Omars induction to IBFC

Omar has now left the UK and headed back to the Gambia, the next time me and Dave see him will hopefully be in Banjul sometime in January.

I’ve posted this on the IBFC main page rather than the rally page as Omar was officially inducted into the brake for cake brotherhood when he came climbing with the Brighton Explorers to K2 in Crawley last week. Despite being slightly bemused by the fact that someone had gone to the trouble of building a fake wall inside he seemed to really enjoy it.

Considering he’d never seen anyone rock climb before he despatch a couple of 4a and b’s fairly quickly, helped by the fact that he’s basically really, really tall!

I spent a bit of time convincing him it was all safe as houses when Sarah fell of the lead I’d just climbed whilst holding half the slack she needed for the next clip in her teeth, she tensed up with the fall and clamped down on the rope resulting in her front teeth being dislodged and one coming out, ouch!!!

Omar if your reading this in an internet café somewhere it was good to meet you and we’ll have an ibrakeforcake T-shirt ready with your name on it when (if?!?!) me and Dave see you in The Gambia
Pics to come when I get the site working

Harrisons Rocks II

Having been up to Stone Farm and Harrison’s quite a few times with the Brighton Explorers I’m starting to get to know my way round the area and some of the climbs. Really starting to see some progression with my technique and climbing strength and quite frankly the ‘semi pro crew from Bucks’ wouldn’t stand a ‘snow balls’ faced with the awesome collective power of the sandstone massive. Not only that in the true spirit of IBFC, Lucy did indeed bake the cake, Hooyah.

The pic of the empty, roped up climb on the corner has got the mother of all leg jams about a third of the way up. It took Matt ages to convince me it would work and three or four attempts to suss out cantilevering most of my weight through a horizontal jammed leg while pulling off a dyno to characteristically smooth round sandstone and a softly, softly catchee monkey move over the remainder of the section. All followed by a crack further left that needs a fisted hand jam about 2/3rds of the way up to get any where near pulling it off. Seriously pumped arms after the crack left me 1 move from the top unable to finish the bugger off!! Now I’ve got it sussed I’ll stop tw&*ing about and have it first go next time (maybe).

Patrick's hanging about trying 'Niblick'. Tricky little blighter with quite an amusing end requiring a body jam through a really small hole!

Unfortunately the evenings are already noticeably shorter so I’m just gonna enjoy getting outside after work for as long as possible.
Later Y’all

Mad rushabout!

Lots of things needed sorting on Friday arvo, and I was looking down the barrel of a very scarry gun, as I'd blown my 5th Elephant shock in Wales last weekend (rebound damping? What rebound damping?) and was desperately trying to sort out getting a replacement under warrenty before next week and our Apline adventures! Spesh warrantees department were really helpful, saying they'd replace the 5th with a DHX 5 straight away, but on ringing Mojo, I found that they only had one left! Not good. Anyway, after a little BBQ action on Friday at Rich and Anna's and getting shouted at by the neighbours for playing on the swings at 12:30 (!) and a bit of light shed demolition at my parent's house on Sat, I hooked up with Gav, Chris and Adam MJ at Leith Hill, for a spot of trail action. Chris was trialling a Kona Stuff and doing his best to destroy it (given the reaction of the staff member who took it back and noticed the peeled up sticker, he'd have had kittens if he'd seen Chris actually riding it!), as you should with any test bike! Very quick trail day, Chris seems to up the pace on every single outing and as Adam pointed out, can just ride through corners without any apparent change of direction! Gav was hot on the pace after his last sickly show at Leith, and we all had a good cruise in general. Loving that little jump at the bombholes area. After a good little session where Adam, the forgotten member of ELO, shone a light on our lives (!) with some nice x-ups and Chris and I sarted to learn tabletops, we reaced back to Crawley to sort bikes and for the helpful guys at Crwaley Evans to sort my shock nightmare out. Cheers to them as it should all be sorted by Friday!

Cwm Carn and Afan

Helloo all and sundry! Well after a very unsuccesful posting which rendered my mac completely useless! - Virus?!, We're back!

