A little bit broken around the edges

Posted on 13th November 2010 in I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike, Natural Trails, Ride Reviews

Well, I am. Not totally, but it’s been a difficult week. Medical issues, after 2.5 years of dithering are accelerating at a pace I am slightly uncomfortable with as some stark decisions suddenly need to be made in timeframes I am not sure of. Or rather, I am sure, but suddenly and surprisingly to me, I am also massively resentful of having to make the decisions in the first place.

It could be worse, it could be a decision neccesitated by cancer. A horrible sentence to write but one that both a consultant and the not mother-in-law have both said to me in the past week. Harsh, yes, but also true. It could be worse. But as my lovely friend Caroline points out, whether you wanted something or not, you are, at the very least, permitted to grieve a little for the option being removed entirely from you through no damn fault of your own.

Work is also a mess. A great big fat mess. £48 million in savings before April next year. I don’t currently know if I will have a job past Feb next year. It’s hard, but it also might be the rocket I needed. I do know it’s made me respect some people less, and respect other people more as I see the way some people deal with it, and the obvious toll it takes on those you’d assume it would not.

So where does biking come into this?

It saves my soul. Dramatic, but it’s been such a hard week. Tears. Tantrums. Frustration. Anger. Disbelief. I don’t cry easily, I don’t cry often, I’ve cried in the loos, at my desk, nearly in front of the entire Department this week. I’m the kind of person who has to watch soppy films deliberately in order to make myself cry. I’m just not your average girly girl. So, it’s not been easy to suddenly discover I have emotions and just like everyone else.

So, on realising the other half might need his lie in, I got my biking kit on, made a passing observation that my jersey wasn’t any tighter than the last time I wore it which was a small victory, and off up the hill I went. We live at 190 metres. I hit 290 metres in 0.75 miles. In fact, I suppose this blog is becoming a tale of very many hills, but I struggle on the uphills so very badly that it’s almost inevitable.

Except, do you know, today wasn’t so bad. Not so bad that someone commented as I rode by the local landrover/farm vehicle dealership near the top that I was proper going for it. Well, they were the same people who at the beginning of the summer were laughing at the fat bird on the Marin (they even knew it was a Marin so I’m guessing their bikers too) so, despite the fact it should mean nothing, it actually meant something. I smiled.

I’m getting the hang of gearing too. I’ve been reading a lot of Tour de France books and a lot about the smoothness of pedalling. Mine has always been about as inelegant as my climbing – clunky, off rythmn, wrong gear. Something’s changed, because it almost felt like floating up the hill, though going up on tarmac is always easier. But that fitness I didn’t have at the beginning of the summer, it’s still not perfect, it’s still not wonderful, but it’s there, because I stopped twice, very briefly, and I got to the top. Something that hitherto, I’ve not managed. Without hitting the very bottom gear. In wind and rain showers. Small victories, my friends, small victories, but important ones, nevertheless.

So at the top I went investigating off down a road/track marked Golf Club. Tarmac at first, staring off into the depths of the Bowlands in the distance, admiring the curve and angle of Pendle. Catching my breath. Onto track and that unique sand/grit/mud. Pothole dodging until I remembered it wasn’t the point, and so abandoned the dodging, instead flying. Following the little blue bridleway arrows which weren’t supposed to be there, the map didn’t say they were, across cattle grids, off into the unknown. Finally finding the singletrack, not throttling too hard because I was alone, but still laying off the brakes, still letting go a little. Come to a gate, see Rising Bridge, decide not to drop down today. Turn around, company of a scary looking dog, leave him behind looking slightly confused. Changing up gears as I go up the hill and wondering what’s happened, what’s changed, how can this be? This is not the way it goes.

Back along the track, past some golfers stopping and staring, bemusement and perhaps slight envy in the eyes of the bloke I locked eye contact with before flying past, laughing, a right mess of rainbow kit and mud splattered face. Around a corner, eyes widening in shock at the massive rainbow across the Bowland hills in the distance. Glee. Pass a dog walker, say hi, he’s laughing but it’s okay, I know I look like a wind demon.

Drop back down 100 metres, taking every track detour possible, eking the happy out, the feeling of being utterly free. Alone is where the magic happens, alone is where I choose the way and the speed, alone is where I quietly mutter to myself as the back wheel skids entirely across a track and still I hold it, still I don’t dab, still no falls. Pedalling down bridleways so boggy that the water comes above my rims, finding the weight distribution, finding the edges, loving the edges. Find such a steep drop of a hill I walk it, and even that is slightly scary, but save it, will come back when it’s dry, when it’s right to fly and it’s quiet and I wont hit anyone on the way up.

Arrive home with energy to spare. Strip the mud and damp and wet, shiver and await the inevitable temperature plummet. In front of the fire, TV on.

In a little corner of East Lancs, a little girl is finding the edges on her own. My route, my fight, my battle, my hill, my win.

Fucking hell, I needed that.

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Today was the ‘another’ day

Posted on 29th August 2010 in Kit, Skills, Trail Centres

Less grumpy. Positively glowing, actually, thanks for asking. Well you didn’t, but now the Leeds Liverpool has passed, I’m expecting this to go back to it’s readership of 3 or something, which to be honest, I’m a bit more comfy with. I lost my sense of humour for a bit, it needs to return, and a large part of that was thinking too much about people reading this thing.

