Mountain Bike Action

Well I said I would be back with an update on the mountainbiking. I'm sorry its taken so long but I wanted to do a post with some pictures. Unfortunately I kept forgetting to take my camera and then when I did finally take my camera I forgot to take photos... oh well.

The mountain biking has been really good fun. so far I've ridden the peaks, cannock and wharncliffe forest. Some aspects of it I feel I've done fairly well and others I've found quite hard. Wharncliffe I found particularly frustrating in places. The ride that cooper took us on had loads of tree roots and it had been raining quite a bit which made it very sketchy in places.

I've found the riding in the peaks to be the most fun so far. There are some really technical sections with some tough hills and them some fast downhill single track. We've been doing one particular loop which Cooper showed me on my first ride and I have found it really fun everytime.

Something I have found is everytime we go out someone seems to have a fairly nasty wipeout. Cooper and Dan have both been over the bars and when we were at Wharncliffe Cooper had a horrific crash on the downhill section. Luckily everyone has been okay.

I kept wondering when my turn was coming. Well my turn came on Tuesday evening. I was following Dan and came to a root section with a step. We had a good pace on and Dan seemed to get over alright. I followed and next thing I knew I was over the handle bars. Unfortunately I landed on a sharp rock directly on my right thigh. It felt like someone had wacked me really hard with a baseball bat.
I carried on riding in the hope that it would subside but it seemed to just get worse. Whats followed is 2 days of pain and stiffness in my left leg and a massive bruise.

I'm feeling a bit better today. I just hope its okay for the mx race on Sunday.

New member of the family

Last night I went to pickup ANOTHER bike! Haha I'm still quite far off John the german's bike count so no need to get worried yet.

Now I've always had something against mountain biking and a lot of my riding friends are going to give me quite a bit of jip now that I've finally aquired one. Deep down I think they'll be happy though.

I think what started to change my mind was when Cooper purchased what you would class as an 'all mountain' bike. They are perfect for around here with the peaks and various forests we have. I honestly thought he would find it boring after flying through the air on his motocross bike and his bmx bike but one year on and he's still going on about how great it is.

So one year on I have finally taken the plunge and purchased an 'all mountain' bike. I figured if Cooper thinks its rad then it can't be half bad and it will be great fitness training for motocross. I'm going on a ride tonight so I will report back and let you know it goes.

Kitchen nightmare

Argggggh! I planned to go practice today but whilst doing the washing up, I cut a chunk out of my finger on the food processor blade. Its taken ages to stop bleeding and I think if any pressure is exerted at the moment it will just burst open. So no riding today, oh well, I think some times things like this happen for a reason.

Finningly Race

It was my first race back in about 10 months and DAMN was it hard! The weather was great and the track seemed to be running great too. There was an A, B and C class and every class was stacked with a full gate of 40 plus riders. Being my first race back in about 10 months I would have gone for the C class but Mason registered me in the B class before I even got there. I'm glad he did this as there is no better time than the present to step up. Its easy to stay down and make it easy on yourself but you're never going to improve unless you move up.


Moto 1 came round and I was psyched. I managed to get round the first corner in 3rd place which felt amazing. I stayed top 3 for a couple of laps but then I tired and dropped off very quickly. I was stoked as I had the speed to run up front, I just needed to work on fitness.

By the end of the first moto I was asking myself why I put myself through it all. I felt absolutely exhausted. Luckily there was a decent break between motos which gave me some time to recover.


My last 2 motos were similar to the first. I had a good start but then dropped off quickly due to overall lack of fitness and strength. I did however learn how to seat bounce properly. It was the first time I had really needed to do it. Another rider noticed that I was struggling to clear a jump and told me what to do. I started to do it in the last moto and by the end of it I was just about clearing the jump. Its a great feeling when you learn something new. I ended up getting 13th overall for the day which I thought was excellent considering the amount of riders and the class I was racing in. I'm also confident that will improve drastically when I get fit again.


2 Days on and I'm still feeling the pain. My left hand has four blisters on it and one of them feels like a 2nd degree burn as it has gone through a couple layers of skin. My thighs ache, my arms ache and my cheeks ache from a big ol' motocross smile.