Bad week, last week as Chris had his bike stolen by some absolute ****, whislt swimming in the sea. They bolt crimped the lock in broad daylight on a busy seafront in Brighton!

Last weekend saw Rich, Dave (me), Chris and the boy wonder (Daryl) head off to south Wales for a spot of proper trail riding with the loose excuse of 'preparing' for the Alps trip later in the month... It all started as it was set to finish, with Rich having a crash. I rung Chris en route only to find him helping The Posh at the side of the road after a biker undertook him, then brake-tested his Citroen AX in some kind of Kamakaze manouvere! The AX is good, but not that good and Rich created a trike style skid pattern and was pretty lucky not to have seriously injured this **** at 60mph! More on that. After this drama, we were a little late hitting the road and caught all the worst traffic, so were thoroughly imprressed when we rocked up at our campsite to see Daryl, Gem and Amy rocking a proper woodburning fire and brandishing a chilled beer! Daryl was sporting his spangly new Giant Reign which apparently he got for supa-cheap-dolla, having charmed the shop keeper with his soothing tones... Next day we all headed to the Afan valley in the quite torrential rain whilst the girls headed off on one of the forest walks, the real men left the car unlocked, forgot to pay for parking, had a bottom bracket replaced for quite litteraly daylight-robbery prices (Drayl's quote for the day - 'talk to him, get freindly and try and get a discount' was scuppered by the fact that they heard it. Don't bother.) and wheezed and puffed up to the top of the Whytes Level and new 'Downhill' routes. Having arrived at the top, we buggered around trying to get Bob's borrowed RF helmet cam to work (to no avail.) and then headed down the "Downhill" route, which started promissingly with a nice air to berm affair and then turned into flat fireroad. Then wet ladder trail (which, has also been put into the WL trail to grat effect - that boggy section after the fast Forest run half way through is now planked and much better for it!) was good, but very slippery and I had a wheelspin off which caused Daryl to knacker his ankle and cause all sorts of drama. The rest was a little better overall, but the layout for the dirt bassed run was somewhere between great and absolutely appaling. Some of what could have been really good steep sections with little rock drops were awful, with no clean line anywhere and absolutely no flow in the wet (and probably dry, too.) Rich had a bit of a spill, bending his rear brake lever blade into an interesting shape and I showed some boyos the way to do it, airing a double into 90 degree berm and taking no speed into it, thus stopping on the up ramp of the second double in the 90 degree position. Nice, pure flow. WL taril was good too, causing some whoops and an angry Chris on my tail ( he too fast on a full susser) and lots of mud in the eye. We all retuned to find everything in the car (!) and headed back off to dry our kit, by lighting a petrol fuelled wood fire in torrential rain and steaming everything dry against all odds, with beer in hand. You should have seen the faces of the Flanders family that had pitched next to us!


It should be noted at this point never, ever listen to an 'engineer'. Trying to fix Rich's brake blade, someone of the three engineers present (not me, I'm a photographer) decided that the remedy was to put said blade into the fire to 're-shape it'. Ten minutes later we had a completely melted pile of aluminium and a quite pissed off Rich. Next morining, to our almost hysterical laughter, Rich went into the only thing resembling a bike shop in Risca - a chopper and Hrley type place advertising tatooing, net to Risca Indian (!)- wearing a body fitting Helly Hansen and shorts to ask for help. We didn't know how long to leave it before going in to get him, but he eventually came out, surprisingly empty handed. However, we got a BMX lever at a car spares place (only in Wales) and bodged the ultimate BMX bandit Hayes hydraulic bodge! The trail was perfect and dry and very much fun. The downhill looked fun and scary at the same time and we had a great time hiking the last downhill run of the loop a few times, which we were going pretty flat out on. Then on the last run, I binned it (again) and Rich ran past me. I then went hell for leather and caught him up in a pile next to a tree, which he'd hit face first after the bodged lever gave way! Nasty is all I'm going to say. Lots nof blood being spat out and from nose area.




All in all, though a stunning weekend and I can't wait to get back and have a crack at the downhill course with my full face and armour as it looked ace!

