Brrrrr

This weekend saw a nearly full strength IBFC crew including the girls head to Sheffield and Dr Jens house for a spot of sherry.

Friday nights drive required a fair display of ice and snow driving which meant we didn't get there till about 9.30 but was quite amusing and also meant we were probably in for snow the next day.

We've hit Kinder Scout before but with the weather the way it was we headed back to Edale and headed up past the station up the waterfall to be greated by a serious amount of cold white stuff.

Bits of the waterfall were just frozen enough to allow you stand on it briefly before cracking under the snow and delivering a cold water/boot slam dunk

Scrambling was a bit more interesting as you couldn't see most of the floor or grip much



Our lunch spot compared to the girls sauna and spa day!

Sat nights queue spanking got even better when the Arctic Monkeys rocked up inducing mosh related injuries and property loss (except if Gav's mum is reading this then Gav definately did NOT mosh at anytime, at all)

Back to Normality

Well, after all thats been going on I think that Chris and I are still reeling from the P2B thingy and enjoying time with our mrs's whilst generally everyone has had their heads down a bit over Jan. I for one have bitten off well more than I (or Steffi) can chew with our new building 'project' and I'm learning all about underpinning and other stupid stuff that I've claimed I can do - read, have no money to pay a professional so I'm going to have to bodge it and 'learn on the job'! I'm sure some hysterical pictures of me surrounded by the rubble that was once my house will follow.

However, and yes I know its been an age comming (technical blogger type things aparently) here are the pics from the other weekend when Richey P and Pete, Mike and I headed to Bracknell for a cruise around and a good laugh dropping off some stuff. Nice one all concerned and a great ride! Wicked to get Rich out on his new steed.

May I also point out that his helmet WAS as bad as it looked and he had matching neon gloves... Looking forward to the weekend as we're heading up to see doctor Jenny to be prescribed some booze and walking.

changing times

Well as Christoph indicates below things have changed and we have moved all of our blogs over to the new version of blogger.

So how does this affect you, does it mean that you have comments that work again.

unfortunatly the only real change is the fact that you can see the blogger header bar on some pages, i'm working on this and hope to have it removed soon. I'm on the comments thing too and will do my best to get this fixed cos i know it would be rather useful!

Maybe its about time for a design change too! we'll see!

Testing Testing

Our blog is changing slightly, I've posted the guidance on the new rules. If anyone understands this complete waffling load of utter shite explanation please explain it to me. Gav I think you 'own' the original IBFC site under 'thewince' and need to move it over. I've migrated the rest of them.

A team blog will only switch to the new version of Blogger when the original owner moves his or her account over.

Team members who have not yet switched to the new version will still see the blog on their dashboards, but it will be grayed out and inaccessible. Once those members move their own accounts to the new version of Blogger, they will be able to access the blog as before. If they can't yet switch, or don't wish to, they can ask the owner of the blog for a new invitation to join the blog on the new version. They can then accept that invitation by logging in to or creating a Google Account to post to that blog. (Later on, when they do switch their Blogger account to the new version, they'll have an option to merge it with this account.)

If a team member of a blog switches their account to the new version of Blogger before the blog owner does, then the team blog is not converted. It will appear on the team member's converted dashboard, but clicking on it will lead back to the old version of Blogger. Thus, the blog will still be usable, but without the new features of Blogger (e.g. Labels, Layouts, etc.).

Special case for blogs that have been moved to different accounts: In the previous version of Blogger, the team member who originally created a blog could be removed from the team. This is not possible in the new version of Blogger, where each blog must have an owner who cannot be removed. Thus, a new owner is assigned to these blogs.

Where there is only one admin member on the blog, that person becomes the new owner of the blog after they switch to the new version of Blogger. If there are multiple admins, then the last person to switch becomes the new owner. The other members will still have admin rights, but the new owner will be the permanent member and owner of the blog. So if you have a team blog that fits this description (i.e. the original creator is no longer part of the blog) you can coordinate among your members to decide who will take ownership of it.

IBFC Boarding

After so much deliberation my head hurts we finally have boarding booked. Les Arcs 1800.


























Keep checking and perform snow dance(s) as and when required!

Christoph 'the snowman' Lawler

Extreme Tricycling

You heard it here first and the pictures prove that the members of IBFC are willing to go to new lengths to see what excitement we can have. On a small visit to Mike's folks on Saturday we decided to capture the excitement of "Extreme Tricycling"!

TO put you in the picture the Tricycle picture has a brake drum on the rear left wheel while the chain drives the right. After Mike had ridden over my foot "sorry mate i forgot it was so wide at the back", he showed me the advantage and excitement of this system, through your weight to the left get the rear right wheel up and you can puddle furiously with no effect on traction or throw your weight right get the rear right up and throw some freestyle moves and some gurn like expressions...Sweeeeeet!

Video to follow but for now heres some pics of Captain Cohen in action.

Girl alert!

Right, I know that all you boys will be frowning at a post done by a girl, but let me finish!

On the 29th on December, Steffi, yes I Steffi walked up a hill, not any old hill either. Mont St Victoire near Aix en Provence, it's 964 metres! We started around 300 metres and went all the way to the top (we being my brother Peter, his girlfirend Pippa and me).

I have to add that Peter did have to check my pulse on several occasions as I thought I was having a heart attack, but after the initial shock of physical exertion and wanting to cry I was fine!

Look at a picture of it here:
Or if you ask me nicely I'll show you a picture on my phone.

Steffi

BURK!!!

As can be seen by my best effort at giving a thumbs up I have broken my hand not just once but twice!! I will not divulge the cause of this terrible accident on the portal as I feel the radical nature may scare some of you away from extreme pursuits!!!

At least 8 weeks off my bike may give some of you other cake eaters a chance to catch the mighty Finter on the downhill's.

Daryl

3,000 miles to go

An early start for the friends and family of our intrepid Ibrakeforcake rally team as we gathered on an amazing Winters Morning in Hyde Park.

In typical Gav style i had a phone with no charge but had had the foresight before the previous evenings drinks to fourmulate some sort of plan! Off we trotted to Find both Monsieur Lawler and senor branfield looking suprisingly chirpy and excitable as you would be knowing or maybe not knowing what the next three weeks were all about!

In true bodge it style the roof rack was on and strapped down all the essentials our team needs for a challenging 3 week rally...yup a spare wheel and their surfboards! Fear not i did overhear a conversation in which chris reassured someone they were organised and had spares etc...i'm not saying anything, checked you passport this time chris?

So good luck to the chaps, we will be utilising all the latest technologies to keep you all updated of their progress. We wish them safe travels and a superb christmas. I am not quite sure how either of them will cope without the turkey, maybe they have a secret plan? Although looking at them in this photo i'm not convinced! Good Luck Dave and Chris spreading the IBFC name across the lands.

Summer lovin'

The following shots are from the summer in the Alps. Just some scenery and different ones to the original posts, 'cos I've not got much work on today! Memories like these are good for the cold, wet darkness that is winter.

Bracknell all fuzzy...

Following a night of cheese-based excess, Dave and I hit the familiar trails of Bracknell. I think it's fair to say that we were not at our best, but we still managed to fit in some sneaky extreme action poses and got nearly 3 inches of air over some of the jumps. Pretty sweet.

International Bob of mister-ey

Bob has gone away again, maybe because we smell or maybe because he knows something we don't! Good to see you when you were around, Bob and looking forward to hooking up in Val d'Isere for some snowboarding in March... Is it snowing yet?

الى الهاوية, ماذا الى الجحيم!, الى حيث القت رحلها

picture remains copyright of http://members.virtualtourist.com

1st Prize for anyone managing to translate the the title!! I'm already looking forward to pondering signs such as the above whilst Dave utters the now infamous phrase 'am I the only one here with a sense of direction'

We will be departing for The Gambia from North Carriage Drive in Hyde Park on Sunday 17th of December. We will be in the park from 10.30 onwards aiming for a Midday departure. There's talk of local television being there both Dave's and my family are coming so if anyone else fancies a day out in the Village come and wave goodbye!

Christoph the neveready

Radder than a no footed Endo

Words fail me, never have I seen anything quite like this. Its like another whole undiscovered form of bike riding, we could fit some 6x9s to our bikes and cruise down to McDonalds in Billericay next Friday and impress the local G's with some slick manouvres similar to those displayed above. Special.

We don't have the technology

Gav 'spank my code monkey' Edwards has formulated some kind of genius plan to allow me and Davros to post directly to IBFC while we're on the road to Africa, marvellous except we need a phone that takes pictures, having lost my phone my current piece of technology has this game on it.



Not even Snake II, it's the original. Daves phone doesn't even have an answer-phone capability and doesn't send text messages!! If anyones got an old photo capable phone we can use to post to IBFC over Christmas let me or Dave know 'cause that would be just dandy.

Chris

Afan XC Whippets

Introducing a whole load of new people to the ibrakeforcake collective....



From left to right - Dom (sporting shades straight from Milan), Nick, LL Cool Mike, Chris, Tom, Phil.

