More of Yorrrr

Just found these shots on an old cd and took me back down memory lane to when I was shooting for Sidewalk. I used to be ok at shooting action sports type stuff, now I'm too busy enjoying it and far too lazy!!!! These are just a couple of shots that were already sized up for web, so I thought I'd bung 'em on. Sorry, not going to turn this site into a skateboard pic dump, but these are pics from my days of Yorr!

Dave

Medic! Medic!

As is usual for me before any big trip (ie P2B!) I have injured myself in some special way. Climbing last night I partially dislocated my left knee which has caused some ACL damage according to the hospital! I need to go back to my GP in a few days time so they can asses the damage when the swelling has subsided! Mike cheered me up though, with the promise of an operation, 6 weeks off work and a six MONTH recovery period. DAMN!!! As I'm a bit bored already, I thought that I might instigate some 'Sweet days of Yor' photos - ie any pictures that the IBFC have knocking around of them in action as nippers! I'm thinking that shot of Ben doing the worlds biggest x-up gap should be aired, Adam! Here's me age 17, 9stone ;p and taking it to the edge in a West Mersea carpark!


Dave

PORC...

We rode at PORC on Saturday, as we were all getting togethrer to celebrate Chris' birthday, it seemed the right thing to do. Bit of a mixed bag, really - I'd allways been led to believe that PORC was the nuts and Mike, Daryl and Adam whod all ridden there some years earlier were making all the right noises, but we spent the first hour and a half actually looking for fabled berm runs and 'sweet drops' that had all just been let to go to pieces. Looks like they're in the process of making changes, with the quarry being filled in to make a water pit for children to decapitate themselves trying backflips and some other bits and bobs here and there. We had a bit of a blast on the 4x and I was really annoyed not to clear the bridge (I was miles of!) as I didn't commit to connecting the triple that sets you up for it. Nice one Daryl for showing me how its done... There were one or two runs that were quite nice and Daryl and I had a blast on a sandy double at the top of one of the runs, with two blokes who were styling it much nicer than us! See pics. I don't think Adam liked anything except the dirt jumps which the rest of us hit with our trademark DJ stylee - ie crap...

Good day out in the end and set us up nicely for a wicked birthday shinding in Brighton.

FINALLY!

Woah. Sometimes things take far too long to come into fruition. Me jumping over a tiny road gap at Woburn is one of those things. It took about a million run ups and 'looks' before I committed to doing this little puppy, I must be getting old! Think this one pictured was the biggest, probably about 9ft or so, felt big anyway... Photo is a bit misleading as it looks like i'm just off the lip, you actually run off the bit with the tree stump. Rich was also on form and I got this nice pic of him blasting a little (6m flat in the air!) air out of a drop-to-bombhole thingy. Take-off is just left of the flash burst and landing is about a mile to the right!

CAKE, anyone?

Thought there was a lack of gateau did you? Well? Just to prove that we're true to our moniker, Steffi produced another fantastic cake to help the spirits of Chris and I during a weekend when we forwent the pleasures of riding in the sun, for sanding our rally car in a hot warehouse... Just to keep it real, Steffi used my extreme homemade blckberry jam and clotted cream. God, we're rock and roll. Check out the P2B link above for piccies of the car and I promise I'll go riding tomorrow, Rich...

The Beast

Not content with being a hardcore, extreme, on-the-edge, to-the-max type pro mountain biker, I have now started the "I Brake For Cake Classic Car Club" (or IBFCCCCCCC if you will). I have achieved this by purchasing a 1977 Triumph Spitfire 1500 in glorious vermillion red (which is, quite clearly to everyone except Triumph, orange!). If I was about 5 years older I think this might constitute an early mid-life crisis, but for now I think I can get away with it. The car needs a bit of tweaking but preliminary road tests have been positive; it's pretty nippy and handles well once you get used to 1970s braking prowess. That said it's a bit rubbish on singletrack, all over the place on big berms and nose-heavy over doubles.

Planned mods include some K&N air filters (shiny ones), a straight through sports exhaust (also shiny) and of course underfloor lighting, a neon gearknob and full I.C.E. now I'm back in Essex.

I am also joining the AA.

Miguel

BFG

I've been the proud owner of the Giant Reign for a couple of months now and it has seen action in Afan, Cwncarn, QE, major downhill routes in Les Get & Morzine and most recently some sweet air in Bracknell!!