Chicks in sand

Bit of a week really. Chris had his bike stolen last week by an absolute scumbag who bolt-clipped his reinforced lock in broad daylight in a busy spot in front of the beach. I on the other hand, snapped my dropout clean in two after getting the jockey wheels completely stuck with grass, whilst going off piste up the side of a field... Nice 2 mile push home. However, after a bit of a search and waiting for Phil Corleys to open, I finally had a new hanger and Mike, Rich and Myself were motoring off for some freeride action.

Master at work

Glad to see that all of Daryl's engineering prowess can be displayed in one simple bar construction... Good work. With skills such as these, Britain can only grow stronger!

Paddle Round the Pier 2006

Pictures remain copyright of Sean Clark and paddleroundthepier.com

http://www.paddleroundthepier.com

http://www.zen31943.zen.co.uk/paddle/index.html

30 odd Degrees in Brighton, best place to be, in the water. Me and some of the boys from Hove Lagoon, Khi, John boy and Craig, joined in the 2006 paddle round the pier. Just a good excuse to drink beer and listen to bands on a Sunday really all in the name of 'charity mate'. Mr and Mrs Slimboy Fat put in an appearance to get proceedings underway. Pic above is not so high res but we're in there somewhere (left hand side couple rows back from the front). Free beer was obtained thanks to Johnn boy and the magicVIP pass and we spent the rest of the evening on the beach working on hangover potential for Monday morning with the occasional swim thrown in for good luck. See the sharkbait site in our links for more details and a link to ITV local coverage of the whole days events.

Move to Brighton losers

How to climb rock when you live in Bucks!

The now alomst professional standard, Wednesday night climbing crew of 'Hard Start Steve', 'Travis Crimpenhorn' and 'Vertigo Dave' have reached the limits of all known indoor climbing facilities, so with this in mind and a two and a half hour drive to Sheffield or Bowles, the granite-warriors tapped the underground and came up with a stunning little Gem. Where do you climb outdoors when you live in Bucks? Answer, you go and play on the disused railway bridges near Olney! I must admit that I was a little sceptical before we left, but as it turned out, there were some really good routes to be had on the bridges. The brick slabs are rough-cut Grasandnite Stone (Jelouse, geology boy? The IBFC's rock knowledge is encyclopedic, really obscure stuff that, shipped over from Chad especially for disused railways.) with all sorts of holds appearing, crimpers, undercuts and slopers - all there. You can climb all variety of routes and take some as high as the bridge sides (appx 30ft), but we hadn't got a bouldering mat with us, so settled for a few techy crimp routes, with Hard-Start setting a few beuties. Thoroughly good. We'll be back when the new spandex sponsor comes up with the goods.

Likely lads raid Bracknell...

With Alpine preparations kicking and spluttering into action, a wheezing and coughing (Shisha seems like such a cosmopolitan idea until you've got to do exercise!) collective of IBFC members headed down to Swinley for what can only be described as some scorchingly medium-paced trail action. The mood for the ride was set with the presence of the recently aquired "Thunder Chariot", the team IBFC P-D Isuzu Trooper, in all its dented and rusting glory. Loud mouth southern rep, 'Thats-the-kiddy!' Finter was gloriously late which allowed me to fit a shorter stem on my enduro, whilst Mike attempted to make his old Kona, pedal, brake and change gear - all fundamentals of biking, I've been told... I have to add that Mike was riding said bike, because he broke his £700 fox forks by overtightening the thru axle retainer bolts. Muppet.

Daryl finally arrived and produced the most Sh*t-kickingly old, hobbled together GT the world has ever seen. "s'got gears though!" he beamed, having proudly undersold his P1 for £200 to a mate, "whilst a bit drunk".
What followed was lots of fireroad pedalling whilst Mike pretended that he knew where he was and then some really bad berm riding near the dirt-jumps, before hitting the trails and some synchronised (or not) drops where captain slow rode straight into a tree. See pictures! Always good to have Daryl on any mission, just for the gawping stupid faces he pulls, also see picture. Nice one boys, hopefully we can get the whole Alps crew together next time...

