Downhill Rock and Roll.

So the Fort William round of the UCI Downhill World Cup swung into action last week and I went along to Qualifying on Saturday to check it out. The Nevis Range at Fort William is a brilliant venue with Gondelas to take you directly to the top of the course and loads of space at the bottom for a great village of traders, teams and stalls.

What's really fantastic about the World Cup events is the incredible amount of access you get to the best riders in the world. Want to see Rachel Atherton fine tuning her brakes with her mechanic before a run? There she is... Want to chat with Gee about how his qualifying went? He's all ears... Want to watch Peaty sessioning a couple of big drops before qualifying? He's right over there! Greg Minnar was in the queue for the gondela in front of me... how awesome is that?

I've got some more photos to put up soon and a report on the choice looking new kit from Crank Bros that you might have seen in the press recently, in the meantime here's a little video I made of the Downhill qualifying...  What a day.

click here to go to MPORA for the video

Chillin' out at the cinema with Danny Mac...

Great night out at the cinema on Tuesday with Eden Court in Inverness showing a double-bill of mountain bike films. First up was Follow Me from Anthill Films. A fantastic new film in full HD with some brilliant sequences, it follows a bunch of bikers including Thomas Vanderham, Sam Hill, Gee Atherton and the ever hilarious Cam McCaul as they ripped it up in all kinds of different locations around the world from Mount Washington to The Shore, Whistler to Sun Peaks. The action is superb and the riders are all on top form as they fly through the stunning locations. The second film was a favourite of mine, Seasons from The Collective (who've since become Anthill). The film follows a bunch of riders including Steve Peat on great form and my own fave rider Darren Berrecloth. As the title suggests it follows the riders through winter training, spring, summer racing and competing and into the autumn when they all get together for a stunning ride at Whistler. It has some great sections and although the lack of HD shows when viewed directly after Follow Me, I still love the simplicity of the approach and the sense of really getting to know the riders as they move through the year. I've loved this film since its original release and it was amazing to see it on the big screen. I still think the last section of Seasons defines everything that I think is fantastic about getting out on a bike and hitting the trails with friends.

Watch a bit of the final section of Seasons by clicking the link HERE.

The final bonkers thing about the evening was that as soon as I walked into the bar at Eden Court and sat down I noticed a guy sitting talking bikes with a bunch of his friends and you know when you get that feeling that you know someone but you can't quite... It took me a second to realise that it was none other that Danny Macaskill, bike trickster extraordinaire. So I figured no one would believe me and I plucked up the courage to mosey on over and ask him for a picture for my blog. Despite the fact that I was rather annoyingly interrupting his evening, he very politely obliged, and here it is. What a nice guy! Thanks Danny.

So a great night, and I hope that more mountain bike film makers will get the opportunity to bring films into our cinemas. Seeing the films in this way gives such an amazing perspective on them, and seeing them in a cinema with 250 other mountain bikers just made it so much better. Films like Follow Me and Seasons and others like Roam, Virtuous and Home are so inspiring, I'm sure we were all itching to get out and ride as soon as we got out of the place.

Whilst I'm talking films, at the moment I'm waiting with baited breath for the release of Life Cycles from Stance Films, created by Photographer Derek Frankowski and film maker Ryan Gibb, the film looks like it's going to be truly amazing, Berrecloth and McCaul both feature along with a whole host of other amazing riders and the set up of the film looks outstanding. Check out this Cam McCaul flip whip and when you've finished wondering how the hell he got up there and where he's going to land it, imagine it on film, in full HD... CAN'T. WAIT.

             

Talking of inspiration, I'm off to the World Cup Downhill at Fort William tomorrow, so I should get to see a whole bunch of the riders from these films doing what they do best in real life. How's that for a fun day out?

Strathpuffer comin' at ya...

So I've just gone and signed up for the Strathpuffer Lite. This is a 12 hour Endurance event held in Contin Woods near the spa town of Strathpeffer. The event is on June 26th/27th 2010 and it starts at 8.00pm and runs through until 8.00am the good thing being that at this time of year, this far north we'll probably only get 2-3 hours of full darkness so the lights won't have to be on for too long!