A most excellent long weekend to wet welsh Wales, staying in a superb little log cabin right at the top of the final descent of The Wall. We all rocked up pretty late on Friday night, I travelled with Phil in his 80s superbeast Porsche 944. The bikes strapped to the back may have comprimised the aerodynamics somewhat but still a very smooth ride.

Saturday got off to a true ibrakeforcake start with Phil locking his keys, and my bike wheels, in his car. While the others went off to do the Skyline, Phil and I waited for the Autoglass man to arrive. When all was sorted we had a good hack at The Wall as it was too late to join the Skyline action, although of course I would have won given the chance.

Sunday morning we hit White's Level, where it was clear that a couple of months of accelerated kebab consumption in London has done nothing for my already embarrassing climbing prowess, and in the afternoon it was The Wall. Phil had a bit of an encounter with the ground but we had fun bashing his chainring back into shape with rocks. I only did half of the course as I nipped back to the cabin to get the curry going (read: drink beer and not have to climb any more hills) so that Nick and Chris could head back east to the world of work.

And finally on Monday was the Penhydd trail, quite a lot of fire-road but an equal amount of sweet technical traily stuff, especially the Hidden Valley which was full of folkloresque type magic pixie ancient woodland style.

A very successful extreme adventure indeed.

I might buy some SPDs. But the lycra can wait.

Bedgeburry

Sorry everyone, quite unusually, I've been really busy, but the pics are finally here! We went for a ride down at Bedgeburry, the new Forrestry Comission site in Kent at the weekend which was good/a mission/a nightmare depending on who you were...

Bob had come to mine on a flying visit whilst back from Corsica before heading off next week to the Alps for the season (Absolute B*stard!) and we did the unbeleivable mission from MK down to Kent with almost gracefull ease. Didn't get lost at all! Chris and the Brighton Crew were already there and had done one loop of the trail by the time we arrived and so we got stuck into the freeride bit which turned out to be great fun - if not a little scary as I don't love the shore and I'm feeling a bit rusty after my knee. All the others got stuck in though and the see-saws and roll ins saw some action whilst Adam tried to boardslide his enduro... I had less luck as it turns out that I'd blown my brand new DHX Air 5 which I didn't discover until we were about to set off, rubbish. Thats two very expensive shocks in 3 months, I must be fatter than I thought, or very unlucky. Bob did himself proud considering he'd left his steed under a chalet in Chamonix and hasn't been riding that much and everyone else had a good blast round the loop, whilst I tried to peddle and steer my low-rider enduro whilst knackering my back and grounding my pedals every 2 seconds! Geometry really does make a difference it would appear!

lake district tour

Had a great time in the lakes last week.

Full write up to follow, but had to get some photos up as I can't bear to look at Bob's foot anymore!!
Daryl


Gem slooging up Lingmell Crag on way to Scafell Pike


Gem on the final slog up Scafell Pike


Nice gay arty shot of the sunset!!!

W.T.F

Ohh my god the state of my feet was unbeliveable when they get wet every yes every single day for around 5 hours a day.

Bob


Just to clarify I did NOT post this although it's my name at the top, the wayward sibling has used my login, I repeat these are NOT MY FEET, NORE DID I DECIDED TO POST A PICTURE OF MINE OR ANYONE ELSES MINGING FEET. Bob lobster, you are disgusting.

Chris

We're Back!

Things have been a little quiet of late, not because people havn't been riding/climbing etc, but no-one has taken any pics or bothered to post! Anyway, I was up for a little ride to ease my knee (progress has been excellent so far and I have a surgery referal on Wednesday) back into things and what was originally going to be Mike, Chris and I, turned into a far bigger gathering with Daryl, Jan and Nikki coming up from Pompey and The Posh putting in an appearance too. It was sunny and increadably mild which made up for the rain all last week and although a bit stodgy under wheel, generally pretty good. I was amazed at how unfit I felt after only a month out of action but the others made me feel better with hangovers! Some great trails and a new jump which was absolutely perfect. No pics of that ju,p as my camera decided to run out of juice. AGAIN! but some video which'll find its way on here somehow. Daryl seemed on jumping form, although everyone had it to be fair. Lots of people looked at the Trooper in the carpark, so its officially 'noticable'.

IBFC goes all dynamic

Bobs promo video he shot out in Cham last season. just trying to get video hosting up and running before the release of the Alps extravagnazer!!! Gav, sorry if this breaks any code, I know no better.

Rich shows his true colours...

Rich 'The Alki-Christ' Price, takes his life in his hands in Mike's death-mobile. On our way to the Dogs for Rich's stag do with a spattering of IBFC crew making attendance! Best of luck at the wedding next weekend, Rich. I can't wait!