Oh Bugger...

Have been riding midweek recently with Jon, down at Woburn, enjoying the light in the evening and the rather fine and sunny weather that we have been experiencing! Lots has been built down there lately and we've been having a blast.

During a reasonably tame trail section, I was very surprised when I heard a 'ting' on a small drop down and then the rear end of my bike fell away over the next jump... Turned out I've destroyed the weld on my rear swingarm and it snapped! Even worse, I've since found out the Spesh don't warrenty this part as they consider it suspension related! Adam is coming to the rescue, but I'm a bit peeved, to say the least...



Anyway, I was set to ride today, so hired a Trek Remedy from my LBS and was thoroughly impressed. Barring a few minor tweaks so it would be set up as I liked (Shorter stem, less upsweapt and wide bars) and it would be pretty awesome trail machine.



Having said that, it didn't feel as solid as the Enduro, having what I can only describe as a 'plasticy' feel that I put down to the lighter build spec. Very chuckable though and it also felt fast on the ups and downs. The Lyrik fork was quite awesome, basically and I want one!

I rode with Jon, who has recently re-entered the riding scene with a Kona Stinky custom build that he is loving and Stu, one of Rob Bowles' friends from Uni - rob was scuppered by a knackered rear mech. Sun was out and it was nice to have a chilled trail/sesh ride, stopping off here and there for some photos, cake and jumping off little things.






Putting the Remedy through the jumps...


Stu does it properly with added gurn.

Marathon Sponsorship

As most people who know us, know, Daryl and I were involved in a fall coming down from a climb on Snowdon earlier this year in appalling weather. Having both made very good recoveries from our various injuries, we decided to dedicate our marathon running efforts towards providing as much sponsorship money as possible to the Mountain Rescue service volunteers who risked their own lives in our rescue.

The whole of the MRT service is volunteer based and funded through donations from the public, so please sponsor our run in the Edinburgh Marathon in late May, as we are training hard and all proceeds will go to MRT.

We have set up a Just Giving secure donation page, to make donations as easy as possible:

www.justgiving.com/darylanddave

This is where you can find details of the excellent service that the Mountain Rescue volunteers provide in all weathers around the clock:

www.mountain.rescue.org.uk

Running is fun.

Fun Run. Thats fun. What Daryl and I did last on the Fri bank holiday was far away from that. We converged on Windsor Castle in very skimpy shorts and broke free down the Long Walk for a killer loop that saw us take in all sorts of wooded delights, one or two too many inclines and a gang of deer...

We got a bit lost and our intended route was 14 miles on the dot, but we ended up doing 15.5 miles and neither of us had a watch, so I don't know what the timings were. Poor show, I know. Anyway, both our groins packed in and the poor sods that were visiting Windsor had to witness us limping through town, bearing far too much thigh whilst soaked in rain and sweat, before changing in the multi-story carpark, which drew some very long stares from be-rangerovered mums.

In other exploits, I've been getting back out on the bike as there are people to ride with here in MK now that Jon's bought a new Kona rig and we are trying to ride at Woburn and Bow as much as pos. Pics will be back when the camera is put into commission.

Air time

Having spent much time windsurfing snowboarding and a bit of time mountain biking, one tends to get some air. I have pushed it with the snowboarding this year with the hungarian flatmate Matays who is just a little crazy and doesnt have so much regard for personla safety We have dropped some silly things. Cliffs windlips houses whatever can be found. Must say mostly only in powder as a stack early on in the season left me with a useless arm for 3 days.





Getting air for me is one of the best bits of the sport. Those few seconds when you are 10 foot above things and have a chance to look at the ground/ water and think S**t im a long way off the ground is one of the best feelings in my opinion. Surrounded by amazing settings this is what its all about for me.




matays just before dropping the satelight on the last powder day of the season.

Having had one last powder day. The descion was made between Matayas and I that we wanted bigger air. Something like 1000m and instead of a a few seconds air time how about 10 minutes. Bring on the parapante course.

Running off the side of a mountain with a large parachute strapped to your back is a pretty big rush especialy when its a solo flight and never havig done anything like it before. Two flights done now. Next step learn about thermals and instead of just gliding down catch the air up like a bird and stay higher for longer. Bring it on.

Due to snowboarding, windsurfing, surfing or parapanting not being included in ibrakeforcake at no time during these activities was any cake eaten during brakes! But thought I would let you know what goes on any way!





cake could be eaten during these activities!

www.mountainspaces.com
catered and self catered holidays in the french alps

Fun in the sun!

Tuesday night saw James Linford and I speeding North West towards the A5 and two days of intensive and stressful (for some) activities in the hills of the Snowdonia National Park.



James, the chap who first introduced me to climbing in my teens, was to retake the nav part of his Mountain Instructor Award, after a shortfall on his previous five day assessment earlier last year. Wednesday dawned very fine and we rolled out of Pen Y Pass at 8am and over to the back of the Miners' Track and the start of our hunt for obscure contours and minuscule rock outcrops.



This was a new experience for me as 'nav' to me normally means 'routes'. ok, ' ' overload. Basically, I learnt to really put things into perspective regarding whats on the map and whats on the hill and in a few hours I had really tuned into it Basically we spent time picking a random point and going to it, using a mixture of pacing and time calculations against map/real features to locate ourselves. One would choose a point and nav to it and the other would try to put the finished position on the map. Very good.

We were buzzed all of our time on the hills by Police and RAF helicopters, who were apparently looking for a Canadian chap who had gone missing on Sunday. I hope he does turn up ok. After a few hours of this practice in the Llanberis Pass, we headed over to Moel Siabod and carried on, enjoying the fine weather.



Tired, we returned to the YHA and had a huge dinner, read magazines and James prepared for his PYB assessment in the morning.

Having dropped James of at PYB, I headed off to Llyn Idwal and sped up Devil's Kitchen after a detour scramble up the very wet and slippery waterfall gully next door. Excellent! Ten headed up to Y Garn and ran down it, much to the bemusement of other walkers who saw a red faced and sweating man with boots and a rucksack, pretending to be a fell runner! Why walk when you can run?!





I should point out that the weather was exceptional and the views from the top, simply amazing.



After driving over to pick James up, he was in great spirits after having passed the assessment by a thin margin and being made to sweat before being given the ok! This put us both in a great mood and we headed off to Milestone buttress on Tryfan for a relaxing and fun climb up Rowan route, an easy and thoroughly grin-on-face inducing two hours!