The only really scary thing is that I've entered it SOLO! This will be the first time I've entered an event like this on my own and I'm already starting to get butterflies about the whole thing. I think I'm going to need to seriously get off my backside and train for this one. 12 hours of riding seems fairly feasible and I suppose I can take as many breaks as I need. I haven't ridden at Contin before and I plan on getting over there in the next week or so for a good ride round and a look at the course.

 

North Sea to the Atlantic - Coast to Coast trip

The other nice little adventure I've had recently, has been the Coast to Coast trip from Ardgay on the East Coast of Scotland to Ullapool on the West Coast. With 30 students and 6 other members of staff from the school where I work, we took a fantastic route almost totally off road and right up through the hills. 


The first day saw us ride up to Croik Church where the church window bears the names of some of the 92 highlanders (18 families) who sheltered here after being driven out of Glen Calvie in the clearances of 1845. The church was built in 1827 to a design by Thomas Telford. After Croik the trail becomes much more mountainous and proved a challenge to some of the youngsters but we were all impressed with the way that every one of them dug in and found the spirit to keep going. 


We then spent the night at a very well appointed Bothy, much to the surprise of the walker who'd just set himself up for a quiet night in front of the fire!


A journey like this really reminds you of the remoteness of the wilderness up her in the North of Scotland and in these days of trail centres riding manicured singletrack and perfectly placed rock gardens it was excellent to really remind myself what mountain biking is all about, namely, riding through great big mountains on a bike that's tough enough to take whatever you can throw at it.

Unfortunately not all of our students bikes were quite tough enough and we did have quite a number of inevitable technical problems from a snapped off rear derailleur (quick conversion to singlespeed) to a front wheel that totally lost one of its locking nuts (fixed on with a piece of kevlar twine!). Unbelievably there were no punctures on any of the bikes throughout the whole journey.  

On the second day it was my turn to have technical difficulties as my bike suddenly decided not to change gear. First up I only had the middle ring and three cogs and then suddenly it dropped down into the granny ring of its own accord and wouldn't budge. The slightest downhill slope suddenly became something of a chore! In the end I decided to sit at the back of the group with the slower students just spinning away in the much too easy gears that I had available.


Really this was one of the most enjoyable times I've had in all the years I've been riding mountain bikes. It's not that often that you get the chance to just go out and ride your bike all day, and not just round some loop, graded red or black. This was real mountain biking with a real aim and a purpose. Somehow that seemed to make it much more exciting and special.

Trail Cycle Leader... that's me!

                                 View from the window...

A couple of weeks ago I had a fantastic time on the Trail Cycle Leader Course (TCL) at Glenmore Lodge down in Aviemore. The two day course led by George McEwan (who was a great teacher) leads to an assessment day that will see me qualified to guide groups of mountain bikers on terrain that is rideable over 90-95% of the total length' in daylight conditions.

                 Our Tutor George with fellow course member Darren


Following this qualification there is a second more complex course that results in the qualification of Mountain Bike Leader (MBL). The course was well structured and well presented, with a good mix of classroom activities and practical riding. Glenmore Lodge is a fantastic facility based at the foot of Cairngorm with some great little trails in its grounds (including some fun north shore) and, of course, hundreds of miles of great mountain trails right on the doorstep. 

                                  Got to practice those track stands....

                                           Nice room!


If you ever get the opportunity to take any of the courses at Glenmore Lodge, I would highly recommend the place. The rooms are excellent (probably the best shower I've ever had in my life), the food is very good indeed and the bar serves fantastic Cairngorm Brewery Ale on tap... What more could you want after a full day in the saddle?

I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone at Glenmore Lodge and also thanks to the Highland Council Outdoor Activities department who fully funded the course for me. I even loved being woken up by ducks at 6.00am ready to go out riding... I can't wait to go back! 