This is for me, I guess. I figure, I can moan and rant in here, but also bounce and enthuse. But sometimes it’s hard to do the latter all the time. I felt really bad about that for a while, was thinking of just stopping writing, but this is for me. It helps sometimes to post about feeling like crap about biking and stuff, because it makes days like today shine properly.

It’s a sign of utterly ridiculously frakked my forks and mech were that the first thing I did on sitting on my bike at midday today was check my tyres. Something wrong, I thought, it doesn’t feel right. Pedalled back up the hill to the car, asked A to check. Nope, no flats. You sure? Nope, I’m lying. Yes, this is why we’re still together after 5 years. Yes, maybe you had to be there.

Off we go. Next thing that throws me off balance is how fast gear switching is. I thought it was normal for changing up or down a gear to take me flipping the lever and waiting 6-10 seconds for the mech to get the message and pass it on.

1. Second. Changes.

Talk about revolutionising your riding. Suddenly, hill climbs aren’t a battle not to fall sideways as I try and factor in the 10 seconds max it will take to change gear, thus necessitating the frantic push just before changing gear which was resulting in badgered knees of the highest order. Nope. Now I decided I’m in too high a gear mid climb and oh, look, I flick a lever and wait? What’s that? A click so fast you’d miss it and then silence. No pinging, no grinding, no slipping (it used to do it even on the flat for gods sake).

Bliss.

Forks. Oh dear god. Last week I got on my bike and my wrists were screaming after 5 minutes of smooth downhill. Took 75 minutes today for the first twinges and I can still type this. They’re still broken, I know they’re still broken, but even broken they’re just about the best thing. I have no idea what the setting was on, or whether them being taken apart and reconfigured a bit has helped or what, but I need to sit a certain young lady down, if she’s amenable and feed her cake while she explains to me fork set up. Because honestly? Different bike.

Bike aside. I’m a bit different too. Not quite such a drastic difference but. But.

First time we rode Llandegla Blue it took 3 hours or something ridiculous like that. Maybe 4, I’m not sure. We had to stop on the hill at least 8 times, if not more, and it took a long time for me to get my breath back. Don’t look at me like that, no one can couch potato for 13 years and not have to do the same. Us old gits have to start somewhere.

Today? 90 mins. Stops? 1 for er….yeah. 2 on the big open bit of the hill where the trees are all felled (the crosswind/headwind was ridiculous). 1 at the top of the next bit which I raced up and always do for some unknown reason, where the footpath crosses. Felt sick. Helmet off. Felt better (it’s not what you think, it’s something else, but I’m not….yeah). Next stop top of the hill. So I make that 3. No walking. 60 minutes, maybe less. Probably less. Easiest hill climb ever. I have no idea what’s happened. Mostly it’s the bike I think. Mostly. But we wont examine the other possibility too carefully because there is no room for that here. Onwards.

And then we went down. And I discovered the weird feeling of having 3 riders under my wheels. If someone could tell me how riding flat canal can turn me into someone who can fly I’d be grateful because flat out is an exageration but it wasn’t far off.  Everything just clicked. Looking ahead, right riding position, bendy knees, bendy elbows, head up, pedalling in the right places, gears in the right places, pumping ridiculous amount of speed out of the track up hills (I’m fat, it equals momentum, there’s got to be some sodding payback here, don’t begrudge me that), even faster out of the dips on the downs and suddenly, suddenly, it all makes sense again.

90 minutes. No crashes. Slightly twingy wrists but nothing major. Knees fine, elbows fine, calves squishy and pliable and oh the bliss. Best riding partner possible, both same speed on the downs, leap frogging on the ups, assured, happy, enthusiasm bursting all over the place and back at the car I did something I would never have dreamed of doing a year ago. I took my combats off and swapped into jeans outside the car in a car park full of bikers 8 stone smaller than me and thought nothing of it.

I sometimes wonder if I’m the only 18 stone girl riding a bike. I sometimes wonder if there’s someone else out there who might understand, who might know, who might……but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I rode well today, I know I did. I rode from the cafe to the top car park and I could still talk when I got to the top. I rode it. I had to walk it last time. These are the rewards, the things that make me grin the widest, these and the knowledge that I can walk taller these days, I can walk prouder, that yeah, okay, I look like I do no exercise and eat rubbish, but I know my body is telling me a different story and I’m listening. I can hear the sound of muscles strengthening, lungs expanding, joints temporarily relaxing – a body remembering how it is supposed to function and despite the excess packaging wrapped around it, responding to the repeated requests I put to it.

I can do this. I really can. Thank bloody god for that.

comments: 5 »

It always catches up with you eventually

Posted on 15th August 2010 in I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike, Natural Trails, Ride Reviews

So, I did the bad thing. The silly thing. I went for a ride.

It was only 7 miles. It was supposed to go via Jubilee Tower in Darwen. It didn’t. We dropped down next to Roddlesworth Reservoir, pitted at the Hare & Hounds to use the facilities, horse dodged, there was a road sprint uphill at some point. Felt good. Felt fine. Back into Roddlesworth woods and we found the hill. The one @nezbo beautifully navigated us around last time we were there with a sneaky little track up by the fence on the left. I understand entirely why he did that now.

Hill of doom. Well, only tiny little stretch of hill actually, but so steep after the sharp left turn on the climb out of the valley that I couldn’t ride it, neither of us could and so we walked and my calf muscles pinged and stung and really, that’s just the beginning of the end.

The other end of the end was the mechanical fairy which finally visited. It took a lot of miles for her to put in an appearance, to be fair but 30 mins of fettling and finally my derailleur decided I wasn’t going to be riding a 3 speed but was going to actually function again, even if the number 9 fell off the back end of the gear indicator and into a black hole.

Off we rode again, after being asked if we were okay by passing mountain biking couple who were lovely but I was badgered and sorry.

Down we went, finally, lovely descent, knew some walkers were in the way as they’d passed us so throttled back a bit. Came to the cobble steep descent of doom (locals have got to know where I’m talking about). Muggle wombled down it in front of me but after other half. Waited. Muggle stopped on corner. Waited thinking I’ll need that corner to get around. Muggle still there so set off. Muggle set off. Had a go, but by this point the moment had gone, bravery failed and I stepped off just around the corner. Cobbles with sticky mud strewn across them have bitten me before, so I’m a bit tentative at the best of times, but when there’s a muggle underfoot it’s just not a goer.

Across another dam, up the other side. Sanity check. Home decided, so sharp right turn back up along the edge of the moor, lovely tricky rocky climb, baking sun, walking speed but enjoyed. Realise that at some point I’ve started liking the rocky climbs more than the rocky descent. Keep pace for a while with an odd walking couple – father and son, son epically not enjoying himself, moaning about how far it was back to the car after father pointed it out. Wonder why he’s there. See him eyeing up my bike with curiosity, want to stop, want to explain, not sure it would be welcome or appropriate. Pedal on. And on. Sun baking, forgotten what it feels like. Cross the top of a massive gulley and round to the right into wood. Shade. Oh blessed shade. Baked.

Stop at the gate. Sit. Look at view. Disturb couple obviously having fun, right next to the footpath. Tasteful. Sit anyway, too badgered to carry on. Recover. Other half opens gate for two lads, one on same bike as other half. Clock mine – nice bike apparently. Never thought of it that way. Never think of it that way. Just my bike. Off they ride, not sure what to say, us too badgered to think of what to say.

I know what comes next which is why I’ve stopped to catch breath. We climbed up it and I enjoyed it, enjoyed it a lot. It’s the sort of ascent the Marin eats for breakfast (it’s not me, it’s the bike, no really it is, it seems to love rocky ups, I’ve no idea why). Never been down it before.

Down. Girl half of canoodling couple shouts ‘faster’. Because obviously it’s only about speed. But I know what I’m doing now, which is ignoring, focusing, eyes locked 5 metres ahead, knees bent, hands loose on the handlebars, absorb, absorb, absorb. Feet don’t leave the pedals, heads almost still, off the brakes but they’re covered because I want to roll the drainage humps, here is not the time to be jumping. Slow for the walkers, big grins, big grins back from a woman twice my age but no different, I know she knows I know why, off again, rattle rattle rattle, brief traitorous thought that this would be easier on a full sus, before arriving at the bottom, behind but comfortable that I’ve gone as fast as was possible without my wheels leaving the floor.

7 miles. It didn’t feel like 7 miles. Off road never does. It makes you work for it. I’d forgotten. I haven’t got anything left. But it answered a question which I needed to answer which was can I cope with the random surprises bridleways will throw at you, and have I got any stronger.

Yes on both counts, but it would have been better if I’d waited until tomorrow to ask.

Every ride, you learn something.

comments: 4 »

August 150

Posted on 3rd August 2010 in August 150, Natural Trails, Ride Reviews, Targets & Objectives

I am, despite my better judgement, taking part in @phillconnell’s August 150 target for miles ridden in a month. I must confess, the canal ride will form the body of my 150 miles and I am slightly ashamed of that, but riding that distance in 3-4 days will mean, hopefully, that next month I can do 150 easily just at weekends.

The rules can be found over at Phill Connells Blog (the link is to the description of the June 100 but the rules remain the same, only the distance has increased). Commuter miles don’t count which is what has stopped me entering before – I’ll be riding 30 miles this week meaning legs left to do leisure miles will probably be zero – so it all has to come from weekend riding and I’m just not fit enough yet to rack those kinds of miles up in a normal month.

So, because Every Trail threw a fit every time I tried to insert a camera picture, my only proof of the miles I’ve done today is a pic from the odometer of my new Strada which I used for the first time today. It strikes me as quite fitting that I opened it on Saturday evening, thus meaning all miles on that odometer until the end of the month contribute to the challenge. It seems…..appropriate.

Yep, it says 10.2 miles. Not 6 months ago, there is no way on earth I could have done what I did today. I got to 5 miles and was still talking about going around again. The only reason we didn’t go around again was a pressure headache due to impending clouds and possibly storm which can be rather beautifully illustrated in the shot below.

The 17% climb which preceded this view did nothing for my head either. However, the descent down the other side, once I’d brave the herd of cows (yes, I know) was a wonderful reward. Steepest I’ve ridden down, slightly loose and shaley, nice exposure to reward those who take their eye of the ball with a broken something and a fabulous babbling brook at the bottom for those with no pads left to crash into. Bottle, reacquired. All the damage to confidence of Llandegla a distant memory. Reminder of why I do this received and understood.

The walkers were all surprisingly chirpy too. We went from Rivington Barn, past Yarrow (easiest hill ever thanks to the surface, my bike seems to eat those little rocks for breakfast), down across a damn, around the corner along another lane, off onto another bridleway than runs under the new trails at Healey Nab. Looked at Healey Nab. Decided not to ruin confidence building day with Healey Nab. On down the other side, across another damn, up the hill of doom (I pushed some of it, I don’t care what you think of me), past the bloke in the United Utilities van looking at me like I was a loon, through the herd of cows, down the permissive bridleway (what does the permissive mean?), give the brakes a work out, along the stream to the right, pop out somewhere I can’t remember, somehow end up going back down the lovely easy ascent past Yarrow which has now turned into a gorgeous descent, endless wriggles through little rocks where the rain has eroded the sandy path, through a gate, past the walkers who can see my grin from 5 miles away and return it (I think they must have been temporarily bike removed people, because they really did give me the biggest grin), off the brakes, in to the land of ‘I know what I’m doing, I do, I do!’, popping back out onto the tarmac and down into Rivington village back along past the Go Ape.

Arrive at the Barn to bemused glances from the bikers with engines. Don’t care any more, don’t care about being mud splattered, don’t care that I’m fat and eating flapjack, don’t care that my hair is a mess, don’t care that my bike is no longer white but brown.

Hi, my name is Louise. I’m 18.5 stone. Or leastways I was 6 months ago. I ride my bike. I like exploring. 6 months ago, my blood pressure was right on the edge of high. 6 months ago, I couldn’t ride up even the smallest of hills without needing to stop for a breather at the top. 6 months ago, I was not the person I am now. I’m probably still 18.5 stone, but you know what? I.just.don’t.care.

Catch me if you can :O)

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Sneaky trails

Posted on 3rd August 2010 in I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike, Ride Reviews, Trail Centres

I’ve finally found the local trails. Looping figure of eights to get lost in 800ft slog up the hill outside the door. It’s a tarmac slog but not so bad at 7:30am. Left the rode and the curious horses staring at the panting girl, found a cat, lost the cat, found the cat again, dinged the cat to save it. Rode left, turned left again, somehow ended up coming back down the first left I’d taken. Round the other side up the side of the stone wall, turn left, miss a turning that looked interesting, take the 2nd turning, come out down the 1st turning that looked interesting. Growing suspicion that someone else has been here before me, many times, by the berms developing in the ruts in the corners of the mud. Sticky gloopy mud stuck to tyres, back down the road, ding ding ding as the bits of stone and tree hit my spokes then my rims then the road and me.

Arrive back at the house dripping, covered in mud from my tyres and with a bloody big grin on my face. Arrive back just in time to see boyfriend off to work. Laughter as he looks at my bike ‘found the mud again then’.

Always find the mud. Doing that again.

Next time I might even remember my bottle.

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Hello, Bonjour, Hallo, Hola!

Posted on 11th July 2010 in Pick it up & Pass it on, Ride Reviews, Trail Centres

The other thing is also, sadly, a mini-rant. Mostly, when it comes to biking, I am relentlessly positive, enthuse at everyone within a mile radius, drag other people into the ‘sport’ and say hello to every non mountain biker I ride past because I refuse to be the biker walkers moan and whine about when they get home.

But somethings gone a bit  wrong round ‘ere. I’d be really interested to know if it’s just round ‘ere because I suspect it’s not.

I am quite strongly of the opinion that everyone should be allowed to ride a bike, be welcomed at trail centres and given gentle advice when things go a bit wrong. In fact, when we first started riding gently last year, the amount of people who offered smiles, hellos, assistance with mechanicals and generally were totally ace blew me away.

Not any more. Today, 3 people said hello. Groups of 4′s passed me and only 1 person said hi. It wasn’t quiet at Gisburn this morning, it really wasn’t and I’ve never come across a bunch of more miserable sods in my life. I left wondering why anyone had bothered, to be honest, because there didn’t seem to be an awful lot of fun being had, I’ll tell you that for nothing. In fact, most people were kind enough to look at me as if I had a spare alien growing out of the side of my head. I got progressively more and more annoyed as I rode the wrong way back down the blue route – yes, I was contraflowing. I was deliberately contraflowing. I suspect some of the horrid stares and glares were down to this – for information, I broke one of my brake levers and I wasn’t carrying on the horror that is Gisburn with only one brake. But no, never crossed anyones mind I might be riding the wrong way through choice. Nor did it cross anyones minds that perhaps I might be lost – which I might well have been. No one asked. No one said hello. Just glares. Same in the car park. Same when I was going the right way around. Frankly, by the end of the ride I was starting to wonder if I’d wandered into a parallel universe of mountain biking where only unfriendly people had got on their bikes.

That’s before we get to the group of, frankly, idiots riding a slew of hired Treks off down the road from the Dog and Partridge with no helmets, having drunk two pints each, bumped into our car more times than I can count, completely blocked all access to the bike wash in their determination to park all their bikes together and just generally been inconsiderate pack animal idiots. Their progress down the hill consisted of ridng 3 abreast down towards Cocklets and lots of weaving across the road. I await reports of a mass death.

