Well, thats exciting. I have just got back from a town council planning meeting which voted in favour of granting planning permission for a new climbing wall to be built in Milton Keynes!!
Steve Mayers of http://www.beaconclimbing.com has put together a proposal for a new wall and it looks as though it could be a cracker! Watch this space...
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Lakes trip. Farewell Fernando...
WATCH OUT. BIG POST!!!
Well, I've only just met our Brazilian friend and already I'm sad to see him go... A group farewell/good times/walking trip was arranged by Monsignor Ginge and we headed up to a wintery Derwemt Water YHA to take on some peaks. Stopping only for snacks...
Snow was forcast during the week and didn't disappoint, as usual the night time arrival gave way to some stunning morning scenery and the hills were capped with snow...
This looks suspiciously like planning!
Rising early, on Sat, we headed down to attempt a loop that I've wanted to do for ages, from Seathwaite up to Green then Great Gable and on over the valley to Glaramara and back. We headed out early and were blown away by how much snow was on the hills and just how good it looked. Blue bird skies and snow, perfect.
Walk in above Sour Milk Gill.
Crampon stop.
I did an axe belay above this point as the snow was quite slippery and it steepened above - just a re-assurance thing, but it worked a treat and good practice. 15m of rope is always good!
Points on.
Matti
Now THAT is a view!
Up onto Green Gable. Quite steep!
Gav laying tracks...
Matti enjoying life...
Summit of Great Gable.
Fernie is now native...
Bloody Swedes. Can't take them anywhere...
Or Brazilians, it would seem...
Erm...
Well, I've only just met our Brazilian friend and already I'm sad to see him go... A group farewell/good times/walking trip was arranged by Monsignor Ginge and we headed up to a wintery Derwemt Water YHA to take on some peaks. Stopping only for snacks...
Snow was forcast during the week and didn't disappoint, as usual the night time arrival gave way to some stunning morning scenery and the hills were capped with snow...
This looks suspiciously like planning!
Rising early, on Sat, we headed down to attempt a loop that I've wanted to do for ages, from Seathwaite up to Green then Great Gable and on over the valley to Glaramara and back. We headed out early and were blown away by how much snow was on the hills and just how good it looked. Blue bird skies and snow, perfect.
Walk in above Sour Milk Gill.
Crampon stop.
I did an axe belay above this point as the snow was quite slippery and it steepened above - just a re-assurance thing, but it worked a treat and good practice. 15m of rope is always good!
Points on.
Matti
Now THAT is a view!
Up onto Green Gable. Quite steep!
Gav laying tracks...
Matti enjoying life...
Summit of Great Gable.
Fernie is now native...
Bloody Swedes. Can't take them anywhere...
Or Brazilians, it would seem...
Erm...
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Pepsi MAX
Dave's slacking with the Valley De La Manche footage so I'm gonna trump it with pics from the Pepsi Max run in Avoriaz. Pictures do not do the climb justice, 300m straight up a real steep slope then working along this little bugger of a ridge.
Amazing snow on the way down, like the valley but 4-5 times as long, gonna write a full story for Mountain Spaces blog so will post full description then.
My legs hurt.
Amazing snow on the way down, like the valley but 4-5 times as long, gonna write a full story for Mountain Spaces blog so will post full description then.
My legs hurt.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Road blast, walking and massive amounts of food...
Weekend trip down to Weston, in the new wheels was delayed slightly as a very ill Minou (Steffi and my cat/catperson) had us all worried. Liver infection or something similar and she was very jaundice and I actually thought the worst at one point. £170 later and she is better - as I write this a week later, I'm sure that the antibiotics have turned her into supercat as she is going nuts and meowing ALL he time...
Thought this suited.
I digress. We'd popped down to Weston as Linz was thirty recently and the girls tripped off to Bath Spa, whilst Anthony and I engaged in more manly pursuits. Anthony has managed to pick up himself his childhood dream titanium frame and 15 years later its still very much a lively beast! We had planned a proper ride, but instead, headed out on the road for a fast blast round his way with a few hills and bits of mud thrown in too.
Anthony was on his Trek hybrid road thingy and by god does it shift unless your going up anything steep, when the gearing on the internal hub isn't perfect, but I was very impressed with my blast, even on spd's and skate shoes - that timeless combo.
Ti beast. Not me, the bike.
Sunday saw me smuggled into a health and safety nightmare. Anthony had invited me to join some of his work colleagues on their first training walk for a three peaks attempt
- against his work's express instructions that no outsiders were allowed. The carpark standoff was a little tense, but I knew some of the lads from the 24/12 earlier last year, which helped a bit! Amazing walk which followed quite a lot of the MBR killer loop that Phil and I did many years ago in that neck of the woods. Great to be out and it didn't rain!
