The item Emma ordered for my Christmas present has finally arrived. That is right, I now own a tiny fraction of Apple Inc.

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

This is a great video show casing some sick riding and some real nice products on the JN range.

JN Products 2009 South Africa from JN Kites UK on Vimeo.

Check out the loops!

Yesterday after work I decided to see how far I could comfortably ride. The goal was to ride the 22 miles to where my mum lives, then start a ride back. At the point in time I couldn’t continue I would go to the nearest train station and get a train back to Hove. I wanted to try and keep the pace up to keep my average speed about 11mph (what is needed to complete 100 miles in 9 hours (which is what will be needed if I’m to complete the South Downs Way Randonee 100 miles)).

I cheated a bit and kept to roads (mainly because I wanted to go some where familiar).

This is the route I took:

In the end I did 45 miles over 3.02 hours. With an average speed of 14.7mph:

On return, I think I could probably have made it to about 60 miles before conking out. Now it is just a case of building stamina, fitness and off road time. I definitely think I will be investing in some proper off road bike lights for evening/night training and some Stans No Tubes to help avoid punctures. Going to be a hectic 2.5 months in the lead up to the ride.

The official wedding photos from our, er, wedding can be found at http://bit.ly/coshrosswedding. The password is Ross.

In Brazil, I noticed my bridle on my 11m sonic had gone wonky. I finally fixed it last night, but this is what one of them looked like:

Had I flown with that, I’d have been screwed in all the bad ways.

Dobby and myself headed to Pitch Hill for some Easter Sunday mountain biking action.

We met at 9am in the usual car park. We set off into the mist and the trees. The tracks were really quite muddy and wet. At every opportunity roots tried to slide us, pools of water and mud tried to slide us, Pitch Hill tried to slide us. The going was good and we pushed forward with the riding. It was nice to get into a faster rhythm. I managed to nail all three bomb holes. The berm. I even managed to get down 2 of the switch backs before almost toppling down the hill. We enjoyed a well earned tea + extras from the tea shop which was surprisingly open and they even informed us that the only day they are closed is Christmas day.

We headed up to the Yoghurt pots and was met with the very definition of the trail. It was exceptionally muddy and full of water. We only went round once as both our bikes were screaming with the dirt, water, mud and forest stuck in it. At this point in time my left knee was starting to ache so we headed back to the car park visiting Barry Knows best on the way. Both of us noted that we were apprehensive about BKB – it was a fast root laden trail. However, both of us nailed it. I could feel my skill had improved since the first time I daintily rode BKB because I was really enjoying hopping over roots, hitting the jumps, carving round hard on the turns. Even the final decent had gone from terror to joy going down it.

We did the long slog up to the car park which served as a nice warm down. After some delicate bike-into-car-without-getting-car-muddy work, some stretching and clothe changing I headed off home content with another ride at Pitch under my belt.

Max speed: 22mph
Trip Distance: 8.89miles
Moving Average: 5.2mph
Moving Time: 1hr 41min

Once I got home. I had this to clean. Suffice to say it is cleaned, lubricated and sat waiting for the next trip out.

[Forgive the mud on the lens ]

Did a mountain bike ride today with Quest shop.

Max Speed: 26mph
Trip Distance: ~19miles
Moving Average: 7mph
Moving Time: 3hrs

Was good. Tired now. Looking forward to some Pitch action tomorrow.