First impressions were a little mixed as it is my first full bouncer, even hopping off kerbs was a major effort. I've now got used to the way you need to ride the beast and I am very impressed.
First the frame; The rear triangle is super stiff and doesn't look like it'll ever break, even when you land something really sideways there is no noticeable flex from the rear stays. The main frame is also burly enough whilst keeping weight down so hills aren't too much of a problem. The most impressive thing though is the Maestro suspension system, without even adjusting the SPV (platform) pressure you can go straight from technical uphills to major rocky downhills. If you really want to lock it out for the ups you can pop a little more pressure (40psi) in but I'm not one for major cross country slogs so it appears to have been the perfect bike choice for me. Only complaints really are the cable routings (they bulge out with the suspension action) and the fact that the chain can get jammed between the granny ring and frame, although I am working on some mods to prevent this.
Components; OK then this is a real mixed bag as my budget dictated that I buy the Reign 3 with the basic spec. Major complaint is the fork, the Manitou Splice is cheap, the action is poor and tends to lock up after hard use (damping issues me thinks) and they have bags of play in the bushes. I always planned to upgrade these though and they got me through a week in the Alps so I shouldn't be too harsh! The LX groupset is superb, no problems there and reliable slick shifting. Hayes sole brakes are also reliable and simple, the front could do with a bigger rotor for the big downhills though.
All told this is a hell of a lot of bike for £800 that truly can be used for 'All Mountain' and the frame alone RRP of £800 means I can spend a few hundred quid on making it into exactly the kind of bike to suit my riding style (erratic!!!)

IBFC Testing Department...

Laugh? I nearly cried! Juan-Pablo, our oversees 'product tester' trials an early prototype of the paper bolt. Not content with feverishly drilling all our bolts to shave off the grams, the XC wing of IBFC turned to 'The Engineers' (of lever smelting fame) for a new wafffer-theeen stem bolt constructed of paper... The results were obvious and Juan now sports a new face... I love the brake cable and the fact that he was trying to do a Finter-nofoot! Is the small child on the left about to run in to save him?

Foxy!

Me in action!



As promised, the time has come to write a review and after some really varied riding over the last month, I think that I've tried the Fox DHX 5.0 on all sorts of terrain. So here goes!

Setting up the 5th was allways a bit of a stab in the dark, the rebound adjustment wasn't remarkable and sag setting didn't always seem to factor in what the terrain would through at you, so in comparison, the DHX is dripping with adjustability that actually works! Firstly, I'm glad that the 2007 version has done away with the seperately presurised boost valve as that'd just confuse me more, so like the Manitou Swinger and others in the world of air shocks its just running at 1/3 main chamber presure.
One thing that I really like on this shock is the bottom out resistance dial and I've been playing with this quite a bit as it really effects the shock downstroke action without compramising the general running characteristic of the shock. With the 5th, I'd up the presure in both chambers if I was doing some 'big' drops that day to limit the bottoming, making for a stiff shock in general running, with the DHX, you can have a responsive, smooth ride in the trail and rely on the BOR dial to take care of the bigger stuff. Perfect. Have also been much more impressed with the rebound characteristics of this shock and you definately notice the difference of dialling in/out a few more clicks as appropriate. For most of our time in the Alps, I ran the shock with a lot less propedal dialled in and the main chamber at slightly less capacity (220psi, I'm fat and normally run it at 250-60) in and was pleased with it as it didn't bob much even when you needed to put in those frantic pedal strokes before the next lip and really sucked up the hits and roots on the fast stuff. The overview is that it feels much more reliable, I'm not afraid to tinker as I was with the 5th. When I bought my Enduro I was very worried about the 5th as I'd read loads of comments on poor performance and blowing the damping seal and really considered other bikes based on this. Both my and Mike's 5th blew the damping seal (Mike's within three weeks of purchase and both in S.Wales too!) and in a strange way I'm glad mine went as the Fox is so much nicer and really does the rest of the bike justice.

Dave

Swinley Visit

We rode at Swinley forset today after no hours sleep and recovering from the audio-visual assault of a night out in a Milton Keynes night club. Wicked time and thanks to everyone that turned up to Steffi's Birthday... As all gatherings are an excuse to ride, Mike and I drove down to Bracknell with a short stop in Tring for Mike to buy a Triumph Spitfire (!), as you do and a very nice example it is too. I had been getting very worried that there was a distinct feel of autumn comming on, but Sunday was just like June and the trails were fast and dusty and just what we needed. Daryl was had invited along two mates, Gareth a more regular rider and Dan who was less experienced, but both really up for it and with Swinley's all accomodating nature, everyone had a great time on the trails and gully jumps. Daryl and I finally plucked up the courage to drop into the side of the gully which was absolutely nothing and everyone had a good blast on the jumps. Impressed with Gareth and even captain slow showed some style!