NEW SITE!!

Welcome to our new site.

As you can see we've grown a little and now have a dedicated Rally and Motorsport section.

Check them out for more info and back here for more of the antics of the ibrakeforcake team.

Enjoy

**UPDATE**

As to be expected our new site is having problems in some versions of IE for PC. Our Web Monkey is working on this and will be updating the site as soon as possible!

Mike's Thought for the Day

I think therefore I am

I'm pink therefore I'm spam

-anon

Gowertastic!!

Hello One and all!

Everyone turned out in style for the glorious weather of the Gower in South Wales and had a smashing time celebrating Mike getting old!! Great to see everybody and I for one had brilliant fun. Climbing, relaxing, sun, Shisha, full on beach party (with responsible, adult tidying up as we're all getting ona bit!), frisbee and knacker squashingly cold swimming! What more could one ask. I've posted a few pics of the bouldering as I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was at that scary height of 'just above safe'. Other highlights included watching a very drunk Gav try and get into the boot of a rover, exploding stuff and Linzee's unquenchable desire for cookies at breakfast. Brilliant! My sunburn still hurts and I can't wait to do it all over again soon. Viva La Gower!

ibrakeforcake goes International

It's official, team ibrakeforcake has been accepted for the 2007 Plymouth to Banjul Rally, official launch party 8th July !!!!!!! Me and Davros the co-pilot will be driving an as yet undecided left hand wagon to Gambia leaving some time in December this year. Loads more detail to come but thought I'd put a quick post up to mark the start of the shennaigans.

Chris 'desert rat' Lawler

P.S. http://rallybrakeforcake.blogspot.com is where the action will be unfolding!

21/5/06 Leith Hill

WET! Thats all there is to say really! Manning-Jones missed out as it was spectacularly good fun and slidey. No-one else there and very deep wet puddles and mud. Brilliant.

20/5/06 Chicksands

What with a awful weather forcast and a general trend towards saving petrol money, we scratched our original idea of riding at Afon in Wales and opted for the slightly drier and much closer, Chicksands! This also served as a group introduction for Neil and considering he's only riden mtb once before, we really threw him in at the deep end, but he handled it really well. We'll have you bombing down stuff before you know it! It was still a bit wet, but we had a good blast around with some good runs on the dual course and some nice trail runs too. Have posted some pics of a few guys riding the dual much better than us - one of them we'd bumped into before at Swinley when Mike was being gay and not dropping anything. Situation normal, there, then!


I was very excited as I had just got a new full face, in preparation for Morzine. Spesh Deviant - amazingly light weight and breezy, it really didn't feel any different to normal. Stoked!

Dawn Raid

Hello people... All has been quiet on the activity front of late with peopletrading exercise and excitement for work and beer fuelled shinanigans!!! Bucking this trend Mike and I had a wicked evening at Swinley on Friday, fitting in some new fast trails and a bit of dirt jumping, where Mikes' ambition got the better of his ability once again on the last run of the night. Priceless. We then got up just after 6am (!) and hit Leith hill for a quick blast before ten. Freeride is all about the dawn raids. Yeah right. both of us nearly threw up.

Easter Weekend

Easter Sunday saw Daryl, Chris, Dave and Gav in Friston Forest. It had been raining all Saturday and as such the majority of the downhills were greasy and just a tad hairy!! After a few attempts, some jumping and a long search for a mystical bombhole which had been trashed we finished the riding with a blitz down to the pub (Not so much of a blitz for Daryl due to a puncture a 1/4 of the way down!) where Dave to his delight found the Hungry Monk Reastaurant, 'The Birthplace of Banoffi Pie'


In an attempt to better the previous days activities on Easter Monday Chris, Dave, Gav, Daryl, Amy and Gemma headed to Harrison's Rock for the first outdoor climb of the year. Following the sharp realisation that we couldn't climb the first route described as 'slippery and unclimable' in the guide, we moved on to have some good climbs including the aptly named 'Hell Wall' (Difficult start according to the guide.....Chris!!), some falls and a fun day out for all.