Lovely day.
Cheddar goats.
Now that is what I call a good end to a days walk!
Thought this suited.
I digress. We'd popped down to Weston as Linz was thirty recently and the girls tripped off to Bath Spa, whilst Anthony and I engaged in more manly pursuits. Anthony has managed to pick up himself his childhood dream titanium frame and 15 years later its still very much a lively beast! We had planned a proper ride, but instead, headed out on the road for a fast blast round his way with a few hills and bits of mud thrown in too.
Anthony was on his Trek hybrid road thingy and by god does it shift unless your going up anything steep, when the gearing on the internal hub isn't perfect, but I was very impressed with my blast, even on spd's and skate shoes - that timeless combo.
Ti beast. Not me, the bike.
Sunday saw me smuggled into a health and safety nightmare. Anthony had invited me to join some of his work colleagues on their first training walk for a three peaks attempt
- against his work's express instructions that no outsiders were allowed. The carpark standoff was a little tense, but I knew some of the lads from the 24/12 earlier last year, which helped a bit! Amazing walk which followed quite a lot of the MBR killer loop that Phil and I did many years ago in that neck of the woods. Great to be out and it didn't rain!
Lovely day.
Cheddar goats.
Now that is what I call a good end to a days walk!
Ahem. Whats that I see?
Just looked on the snow forecast site and it appears that we are set to have 45cm of fresh snow in Avoriaz between today and Tuesday. THATS EPIC!!!!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
'A bit laboured and uncomfortable...'
That's how Steffi just described this clip. Never mind, she knows nothing of shore balancing skills. or something like that.
Nice ride. Lots of mud. Ground still frozen.
herb ritts.
OUT.
Nice ride. Lots of mud. Ground still frozen.
herb ritts.
OUT.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Quickie !!
Morning All
Only got a couple of mins, copy of post I put on the company site plus Kevlin not making a flip!!
Headed up behind Avoriaz to the Snow Cross area for a quick session on New Year's eve with some of the guysfrom All Mountain Rental.
Really good snow and still some bits of powder that only had a couple of tracks if any, not bad for such a busy week. The temperature has really dropped again after a slightly warmer week in the village and as I'm writing this it's snowing hard down to at least 600m.
Overlooking Avoriaz
Tracked out on this side but still fresh of to the right
Setting up for jumps of a nice windlip
Some of the fresh stuff!!
Only got a couple of mins, copy of post I put on the company site plus Kevlin not making a flip!!
Headed up behind Avoriaz to the Snow Cross area for a quick session on New Year's eve with some of the guysfrom All Mountain Rental.
Really good snow and still some bits of powder that only had a couple of tracks if any, not bad for such a busy week. The temperature has really dropped again after a slightly warmer week in the village and as I'm writing this it's snowing hard down to at least 600m.
Overlooking Avoriaz
Tracked out on this side but still fresh of to the right
Setting up for jumps of a nice windlip
Some of the fresh stuff!!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Hampshire Snowboarding!!!!
Yes-as you all know we have had lots of snow....so we went boarding on the common in Southsea-as you do. This very short slop gave us a taster so on Saturday morning we packed up the car and ventured up to Phil's place in the countryside to hit a farmer's field opposite his house which he claimed had 1.5ft of fresh powder!!!
He wasn't lying and the farmer was more than happy to watch us whilst he mucked out his horses......
More Snowboarding >>
He wasn't lying and the farmer was more than happy to watch us whilst he mucked out his horses......
More Snowboarding >>
Friday, January 01, 2010
Love the Mud
The time between Christmas and New Year. Its kind of dead, and not being the Oxford St queuing type it seemed like a good time to go for a ride, despite a bad bout of food poisoning initiated by mayonnaise from my parents' fridge dated Aug 08...
The day dawned as it had closed the previous evening, with torrential rain at about 1.8 degrees C and the type of gray overcast that makes you wonder if it really IS daylight at all. All packed and onto the M1, with the sights set firmly on Peaslake. The M1 was like running a long, wet gauntlet. Driving past lorries produced that great, slightly nervous feeling when even the fastest setting on the windscreen wipers doesn't come close and for all you know, you stand as reasonable chance of driving into a black hole, as making past the cab in one piece. Trail conditions might be a tad sucky today...
Luckily Surrey is always hospitable and after a coffee from the stores, I was ready to roll. Finter arrived and we set off into certain drivetrain wearing muddy conditions. It really was quite horrific and after a quick blast along yogurt pots and the off camber route off telegraph road, we re sessioned and did some photos on a sneaky bit of loose trail. All good fun. Then back down on the Peaslake side where we ran a few trails and did some exploring. I should point out that the picture of the puddle above is really quite a tiddler. On several occasions we were up to our BB's in water. It was quite epic!