I don’t know what’s happened but it needs sorting. When we go out on a Thursday night riding around Roddlesworth, everyone to the very last from dog walkers to roadies are friendly and polite and frankly lovely. I hate to say it, but none of the accents I heard today were local. So on the one hand, thank goodness our local sense of politeness and friendliness is not lost, it’s people coming from other places who don’t know any better who are being…..taciturn. But that’s not the way we do it here. We stop and chat. We’re friendly. We offer spare bits and pieces and we pick it up and pass it on. We smile even if we’ve no breath for a Hello. We are quite a loose community but there is, at the very least, an acknowledgement that we are all doing something we love very much and that’s why we’re out in the wind and the rain. No other reason would get you out of the door on a morning like this one.

So, if you’re going to come and ride in East Lancs, pack a smile. Remember a hello. Because a few of us are getting hearty sick of your riding two abreast and not moving over to let us past, your determination to leave your bikes at exits of singletrack and your attitude that you don’t need to bother to acknowledge other people because it’s all about being too cool or something. We don’t do cool here. We do heart, and soul. We do love of riding like few other places can. We don’t care if it’s blowing a gale or pissing it down, we’re still going riding cos we said we would and if we didn’t, we’d never ride. We love our mill towns and our hills and we’re actually really quite proud of the network of fantastic, absolutely completely fantastic trails which are springing up around us at quite a rate of knots. I think I can safely speak for almost every single East Lancs (and, actually West Yorks) rider when I say, we love where we live because we are absolutely spoilt when it comes to places to ride. We’re quite proud and we’re quite attached to it.

If you come and take advantage of those trails, we don’t ask you to pay. We don’t charge you for parking at the moment. But blow me backwards, if we started charging in smiles, half of you lot wouldn’t get in. Lighten up, if it’s not fun, go home. If you drove however long it took you to get to us, one assumes you wanted to be here. You’ve wearing the kit from head to toe, you’ve obviously spent a lot of money on something you seem to love doing. Your bike is shiny and looked after. You look exactly like a mountain biker, but I’m sorry, in my book I didn’t meet a lot of mountain bikers today and I don’t understand if it’s cos I don’t look like one but I’m out on the trails anyway, or whether you’re all just a little bit ignorant and rude.

I am confused, dear readers. Very very confused. And quietly praying that this is not the start of some horrid trend but a mere abberation due to the weather or how early it was, and indeed that somehow it was me, us, our little group, that something about us meant people didn’t say hello. But I’ve got a sneaky suspicion it might not be that at all.

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And this isn’t going to win me any friends either…..

Posted on 11th July 2010 in Ouch, that hurt, Ride Reviews, Skills, Trail Centres

I hate Gisburn.

There. I’ve said it. I’ve tried and tried, and I’ve fallen off more on their blue than I have anywhere else. It’s destroyed my confidence, left me hating mountain biking and generally I wish I’d never stepped out of the house this morning.

I appreciate trail grading is a subjective art. I appreciate Gisburn wouldn’t exist at all without the love, hard work and attention of a very small and dedicated group of people and I have thanked them repeatedly for that – hell, at least they’ve bothered with a blue, many trails centres don’t even grace us beginners with a nod, instead assuming we’re all useless and at best providing us with a green route which involves nothing but fireroads.

Great for families, but not what I’d actually call ‘mountain biking’.

Unfortunately, what I think is an appropriate trail to send someone down whose taste of ‘mountain biking’ has hitherto been nothing but fire roads and what other people feel is appropriate do not match. Or, rather they do not match when wet. And here, right here, we arrive at the fundamental problem with Gisburn in its entirety. It’s in East Lancashire. It might be in the Forest of Bowland, that might make it sound quite upper class and fabulous, but frankly mate, it’s East Lancs. Lets not get any airs and graces here. Actually, that’s another thing but we’ll get to that later.

It rains in East Lancs. It rains really rather a lot. So tell me, please do tell me why, we have a trail centre which is slippy as all hell and twice as treacherous, which is disintegrated a little more every time I ride it, in which erosion seems to be providing a never ending challenge to the trail builder, and which rain and wet seem to be the arch enemy both of the trail builders and the riders, in East Lancs?

I’ve read a lot of threads today on forums, discussing the relative merits or not of Gisburn. Wrong kind of soil, apparently. No flow. Some love it with a complete devotion but others call in on the way from the South to Scotland and end up coming away disappointed and frustrated. In the process of reading these posts, the penny dropped. It’s me. It’s not the trails. Okay, so the trails really are becoming looser and more eroded every time I ride across them, and in the wet I fall off at a different bit every time – there’s no one hotspot, no one nemesis, my focus wanders off and 1/2 inch misjudgement turns into a painful slam into the most unforgiving mixture of sand and rock I’ve found yet. The mix of tight berms, little humps that as a blue route rider, I’m really not going to attempt jumping, the small rocks which are jutting out everywhere meaning a line, whichever one you pick is full of them, the bits falling off the track at the side, the punishment for 1/2 inch of misplacement meaning sliding off the track…..it’s not somewhere to go and regain confidence. Actually it’s not somewhere to go to gain confidence. The trail is slippy, the Northshore is slippy and the point where I found a route easier to ride in the snow than in the wet is the point where I just give up and go home. It’s not fun. Mountain biking was supposed to be fun.

That’s before we’ve even got to the proportion of ‘interesting bits’ to fireroad on the blue route. So, this is where I concede defeat. Gisburn is for techheads. People with way more skill than me. People way fitter than me. It is not for me. The reason I fell in love with mountain biking was the speed. Lacks finesse, yes, I know. Lacks challenge, well yes, I know. But nothing on earth, absolutely nothing on earth is better than swooping down switchbacks on beautifully compressed, properly compressed mud, finding your lines, pumping the dips which have been artfully placed with care and precision, railing around berms because you are confident in the trail builders by that point and know you’re not going to be punished for commiting 100% to it. I can ride just about well enough to hammer down the side of Electric Blue. I don’t jump the little jumps there either but somehow, it’s less of an issue there, and it’s less of an issue because of the trail quality, the substance of it, and knowing exactly where my wheels are and relying on their footprint to carry me through. I am not good enough to deal with disintegration and crumble on the other side, nor with the tight turns thrown in for fun.

I also know, absolutely know, that I am not alone. There are two camps developing in mountain biking – hell there may well have been two camps right from the start. Actually, no, make that three. There are the people who are comfy in Calderdale. There are the people who grin at Glentress and there are the brave people who stick to the countries bridleways and footpaths, piecing together routes themselves.

I’m a Glentress girl. It’s where my heart is. It’s where I don’t have to throttle back. It’s where the magic happens and I can do anything with my bike. I have absolutely nothing against the other camps, nothing at all. As soon as I am fit enough to dig and barrow I’ll volunteer at Gisburn because it’s important to, because it’s local, because they need help, because I can help to build the beautiful shiny playgrounds for other people to play on even if I can’t ride them, and it would be ignorant not to at least offer. But somewhere along the line, maybe way way way down the line, I can still dream that one day, there will be a little piece of track with the ethos of Glentress’s blue routes built round the corner from me. Until that point, Llandegla is going to be getting an awful lot of my money because there I found a glimpse of the same ethos.

So, the next time someone asks why people love Llandegla, I’ll be explaining this – people love Llandegla because it’s the closer you can come to flying on wheels without the slog up the M6.

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Playing in the sand

Posted on 6th June 2010 in Advice, I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike, Natural Trails, Personal Experience, Ride Reviews, Skills

I’m a bit of a geek. So I’m going to use a geek analogy to explain why towpaths have their place in my little biking world, and why I’ll tolerate others disdain and admit to it in public.

Geeks tend to use sandpit environments to test things out. These environments can be training copies of databases used to train new users on, they can be staging platforms used to roll out a big change to some software before it goes live, they can be exact replicas of the live software, or they can be vague approximations of them. You get the idea. A safe space to rollout some complicated changes in an environment where, if something goes wrong, things can be rolled back and taken out of the system, without affecting end users who cannot afford the interuption and downtime.

Towpaths are where I learnt to do a number of things on my bike. Not falling into the canal is the obvious one. When I first started riding my bike, I was so wobbly that I couldn’t look behind me without veering off in a different direction. You don’t tend to need to look behind you when riding on a towpath – it’s the obstacles in front of your wheel such as dog droppings and children running around randomly which are more of a danger. Not being able to look behind you on a road, to check whether a car is coming before making a right turn, is a slightly more lethal issue.

They’re also where I learnt to ride my tyres down singletrack twice the width of my tyre. They’re where I’ve set myself my own little goals, when the path has left the tarmac behind and become a mass of dried in ruts, where I’ve tried repeatedly to keep my tyres in the rut and not wander out of them. The penalty for wandering out of it is nothing more than a slighty back wheel skitter, on that towpath. The punishment on a log path the same width would likely be a little more severe.

I also learnt to manual and deal with small step ups. There’s a motorway  bridge near the start of where we join it, with some big concrete two by fours spanning the path. There’s no avoiding them. So instead of getting off and walking, I tried approaching them in different ways, with no danger of injury, testing different weight balances, testing how much downforce to create, working out how comfortable I was approaching them at slow and high speeds, and gradually getting to the point where getting over them didn’t warrant a second thought. Far better to play around there, where the path widens to the allow for the motorway bridge above, then to block a red trail or a local bridleway practising the same thing over and over again and getting in everyones way.

Where I’m going with this, you see, is that towpaths have their place, and they are my sandpit. The first thing I did when I got my new bike was take it for a blast down the towpath. We know it well enough now to know where the dogwalkers and canalboat owners loiter and park, and where they don’t. We know which bits its safe to slam along, and which bits are suited to more of a gentle pootle. We know where the mile of compressions is and are using it to learn how not to peddle, instead using the ground beneath us to conserve momentum and deliver us happily to the aforementioned motorway bridge.

If I rode nothing but towpaths, I would be a 2 dimensional rider who didn’t step outside of comfort zone…..perhaps. Or perhaps I would be a commuter, using my bike as transport instead of merely a toy. A towpath ride is what you choose to make of it – a safe passageway from point A to point B, or a series of challenges both physical and the ones you create, a sequence of tests and obstacles which are as difficult or as easy as you make them.