Alps Trip!

Okey Kokey people, the Alps trip has come and gone and we are all sadly back in the harsh reality of WORK! Never mind, all good things come to an end...
It really did live up to all the hype that we'd heard from other people and I can't wait to get back there, so I'll let the others fill in the gaps as I usually misinform on a grand scale when jotting my blog entires...Dave

Chris

Hmmph, not in the mountains anymore. Have however just booked this weekend in Dorset with Kate, might help ease me back into working what with my 3 and half day this week and having just found out I'm owed another 5 days, woohoo.

Firstly, I'm just glad I got to go on holiday at all, on account of Gemma's flippant remark about idiots not checking their passports before they travel, lead to me clocking my passport was out of date a good 15mins before we left for the ferry, helpful. What with Finters patented cross country route fitting squarley into the detour rather than short cut box we arived at the check in with about 10mins till the ferry sailing, Daryl nailed an entire bag of choccy eclairs in nervous uncontrolled face filling, Dave 'nochalant' Branfield was fighting the urge leap out of the car and hand himself over to the authorities on 1 count of person smuggling and 1 count of wearing indecent underwear and I bored all and sundry to distraction blurting out the details of my current love life (Kate if you're reading this it was the PG version). Anyway it would appear that a valid passport is surplus to requirements entering or leaving France but does make for a stressful start to the holiday. Still at least I didn't notice on the Morrocon border sometime in December.................

The Alps rule, winter summer whatever. Getting that first lift in the morning while its all still quite and there's just the occassional rumble of the lift bumbing over the pylons is a good feeling. Picking out new lines and checking if take offs and landings are dry and just getting worked up for the days riding.

My hire bike (GT Ruckus i-drive) may have the heaviest rear end ever seen this side of celebrity fat camp. Didn't really realise until I picked Dave's bike off the lift with about a tenth of the effort!! looking forward to riding the Kona again, with all that reduced weight I'll have no excuse.

I reckon you could spend a good couple of months out there before you had to start riding any of the same trials all the time and it would take you that long to build up a bit of specific fitness, riding downhill constantly is just as knackering as taking on a cross country loop and occasionally a far sight more painful. Anyone whose thinking about going, do it! If you want to prepare, go to Wales and ride the meanest section of the MBR run in Coed-y over and over in the wet till your hands feel like they might fall off, then brush up on your Aussie accent.......Finter.

Finally to anyone who may well be reading this in the Boomerang bar, sorry. Also all Australian beer sucks, not just the Tooheys although I thnk Daryl may have made this point somewhat forcefully already.

Daryl...
General impression and comment of the week was 'Epic'. I think that summed it up quite nicely, the sheer scale and endless number of different trails was amazing. It was a real shock to the system to be back riding the "Advanced loop" at QE country park near Portsmouth last night. Not exactly what you would call advanced, as we finished in the dark and I still nearly fell asleep at the helm of the Giant!!

The trails in Les Get and Morzine are so much different to anything we ride over here it is difficult to draw comparisons. The major thing that surprised us all was just how difficult it is to ride any of the Black runs in one hit without losing complete feeling in hands and forearms. Other than bumpy they can best be descrbed as steep, rocky and rooty with the odd sneaky drop, landing onto wet roots, just to keep you focused!! (Red run in the rain from the top of super Morzine anyone??)

On the bike front the Giant Reign was superb, only major drawback was the forks. The splice elite's have to go. Whilst the back end was soaking up everything I threw at it the forks were doing their best bucking bronco impression, leaving me sorely dissapointed that I didn't have a set of Fox 36's on the front. Best of all I managed all the ups last night at QE without any change of rear shock setting.

Final note...If you are going to visit Les Get don't make complete fools of yourselves by smashing into Le Boomerang and doing really bad Australian accents all night whilst abusing the regulars. Good job I don't have a loud voice hey!!

IBFC return

Back from the alps. Bummer. Not many pics either, enjoying it too much!!