Wet trail and roots. Daryl gets on with destroying his drivetrain...
Joyrider, as you've never ridden it before!
It really was that proper cold that eats you when you are wet, so after a bit of dicking around and cameras not working - hence the shots here - it was time to run BKB and see how the new surface was taking this amount of water. It was doing well and definitely the fastest bit of trail we'd run all day. IT NEEDS SOME JUMPS/DROPS though as it is thoroughly boring without. So after a quick chat to a riding mate of Daryl's we headed back up and ran Joyrider. This would have been excellent for me ecept I was now into the backing plate of my rear pads and then the travel on the piston ran out, leaving just the front brake working. In anything other than these conditions, I'd have been fine, but it was sheet mud and front brake happy was not the way to go. Boo.
After that we decided to call it a day as we were both freezing and ended off with a nice chat and santa cruz analysis in the shop. Lovely.
I'm off to CRC to order new bits fro everything that moves on my bike...
The day dawned as it had closed the previous evening, with torrential rain at about 1.8 degrees C and the type of gray overcast that makes you wonder if it really IS daylight at all. All packed and onto the M1, with the sights set firmly on Peaslake. The M1 was like running a long, wet gauntlet. Driving past lorries produced that great, slightly nervous feeling when even the fastest setting on the windscreen wipers doesn't come close and for all you know, you stand as reasonable chance of driving into a black hole, as making past the cab in one piece. Trail conditions might be a tad sucky today...
Luckily Surrey is always hospitable and after a coffee from the stores, I was ready to roll. Finter arrived and we set off into certain drivetrain wearing muddy conditions. It really was quite horrific and after a quick blast along yogurt pots and the off camber route off telegraph road, we re sessioned and did some photos on a sneaky bit of loose trail. All good fun. Then back down on the Peaslake side where we ran a few trails and did some exploring. I should point out that the picture of the puddle above is really quite a tiddler. On several occasions we were up to our BB's in water. It was quite epic!
Wet trail and roots. Daryl gets on with destroying his drivetrain...
Joyrider, as you've never ridden it before!
It really was that proper cold that eats you when you are wet, so after a bit of dicking around and cameras not working - hence the shots here - it was time to run BKB and see how the new surface was taking this amount of water. It was doing well and definitely the fastest bit of trail we'd run all day. IT NEEDS SOME JUMPS/DROPS though as it is thoroughly boring without. So after a quick chat to a riding mate of Daryl's we headed back up and ran Joyrider. This would have been excellent for me ecept I was now into the backing plate of my rear pads and then the travel on the piston ran out, leaving just the front brake working. In anything other than these conditions, I'd have been fine, but it was sheet mud and front brake happy was not the way to go. Boo.
After that we decided to call it a day as we were both freezing and ended off with a nice chat and santa cruz analysis in the shop. Lovely.
I'm off to CRC to order new bits fro everything that moves on my bike...
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
All chilled
Winter is really here and there is snow around to prove it. I was supposed to ride with Jon today, but he got a last minute assisting job in town, so I struck out into the fresh snow with the new HD cam and did a mellow vid. I hope you like.
More Mountain Biking >>
Quite tricky to gauge the grip level, so its a bit lame, but what the heck, its Christmas...
Ha! just been on the dirt website and its in their Monday mashup. Sweet, thanks dirt!
http://dirtmountainbike.com/news/monday-mpora-video-mash.html
More Mountain Biking >>
Quite tricky to gauge the grip level, so its a bit lame, but what the heck, its Christmas...
Ha! just been on the dirt website and its in their Monday mashup. Sweet, thanks dirt!
http://dirtmountainbike.com/news/monday-mpora-video-mash.html
Monday, December 14, 2009
Good dinner on Sat evening. Great to see everyone and congrats to Gav and Jen on the engagement!!! Daryl had brought his pub bike - a 24 inch jump bike - and I've just about (minus some tweaking) finished my On One 456 frame build. So we hit Woburn and embarrassed ourselves, hungover and not used to riding hardtails. By the end of our little sesh I didn't need to vom any more and we'd got into it. New HD vid camera trial:
Need to work on the filming!
Hardtails from Dave Branfield on Vimeo.
Need to work on the filming!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Notes from Newton...
I went wakeboarding with friend Tom. We went in late October- the weather was amazing to be honest. The lake is really near Green Park at Junction 11 on the M4 and is well worth the fee if anyone every fancies coming along for a sesh when the season starts again. You only get about half an hour but in all fairness- you really don't need much more than that. The feeling I had after going Wakeboarding was akin to being bulldozed by a large fishing trawler. My upper body was completely jellied and I took a lovely neck-snapper of a stack on my last run! This left me unable to turn my head for about a week. Bob informs me that you are supposed to be sporting a kidney impact vest! