Last Thursday I joined up with the Brighton MTB for one of their now infamous Thursday night rides.

With a slight degree of nerves – this was my first night ride in a long time – and a large bucket of excitement I arrived at Sussex University Sports Carpark. I met Simon – who I’ve ridden with a fair number of times – and got my bike ready. As the clock ticked towards 7pm, various people showed up and did the same with various people introducing themselves to the new faces – mainly myself.

With everyone ready, we set off into the woods. We did lots of nice climbs and some dusty single track. Compared to what I had been used to recently – mostly open tracks and muddle bridleways – this was a breath of fresh air. We had tight corners along tight paths whilst going down up and down hills. It would give me great pleasure to give you a blow by blow description of each of the trails that we encountered but with a mostly new location containing new trails with new people means that most of it was a blur. Instead I shall relate some of the more memorable parts:

Picture a scene of a large tree trunk lying horizontally. There is a ramp up one side joining a ramp on the other. This middle section of the tree is about a metre high. The ramps are a little off camber. The aim of the game is to ride up one side, make your way over the trunk and down the other side. You get bonus points for style, not falling off and surviving with most of your bones intact. The trick it seems is to not even think about it, get some speed in your wheels and go for it. The bike knows how to do the rest. Although daunting the first time, several of us nailed it and even went on to do it again. It was good fun and felt nice to have places on the ride to push your skills, improve your confidence and have a nice cup of fear.

Turning on the lights. This was my first ride with my own set of lights – would they fit the bill? Would they provide the right conditions so that as the darkness crept in, I could keep up with the pace? Not only did they do the job I can still remember myself giggling inanely as the light went and we were darting through the forest. There really is no experience quite like peddling as hard as your legs will take you into the darkness with just your lights guiding the way. It is also quite a visual feast to see a train of mountain bikers heading off into the forest in front of you with lights blazing – makes the forest pretty magical.

The company. The company was excellent, a great ride is only possible with a good group of people around you. Not only was the banter good covering all sorts of topics but when people had problems – mainly someone taking a bale – others were there to help and make sure everyone was ok. I was made to feel very welcome by the nice chap leading the ride and was instantly made to feel part of the group.

All in all the ride was great fun and I remember clearly feeling a little disappointed as we headed back to the car park. I’d enjoyed myself so much that I really didn’t want the ride to finish – a true testament to how good it was. I did console myself with the fact that I would be back next Thursday enjoying another ride with the group!

Max speed: 24.3 mph
Total distance: 17.7 miles
Moving average: 7.4 mph
Moving time: 2h 24m

This was a good ride although took a while for my legs to warm up. Went about as expected given my current cycle fitness which should hopefully improve over the next month or so. My lights did the job. The banter was good. Managed to bend my large chain ring when I stacked it into a ditch whilst cycling up a particularly horrid hill.

The best part was was being in the back third of the mtb train through some forest, in the dark, with carpets of bluebells all around with beams of light punching around. Next time I will get a photo.

There was a song a while ago produced by the BBC called ‘Perfect Day’. I had my perfect day yesterday.

It started off meeting some friends north of Brighton to tackle some dusty single track goodness. If I’m honest, I was exceptionally nervous. My recent riding has mostly been cross country stuff with little single track riding with few jumps to be seen. We rode off into Stamner Park and enjoyed various trails. I felt exceptionally rusty. I didn’t feel connected to the bike. I kept trying to keep the bike on the leash. I was anxious and my riding was suffering. It took a few hours and a number of surprise trail elements for me to shake the cobwebs and I was soon really enjoying being out. The trails were dusty, fast and was a nice challenge throughout. By the end of the ride I’d gained a huge smile and felt like my riding mojo had returned. We were out for most of the morning and got rained on a couple of times.

Normally I would say that I went home. Which I did.

Normally I would say I then sat down, had some food and didn’t do much. Which I also did.

However. Captain Wind and Captain Sun decided to come out and play. They also brought out Captain Low Tide and his mate Captain Flat Water. It would have been rude not to go out and enjoy the weather conditions presented to myself. I grabbed Karl and we headed over to ‘hampters. We were presented with almost perfect kiting conditions: lit 11m weather, flat water, only a few kiters, blue skies and friends. Steve and Sarah met us there and we went out to tear things up a little. The session was immense. It really felt like I was getting my kiting mojo back too. I was boosting big, chucking in proper kite loops, doing lush flat back rolls off waves all whilst I was listening to tunes on my iPod. It was amazing. I also felt like I was starting to really get used to my new kiteboard which rides so much better when your feet aren’t numbed by wetsuit boots. Riding barefoot you get much better feed back and can really feel what the board is doing. It was great to see the others who I enjoy being out with having a sick session too – both Sarah and Steve boosting big with Steve landing some sick front-loops.

After about two and a half hours of riding, I came off the water a broken but very happy man. Karl took video and some photos as he is currently suffering from injury so it is nice to have a record of one of the best sessions I’ve had in a long time.

The day was finished with a Chinese take away and Doctor Who on DVD with my wonderful wife; punctuated the only way such a day could be with crashing into bed which felt marvellous.

I sit here in pain. I feel like I’ve been beaten up. I can’t stop smiling. Bring on the next session.

I can haz none?

I’ve no intention of having resolutions so to speak. I’m already fairly fit and healthy, I eat well – both healthy and tasty – so the regular ones are already covered.

Instead I have more of what I’d call goals:

I.) Ride the 100 mile South Downs Way Randonee mountain bike ride in June. Going to be savage but a good target to aim for, what I’d say is the mountain biking equivalent of a marathon.

2.) Finally land a Flat3. Last summer I finally got to unhooking, in Rodrigues I played at static handle passes, this year I shall land a Flat3. (There are other tricks I want to improve, try and have fun doing but a Flat3 is the main aim)

3.) Learn OpenGL ES to the point of being able to publish a small Open GL based game to the iPhone app store.

There is a goal for each area of hobby interest: kiting, biking and programming.

Lets see how things go.

I think it is important to take stock of life. The last three and a bit years have been very change worthy for me. Going from unhappy in life to discovering kiting, meeting Emma and the various events since.

I love Emma, my wife. It is great spending my life with someone who gets me, my needs, my desires and my dreams. I love kiting. I am more addicted now than ever to a hobby I’ve had for three years – getting the new kites has revitalised the experience. I love having also discovered mountain biking. Life rocks.

I decided in true geek style to map out the years in a time line (click for full sized)

… until I had a story about drivers from the view point of a cyclist.

This weekend Mike and Helen came and visited. We had some beverages, we had some fish and chips and today we went for a bimble along the coast cycle way to Worthing to stretch legs and grab a hot pasty.

The ride on the whole was highly enjoyable. After sweet ride at Pitch Hill yesterday with Mike, Jim and Jason, it was nice to get out and stretch my legs. It was great to be out with Emma who has improved massively in terms of confidence with her riding over the last 6-7 weeks of riding to work and the station and it was nice to show Mike and Helen the coast.

The only blip was coming out of Shoreham on the way to Worthing.

We were cycling along the road up to the cycle route, just before there is a car park and with the nice weather people were out to have some fun on the beach. A car stopped before getting too far towards the car park – no idea what but they stopped and pulled over. The car that caused issue was the car right behind them. It pulled out. It didn’t check their blind spot, mirrors nor indicate. They didn’t see myself nor Emma who had indicated we were going to over take and pulled out right in front of us. As this happened I did shout at the driver to check their mirrors (the drivers side window was open). The car sped off down the road but had to stop to pay for a parking ticket from the attendant. As Emma, Mike and Helen continued I decided to stop and politely spoke to the doctor.

I asked them to be more considerate. To check their mirrors. Indicate. I explained I was mildly frustrated that the driver almost took myself and my wife out. The driver didn’t look at me and said that she didn’t “almost take us out” and I pointed out that as we both had to swerve that really was incorrect. At this point her partner jumped in and started to get irate. I paused, decided it was non-productive to keep banging on and continued. However, the ability to frustrate and annoy people kicked in, and I feigned a problem with my bike right in front of them to piss them off slightly.

It pissed them off slightly.

This caused the gentleman to make an idiot of himself by shouting obscenities out the window as I went on my way. He threatened to come and take me off my bike and put me in the sea. Clearly imagination was his strong point. I shouted back that I was going to look forward to it and if he played his cards right, I’d give him a kiss. (This provoked a laugh from people watching this situation prevail and will note that whilst he was getting hot headed I was the picture of calm)

They sped through the car park and the man genuinely got out with a desire to face up. I suggested to the others continue on their way as I didn’t want to drag them into the spat. As he got out the car, he shouted at me as I went past on the cycle path to which I responded by blowing him a kiss, saw him get irate and continued to catch up with Mike, Helen and Emma.

The whole situation would have been significantly nicer had the driver admitted that she hadn’t checked her mirrors, hadn’t indicated, hadn’t seen us and simply admitted she made a mistake and was sorry. Instead arrogance and stupidity prevailed. I could probably have not stirred the situation but I was pissed off with the driver but hey-ho got to make it enjoyable.

For those interested the pasty was excellent.

… for a database dump to complete downloading, I thought I’d write a cheeky post covering the last few days.

Last week was excellent. Two customers migrated cleanly and working nicely. My new kite showed up and I even got to fly it on Thursday. Had a great session and found the kite to be as nice as I’d hoped it would feel when I finally got my own. The loops are clean, jumping feels great and it can be trimmed in a treat giving it massive range. It even looks sick:

My own bar and lines should be arriving this week which will be excellent. The demo kite I borrowed from JN UK is leaving this week so I can’t steal that bar and lines to fly it! Today, Wednesday and Thursday looks windy so I can’t wait to get back out.