Towpaths are my sandpit. They’re where I go to play, in safety, where I go to learn the limits of my bike, where I’ve learnt all the skills which I am now, with hesitancy and tentativeness, taking out into the big wide world and using on our local bridleways. I am less afraid now, of those bridleways, because I am assured that I can deal with what that track might throw at me. I am more familiar with my bike because I have played and pushed and befriended it.

Don’t knock the towpaths. They are exactly what you make of them. Just mind the midgies.

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Gisburn gets gnarly

Posted on 29th May 2010 in Ouch, that hurt, Ride Reviews, Trail Centres

It’s always the way. You arrange a ride out with someone in the suns shining rays, and by the time the ride out comes around, the rays are no longer shining, and instead the air is filled with the damp wet reminder that you are on the British Isles and nothing will ever be predictable with the weather. Turns out, the riding is not that predictable either.

I’d read trail grades depend on the weather. I never appreciated that until today. In fact, I’ve learnt many things today including how frikking fast a mountain rescue helicopter can fly when it needs to.

The car park at Gisburn was uncharacteristically quiet. It wasn’t raining that hard and it’s been dry here most of the week so we didn’t think much of it. Some brake fettling later (mate rides a hybrid, swapped slicks for knobblies last night, didn’t go too well) we were ready. In the process I heard a couple having the same conversation me and Al have every time we go out alone and no one is listening ‘why am I doing this, do I have to, I’m going to get covered in mud, this isn’t fun’. She was riding a Trek of some kind, nice bike, slip of a thing, and in passing I registered that perhaps it doesn’t matter how small you are, only how fit you are, and that confidence or the lack of it can bite everyone no matter how small they are. That was lesson one.

Lesson two was that, as quickly became glaringly clear, our mate was epically fitter than us. I made the mistake of trying to keep up. Bad move. I should know better by now, but we ride with other people so rarely due to my hideous levels of self consciousness when it comes to my fitness level that I missed the trick.

The third lesson was that the first bit of proper singletrack on the blue had turned from a smooth rip roaring rollercoaster into a disintegrating wheel shifting nightmare in the wet. Fell off. Twanged wrist, twisted hip (though I didn’t notice for a few hours afterwards), dented confidence. Decided to take the shortcut and go home – mate was long gone by this point and completely missed this little detour.

The fourth lesson was a rather more serious one. I don’t like Northshore at the best of times, as previously documented, though Scotland cured me of some of my dislike. Gisburn has a nippy bit of singletrack which is awesome fun, and then you’re thrown into the forest on this silly path constructed of horizontal tree trunks and small ones at that. It’s twisty, turny, shares itself with the red route, and for good reason. It turns out, it’s easier and safer with a covering of snow. Rain turns it into a bit of a slipfest, especially with no chicken wire on it.

So we round the first corner to find a chap sitting on the side of the wooden track. My first thought is ‘what a frikking donkey, what the hell is he doing’. My second thought is ‘there are some people here who really don’t know what the frikking hell to do and who are looking a little bit shocked’. Turns out, man sitting on Northshore has flown off the side of the Northshore and neatly created a second ankle above the first one with a very neatly broken bone.

Friend of A (I’m not putting his name here, it’s not fair) returned and explained the farmhouses were all locked up, which we’d just passed. So he went off to find signal in the car park and phone for help. The other people milling around sodded off. So there seemed nothing else to do but to plonk down next to A and do the only two things I know what to do with broken people, which is keep them talking, keep them with me, keep them warm and keep them from passing out and try, desperately, to stave off the shock for as long as possible and when it hits to distract them so much they wont notice.

Time passed. People passed. I tried to keep them moving on because I remembered something about not crowding people and he was feeling horribly self conscious, I think, though I’m only guessing but that was the impression he gave. Al sorted traffic control, kept an eye out for ambulances and friends and more time passed.

Seems 30 minutes passed, though it seemed longer. We talked, we made silly jokes, the rain fell, he shivered. Another person turned up who knew what they were doing because they were a mountain biking leader, who had a shelter to wrap around A and some sensible advice and calm words and who very blatantly knew exactly what he was doing. We piled all the clothing we had onto him and the shivering stopped. We heard tales from passing bikers of the ambulance going the wrong way, so the same bikers turned around and dashed off to retrieve them. The sound of a helicopter floated across.

Lesson five. Nothing on frikking earth is a more welcome sight in the middle of a forest, than a number of green and high vis bedecked people, some from ambulances, some from air ambulances. A took pictures for his website, to explain to his cycling club why they donate to mountain rescue teams. He fretted about returning fleeces and waterproofs. He passed on his email address and fretted some more. Shock.

At which point, because there was nothing else to do except get in the way, we retreated – back to the safety of the singletrack and the quick way home, not along the Northshore. I’ll email, not because I want my clothes back, I couldn’t care less, but just to touch base, just briefly, with someone I learnt a lot about in 30 minutes in an effort to keep him focused, talking and conscious. I succeeded at something that I couldn’t have not so long ago – keeping calm. And I retreated because bits of me go white in the cold and I was damed if I was going to be no 2. I still feel bad about that, you can probably tell.

