBing!

Gill going off Letty Green platform.
We spent 10 mins here going off various parts of the platform.











Debbie crossing a stream in Wormley Woods.

Return to Cannock.

The Carnival returned to Cannock on Sunday.
Forecast was for a mild and Sunny day.
That ensured that we had -50 deg. and rain.














It wasn't really THAT bad.
We all had a great time playing in the midlands mud and met the two newest members of the Virtual Carnival.
Eamonn's two lads James and Tom.














He told me they have only been riding a short while but they both went like seasoned pro's.
There was a lot of good singletrack sections to get us all grinning.
Loads of slippery downhill to make us either laugh or fall off (or both).
And a few jumpy bits where some of us nearly left the ground.
Most of us were happy to take easy falls and slide along the ground.
Not Mr. Chicken!
He had to look for the nasiest place to crash.
Once he had perfected his style he took a run-up and showed us how to stack it BIG stylee.
Respect.














After that it was time for food.
We walked all our mud through a lovely clean visitor center and sat down to re-fuel.
Always looks good when the bikes are placed in a line.















Many thanks to Eamonn for the guiding.
Here's to next time.

More pictures are on Fotopic website.
Go to your right and click on ...er......Fotopic.
Cheers.

A Visit to Cwmcarn South Wales.

The Carnival Upped sticks and rolled into Cwmcarn on Sunday.
It was a great day out.
We met up with a couple of mates from Chamonix. Ed and Chris.
Ed has a brand new bike after breaking his last one at Chicksands.
A lovely Red Cotic Soul. Very nice.
Chris still has the same old Specialized in Stealth Black.
Lap one of Cwmcarn reminded us how much we love/hate the first section of technical climbing.
Casualties on the first lap were:
Debbie. Broken freewheel 5 minutes into the ride.
Terry. An off and a bit of a roll around the floor.
Cham Chris. Had a slide off into a bank in one of the wooded sections.
All great fun. No broken bones and everyone was smiling after the last downhill section onto the carpark.
We were all thinking we could have done that FASTER!
Lunch was a nice fry-up (it's gotta be done).
Then lap two.
More of the same fun and the sun came out. :O)
Casualties on the second lap were:
Mini Me. Cut his finger while demonstrating his trials skills. (he didn't need airlifting from the mountain)
Alex. A tricky root gap. She spun off and fell down the hill a bit.
I laughed at her.
Me. I did exactly the same trick and fell off trail side and rolled around a bit.
As we thought, we went faster on the downhill sections this time.
The last hoon down to the carpark saw the Carnival out of control.
Nicky managed to stack it half way down. He got dusted down by dad and was off again in seconds.
Top Day. Top Biking Buddies. Top That!
All pictures remained inside the camera because it gave up working. Doh!

Halford James Is not a Jey XC rider

Halford has objected to being portrayed as a Jey rider who can't ride technical stuff.
He has actually done some great stunts on his bike.
Here he is riding down a quarry in the North Downs.




Mind you.
He did have to clean the poo out of his shorts after.

January 2006 at Chicksands

We have had a bit of fun recently at Chicksands.
It was good to see Chris and Alex sail over the scary Log Drop.
Both Gill and Nicky dropped off the Rooty Drop for the first time.

Trick of the day must go to Mini who rode backwards up the rooty drop. I helped by pushing him.

More Carnival Members

We have loads of Carnival rider that can't make it out with us every week.
The usual excuse is either "the wife won't let me come out" or "can't be arsed".


This is John (Stalker) Moore.
He started using the first excuse but swiftly moved on to the second.