I also got my bike back on Friday. I upgraded the wheels from the off-the-shelf Alexrims+Stub hubs to Mavic EN521 rims, black DT Swiss spokes, black DT Swiss brass nipples and Hope ProII hubs front and rear.

What is the advantage? I was told I’d not feel much difference but the wheels would be stronger and a bit more solid. I’d disagree, the difference is staggering. Out on the ride at the weekend I was tearing down the hills with more control and finesse than ever before. They are much more solid which in turn gives a much more intimate feeling with the bike and the surface it is rolling over. I was throwing the bike round much more than I have previously done, it responded and there was not a trace of any change in the wheel state (unlike my previous wheels that had started to warp).

I also upgraded my front rotor to 185mm – it bites so much harder than the smaller 160.

The ride on Saturday was also excellent. I did the massive bomb hole/drop off at the end of OTF which I’d promised I’d do next time I was there (previously I had chickened out, it was like riding out our first floor flat window down an almost vertical slope until it curved out at the bottom). I nailed it. I also did some drop offs to get some air. They were similar to part of the Judges seat at Pitch which I am determined to do. Apart from those spikes of adenaline, the ride was friendly, chatty and a good social ending in some great cake and banter at Parklife.

Sunday was an odd day. No wind. No riding. No work. I was tired and generally did not a lot!

I hope you had a great weekend, tonight I’m going to go for a fly and then work on a website for my sister.

Good ride. Also went kiteboarding yesterday. Will write up more about both, and my week, tomorrow until then:

Max Speed: 27.1mph
Trip distance: 17.6miles
Moving Average: 7.7mph
Moving time: 2hr 16minutes

This is a picture BigAde took a while back at Pitch Hill. It is me coming out of one of the bomb holes. I’m sure I did get proper air but it was missed by the camera. What was got by the camera was quite a nice photo:

Going mountain biking during the day can be quite a daunting exercise.

There are roots, drops, inclines, stones and generally mountains in the way. You need to be aware of what is going on around you. You need to be able to see what is not just in front of you, but a distance off to chose the best line to avoid impalement, collisions, and ultimately death. Ok, I’ll admit I am being overly dramatic and will reduce it down to a simple rule:

Last night saw me venture out on my first night ride. Thanks to an exceptionally generous lend of a MaXx Exposure Enduro 2 light from Rich Gearing, I was set for an evening of night time shenanighans (without having to take my clothes off this time). As the day went on, I was starting to get nervous. What if I sucked? What if I was unable to keep up? What if my bike broke down and I was left behind to rot and die? In the end I had nothing to be nervous of.

I showed up at the shop in High Salvington, north of Worthing, and was greeted with a number of faces I recognised and a number I didn’t. Everyone seemed keen – we certainly had good weather with it being dry and sunny. When everyone was ready, we set off on a nice pace to get warmed up. Since going on Jim organised rides, I’ve noticed a trend. He wont tell people where we are going. It is all done under a guise of mystery and keeping the group together so people don’t race off, but at times I do wonder We were grouped at a ‘checkpoint’ and he darted off down a track. Like a pack of wolves everyone chased down with bobster to bail at the bottom of the hill. I believe stinging nettles and a twisted brake lever were the result of that particular bail. Being right behind him when he hit the deck, I was impressed that he didn’t take his head of with the barb wire fence.

[Shamelessly stolen from Jim]

The ride continued and we headed towards what I now know as APE (Angmering Park Estate). We headed through various foresty areas that were completely carpetted with blue bells. There were enough of them to look like one single unit, yet it was impossible focus on it. Almost like someone had put them on top of a washing machine on a high spin cycle.

The ride progressed and from this point was all a bit samey. There were more forest sections. There were muddy trails. There were roots. There was also a few note worthy moments:

- Turning on the lights. Amazing how much light one light puts out. Amazing how much light 18 people with said lights puts out. Was really curious to ride with the lights. At first it made me acutly aware of how much my front wheel twists and turns uncessarily; as the ride progressed I smoothed off my riding and it did feel better.

[Shamelessly stolen from Jim]

- Stacking it. Trying to avoid a tree, managed to hit an unseen tree stump. Cart wheel’d off the bike into some blue bells. I was just dusting myself off, wondering what had happened, and heard Si shout “you alrigh….”. Next moment, Si is cart wheeling and lying down next to me. He did exactly what I’d done moments before.

- Asbo stacking it. Not entire sure what happened but I think he, his bike and a pavement got into an argument and the pavement won. Unfortunately for asbo, pavement was backed up by Stinging Nettles and Gravel.

We ended up back at the shop. I grabbed the van and joined people at the pub. After a tasty London Pride I headed home to hit the sack. The ride was good fun and I’m looking forward to some slight faster, longer night rides. I really enjoyed the more technical bits when darting through the woods at speed. At one point it did occur to me that a reasonable night ride was a realtively straight forward day ride but with less light

Route:

Max speed: 26.6mph
Trip distance: 16.5miles
Moving average: 7.5mph
Moving time: 2hr 12min