                                                           Noisy Duck!

Such Fun.

Oh I'm just having so much fun at the moment. The weather's been fine and I've been able to get out and ride almost every day. Finding new routes and some lovely technical little trails right on my doorstep has been the best thing about the past week, so I thought I'd include a little vid of the latest fun spots around here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O55zlsX8G4A
I'm getting really excited about going to Glenmore Lodge in just over a week's time to take my Trail Cycle Leader course and I hope to get some really good riding in around Aviemore while I'm over there as well. I'll be writing more about all that after the event. Then, in two weeks time I'm taking a group of 30 teenagers coast to coast from Ardgay to Ullapool which is going top be really fun trip. All in all I'm just having so many opportunities to do really good riding at the moment I've gotta consider myself very lucky indeed.

USE Atom Carbon Riser bar

I've got a pair of these bars for my singlespeed and having had them on the bike for a little while now I guess it's about time for a review...

I've always liked Ultimate Sports Engineering products and I got these bars as a little treat for myself when I finished the conversion of my hardtail over to singlespeed. 

The bars feel really light, at 170g. I know that there are lighter bars out there but I'm not the lightest guy and these feel super strong as well. They are full carbon construction, not bonded, but they do have alloy end pieces and brake area insets to help prevent crushing which is good as I feel happy using lock-on grips with them knowing that I'm not in danger of collapsing the weave.

They're not super wide at 660mm but they're a nice width for me and on a short stem (I've got a 60mm on at the moment) they track really well.

What's great is the way that they seem to soak up vibrations, mine are the 25.4 version and they seem to have this lovely springy feel and yet still feel stiff and precise. I've recently put 1.5 slicks on the bike as I'm using it for commuting duties and even on the road, the vibrations are damped by the carbon leaving me with tingle fee hands.

I guess I might have to consider getting a USE Sumo Carbon seatpost now, just to complete the set...

  

Spring is in the Air...

Sitting here and looking out of the window at the clear blue sky, all I can think about is getting out of work and getting out on the bike. Trails are starting to dry out and we've been able to get out until late every night this week, finding loads of new routes and clearing away some of the winter debris ready for a summer of fantastic rides.

Having planned to do all three of the Ten Under series as well as the Tour de Ben Nevis and Relentless, I've made now made a big decision not to race this year. The costs of racing just seem so high so I'm aiming to spend that time and money looking for some epic rides and getting out into the real wilderness as much as possible. Cape Wrath looks like an exciting possibility and I'd like to get the bike over to Skye for some big mountain riding.

On thing I am going to have to spend some money on is the World Cup at Fort William in June. I hope to get there for a couple of days and I'll try to get some video of Steve Peat, Sam Hill, Greg Minaar, Tracy Moseley and friends letting gravity do it's thing and I think Brian Lopes and Jared Graves will be riding in the 4X so right now I'm getting pretty stoked at the prospect of an awesome weekend. Let's hope that the warm weather is here in force by then and that we get glorious sunshine for a fantastic summer of riding.

No Fuss Events: Relentless 24: 2009

What's it like to take part in a 24 hour Enduro?

So I've finally got round to editing the footage we took at Relentless 24 last year... only six months on... We had such a good time at the event and I thought I might as well post the finished video on here. Relentless 24 is run by No Fuss Events and takes place in October at the Nevis Range track at Fort William. This is the home of the infamous black downhill course (with gondola access), the World Cup XC course and numerous other brilliant trails made up of great technical climbs, fantastic single-track and tons of linking fire roads. The Relentless takes place partly on the World Cup course, partly on the Witches Trail and also on other bits and bobs linking it all together.

I raced as one half of a pair, you can choose from solo, pairs or quads in a team and one member of the team can be on course at any one time, so you just keep one person on the track for as much of the 24 hours of the race as you possibly can... Sadly I didn't have the technology to video whilst riding at that time so there's no footage of the track itself, which was pretty technical and after a while very muddy and very slippery.