So we land back in the car park. There’s a note from mate who no doubt has wondered where the hell we’ve got to – he’s gone to ride the red route. The helicopter flies by with A on board at a speed I’ve never seen a helicopter travel at. The girl who didn’t want to go out riding but did anyway landed back in the car park, doing the comedy ‘I’m frikking knackered I am’ stagger but grinning her face off – I grinned back, because I know how that feels, our mate arrived back at the car park with a badgered back brake to add to the front brake he’d left with and tales of falling off the Northshore in exactly the same place as A had just got lifted from, but he’d somehow landed on his feet, and finally, the mountain bike leader and A’s mate got back to the car park, where the friend looked supremely uncomfortable and didn’t say much and the mountain bike leader, J, was lovely at me because I wobbled a bit at him.

The sixth lesson?

Mountain bikers, whether they ride their road bikes during the week and only bike at the weekends, are mountain bikers. I don’t care what you ride, I don’t care whether you ride faster or slower than me, whether you can’t ride slow or you want to bomb around the track, you’re a mountain biker. I don’t care about anything, except that if you fall over, you get looked after. You get sorted. People stop and care. People stop and offer help. A very very small amount make it clear you’re an inconvenient obstacle in their way. They weren’t mountain bikers, for that attitude alone. Mountain bikers wear different colours, come from different backgrounds, go out in trainers and t-shirts and Adidas tracksuit bottoms because they can’t afford anything different. Mountain bikers go out on days like this because we want to ride our bikes and the need to ride our bikes sometimes overrides any sense. Mountain bikers are friendly, caring, supportive, insane, loony, sound as hell, have varying levels of passionate enthusiasm but there will always be some there. Mountain bikers are probably some of the fittest people you will ever meet, who will only ever bother the NHS when they break something mountain biking. Helicopters cost money. The first thing mentioned from Mr Broken Ankle today when he heard the whir was ‘oh my god how much does one of those things cost to send out, oh no’. But I resolutely, absolutely, and totally believe that that man will cost the NHS less in total than most during his life.

Mountain bikers deal in risk. Whether we acknowledge it or not, think about it or not, there but for the grace go I. I know this, I accept this, we all do, I think. But you can’t stop walking across the road because you might get hit by an out of control stolen car. You can’t live your life like that. Life is for exploring, pushing, breathing, adventuring. It’s for doing whatever it is you need to do to have fun within reason. It’s for knowing you are alive to some. Not everyone needs to do this, not everyone wants to do this. I do. I am one among many.

But today I learnt mountain bikers come in every shade under the sun that wasn’t shining. 99% of them have a heart of gold. Cheers folks, you restored my faith in the world. I hope I am a sound enough person to belong to your tribe, because it is a tribe that I assure you, you can be very very proud of.

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Day Six – Drumlanrig Castle Blue

Posted on 15th May 2010 in Ride Reviews, Trail Centres

Of all the days we spent riding last week (we’ve now arrived home), Drumlanrig is the most difficult one to write about. It’s nothing to do with the route, and everything to do with my body finally crumbling under the pressure I’d put it under the previous few days.

Drumlanrig Castle is, I suppose, predominantly just that. An imposing pile of pink stone, parapets like icing with a sweeping pink driveway to match. The mountain bike trails are famously built and curated by Rik Allsop, an ex XC and DH nutter – as a result you’d hope he knows his trail building. As it turns out, he does.

The Blue starts innocuously enough – the ascent somewhat predictable by this point. Except, actually, it’s not. The surface of the Red route is much talked about, involving as it does most of the tree roots on the estate in one way or another. The surface of the Blue is never mentioned and it’s a shame. It provides certain challenges, especially if you are used to ascents being on fire roads, and lets face it, Blue routes rarely ascend on anything else apart from Glentrool’s. Drumlanrig’s is a fascinating mixture of broken rocks embedded in compacted mud but where the rocks protude just enough to throw you off if you’re not careful, the odd root here or there, surfaces akin to cobbles and many others besides, and on the descents it veers from gentle swooping compacted mud and track sections to bits where a trailer-load of fist sized and bigger rocks have been dumped, providing a somewhat moving sliding surface to try and find traction on. It’s an interesting lesson in weight distribution, not being lazy about picking lines when ascending, and letting go and having faith on the descents.

The other thing I learnt was that sometimes you need to get off and smell the coffee. Drumlanrig is a working estate, but there’s a reason someone decided to build a massive castle here and I’m willing to bet the beautiful River Nith, plunging in places and meandering in others though the ravines it’s etched out through the years, was one of them. It’s stunning, and both the Blue and Red routes reward riders who resist the lure of plummeting down the gorgeous swooping tracks and instead pause momentarily to take a quick detour to see the rapids in all their glory – from 50 metres above.

It may be clear from the above that I was not in attack mode. I wish I had been, Rik recommended a perfect route mixing Blue and Red which on any other day we could have done but which today would have been asking for trouble. He’s very friendly,  very approachable, very knowleagable and very good with kids. If you’re looking for somewhere where, quite literally, the whole family can go riding, you can’t go wrong. If you’re looking for somewhere that feels like riding with nature instead of across it, this too is the place you’re looking for. It’s not manicured, it’s not over hacked and slashed, it’s not neat and tidy and ordered. It is fun. A really rather large amount of silly fun.

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