2006 Kona Srap Medium (17")

Mmm new shiny thing. Kona Scrap 2006 (not Scrape thank you Michael) Only had one ride real ride on the new steed, well kind of 2 including the test ride on the Kona Stuff. The whole experience is very very different to the Aggressor, the Marzochi Dirt Jam Pros are such a difference to the old school ‘Judy’ Rox Shox that adorned the GT god rest its soul. Having uncharacteristically read the destructions I upped the rebound damping to 1 turn off fully damped set the air pressure in the right fork to 35psi and wound the preload to ¾ full for a pre alps huck round Chicksands.

Spent a bit of time tinkering before hitting the dual slalom. It was a completely different experience riding it on the Kona compared to the GT, where as on the GT I felt slightly like I was surviving the course, on the Kona landings felt much more planted and stable and the smaller frame made muscling the bike round in the air much more natural and fun, still working on the tweaks but just being able to line the bike up for a landing is confidence inspiring. Before long I was happily nailing the first jump of the course which requires a committed pedal burst down the start ramp stopping literally at the foot of the take off, dial that jump and speed for the rest of the course just flows.

Had a bit of a high speed blast at Leith Hill down Summer Lighting but I’m still to see what its like when you press on a bit rather than trying to get permanently airborne but so far I’m dead chuffed.
Things to do, refit grips as they’re a bit slidy, correctly seat front hub bearings, re-tune gears, get wheel checked for spoke tension, unfortunately all a result of selling my soul to the Devil and buying from Evans, still can’t grumble about the price.

Laters

Mmmmm, Bouncy...

Sorry, Steph, but I think I might actually be in Love!!! With you of course, but I really like my new DHX 5.0 too! I've only just put this puppy on, after the demise of my 5th Element (it just couldn't hack my pace and gut probably, too!) and first impressions, other than that the manual is completely useless, are very good. I will review it properly for anyone thats interested, after we get back from France and I've had a good play. The manual wasn't very clear on setup of the boost valve and I was struggling to work out what the deal with that was, only to be told by my helpful LBS (Phil Corleys MK - they must think I'm some sort of retard as I'm forever going in asking dumd shock questions), that the Boost runs at appx 1/3 main chamber pressure and is no longer seperate, even though the setup guide tells you to pump it up! Never mind. Some more product reviews on various new purchases will bee forthcomming from the IBFC massive.

Nicely juxtaposed against the Volvo, don't you think? no? Oh well, you don't know art when it hits you...

It wasn't me Guv...

Our second home.

Quite a bits happened on the biking front in the last few weeks, all leading to some sort of climax in the Alps next week, hopefully. Chris has managed to replace his nicked GT with a sparkly new Kona Scrap, which he couldn't stop looking at the other day in my lounge! We've all been there. Or maybe not! Looks like a really solid trail bike and seemed to ride like a dream today at Chicksands...

I have sorted out my quite woefull situation of not having the Enduro for a week, as the Evans boys in Crawley sorted me out with a new 2007 Fox DHX 5.0 just in the nick of time for me to ride this weekend. Saturday was consumed with an early evening ride at Woburn, with some really fast and dry trail (comlete with bloodied forarms from the Gausse bushes) and a bit of a muck about on the 'downhill' routes and jumps. Not really rating Woburn very much, as the trails have really fallen into dis-repair and it now mostly seems to be a jump spot and not much else...

Chris arrived after our blast and on Sunday we headed over to Rowney Warren to play in the freeride area. We've all been buying a fair bit of kit recently, so in the misguided tought that other people look at this site, we'll start to review a few of the bits and bobs in the next few weeks or so. Stop Press. No really.

Anyway, it was raining when we got there and I thought it could be all over, but it soon stopped and we had a brilliant ride, running the dual course and trails with Phil and his mates that we'd met there before. Best trail of the day being the bomb hole run into the little road gap trail. Mike had a nice crash on one of the jumps, which seemed to affect me, just by watching it and I soon packed in the jumping. Chris was on form as usual and had some nice ladder stuff before breaking his saddle clasp which had us all looking in the twiggs like a bunch of dicks! Some poeple just ride too damn hard, eh Christoph?! Nicely rounded off with the larger of the two drops into the bomb hole and then a jaw slackening roll down the 4X course. Will be building up to that, methinks!!! Very impressed with the DHX and new Brand X stem. Will attempt to review like I know what I'm talking about.


Next stop Morzine!

Mum it's fine, it's not Dangerous at all

but just in case.