This is definitely an event we'll be doing again, although possibly as a team of four. In a pair, you really don't get as much time between laps as you might wish you could have whereas in a four you'd get a few hours between each 10 mile lap...

I'll be posting about the races I'm considering taking part in during 2010 at a later date, but for now, here's Relentless 24 2009.

click here to go to the video...

Just Get Out There...

I've been really enjoying my local trails lately. It's easier for me to do that than it might be for some others, living as I do in the Highlands, but even so, I've been enjoying riding locally more than I ever have before.
It's easy to get into a rut on your local trails, riding the same old routes. You get to the stage where you can ride around with your eyes shut... that log there, that stream, that hill, oh look, I'm home.
Lately though, I've become an explorer. To get the most from the trails closest to you you have to be adventerous.
We spend so much time and money traveling around the country in search of great riding. Glentress, Golspie, Fort William... A little bit of thought can bring you great rides like these so much closer to home.
I've recently found some amazing trails in my local woods that have been made by the logging machines. The chaotic trail left by these machines is as technical as half the stuff you find at a distant trail centre, it goes on for miles and it's right on the door step. Best of all, if I get bored of any one of these tracks there's always another just around the bend.
And why stick to the trails anyway? If SnowBoarders have the most fun going off piste why can't we? try going off the trail and down through the trees. As long as you have the right equipment, with a bit of care for yourself and the environment you can have a total blast. Isn't that what freeride is all about?

Riding to Work Could Damage Your Health

Here's a link to the STV news report on the train crash... That's me with the bike pack and the muddy face!

So I've been riding down to the station these past few weeks, getting the train into Inverness then riding out to where I work. I use my Specialized Hardrock singlespeed conversion for the journey (it's mostly road riding) and I love it, it means I get to ride so much more than I would usually in the winter and it helps me to make sure my fitness is there for racing when the sun comes out.

It's been difficult for the past couple of weeks riding on 4 inches of ice on the cycle paths but I figure if I can do it now it's only going to get easier as the days get longer and the air temperature begins to climb...

So the riding is wonderful, and actually getting the train is nicer than driving for 2 hours a day (although I have to get up at 5.50am to get to the station on time!). The only issue has been getting home... last week the train was totally cancelled on one occasion and then on Friday night... WE CRASHED!!!!

That's correct, my efforts to spend more time on my bike have resulted in my being in a train crash. The train derailed outside Dingwall station on Friday night and we were suddenly surrounded by dozens of Fire crew, Police and Ambulance crew. It was all pretty exciting, starting with a massive bang, followed by the train snaking along the gravel, clearly no longer attached to the rails...  The only nervous moment came when we all felt that the train was beginning to tip onto its side, but as we came to a halt and realised that we were still upright everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The whole thing was actually a pretty exciting experience, nearly as much adrenalin as riding downhill at Golspie.

Well it hasn't put me off. The trains were cancelled for a couple of days whilst they sorted the tracks and got the train cleared, but it's all fixed now.

The best thing about it is that when I got the train this morning it was strangely quiet and there were lots of empty seats to choose from...

Garmin over all excited...

I've been trying out my new Garmin Edge 205 over the past week or so and I'm pleased with it so far. I need to get to grips with the finer features of the device but so far it logs onto the satellites quickly and seems accurate in use. It's great to have a computer on the bike that doesn't need a sensor on the forks or spokes, and therefore has no complicated setup or installation. It really is a case of just fit and go.

The only issue with this is that it doesn't know whether the wheels are moving or not, I got on the train yesterday and glanced down to see the speed registering 73 mph and the calories at 2346...

The Edge 205 has lots of interesting functions for me to get excited about, including the ability to race yourself over a set course. I'll be posting a full review of the Garmin Edge 205 as soon as I get used to using it.

Snow Falls...

Ah, the last day of freedom before returning to work. If work opens tomorrow that is, latest news is that the car park and pavements around the buildings may be too icy to allow access... we can but hope. All the snow is still here, although we've had no new falls up here for several days. The temperature is so low and the ground is so cold now that nothing is melting. Altnaharra, just to the north of us has recorded an incredible low temperature of -22.3C and the temperature here at night is generally between -7C and -10C. Still, it means more fun snow riding for us. I'm posting a wee video of my friend and I out on our local hill. It's not a video of us riding as such... more a video of us falling. We were wondering how soft the snow would be if we fell into it in a crash, so we decided to throw ourselves into a few drifts to find out. I'm planning on riding to the station tomorrow to get the train to Inverness, then riding out to where I work. Wish me luck...

NHS - Join the Wall of Life

Testing the Fenix L2D

I've had two of these on my bike now throughout the whole of this winter. They're great for night rides and even enduro racing. They got me through 'Relentless 24' this year and I've been impressed with their simplicity. They're really well made, fully waterproof and pretty cool looking on the bars.
The great thing about them is that they take 2 AA batteries, so on night rides I can always have a couple of spare batteries in my pack and I know I'll never be left in the dark miles from home. These lights use the super bright Cree Q5 premium LED which really does fire out trail light. There are several mode choices - 12 lumens gives 12 hours of light and 53 lumens gives a published 10.5 hours. Apart from when I'm riding home along roads and trying hard not to dazzle car drivers, I generally only ever use them on full power, giving out about 100 lumens of light, so 200 for the two lights.
They last a good while on full, although probably not the full 4 hours as proposed on the website, they do go for at least 2-3 hours at a time. There's also a 'turbo' mode that blasts out 180 lumens and really lights up the route, good for really technical trails, but the turbo does really hammer the batteries.
I use 'lockblock' mounts to put them on the bars and they're really stable, keeping things looking neat and tidy.
The lights cost around £40 each, so at £80 for the two, they really are much more reasonable than many of the big name 'trail lights' around, and in many ways, more versatile as well.
I'm thinking I'll probably get a third one to mount on my helmet, probably the Fenix L1D. it's 1/2 the size, takes only one AA battery but still gives out 90 lumens on full power! I know there are cheaper, similar lights on Deal Extreme but with the Fenix torches you know what you're getting and you know that the quality is guaranteed.

Out in the Snow

Went up the local trails in deep snow. When I say deep I really mean it, check out the pictures, it was over my knees in places!

The fresh snow was supersoft and we found it really hard to get traction a lot of the time. The real difficulty was just getting going, once we were on the move we could keep it up until we hit a soft patch and then to rear wheel just dug in...

Coming down was the most fun as riding up was pretty hard. We felt like big bike freeriders having to push our bikes up slopes just to get the ride down. The great thing was that the falls didn't hurt, as we just crashed out into big drifts.

In the end we decided to see how far we could throw ourselves in the air and land without pain and spent a happy half our off our bikes just throwing ourselves into deep drifts for a while.

I have been using some of the new kit I got over the Christmas period and I'll post some mini reviews of the gear in the next wee while when I've given it enough time to work or break.

The snow up here gets deeper and deeper. I know the rest of the country seems to be catching up a little but we've had snow since the 19th December with no thaw. Each time it snows it just builds and builds. It's actually getting a bit boring now as it's making it hard to get out and really ride trails. We still give it a go though and we're getting more and more used to riding in snow now...

Jack Rides Bikes

I ride bikes. I love riding bikes. I'm lucky enough to live in the far North of Scotland with some of the best riding the nation has to offer right on my doorstep and even more great rides just down the road. I live just minutes from some amazing trail centres, like the Highland Wildcat at Golspie and the Balblair Black route and I can chuck my bikes on the back of the car and be at Fort William in an hour or so. I'm a lucky, lucky mountain biker.

So this is my mountain blog. I'll be trying to log most of my riding, reviewing all the new bits of kit I get my mits on, posting pics and videos of the amazing riding up here and doing my best to help show the sheer wonderfulness of the place I live and how awesome it is to get out and ride.

Let's do it.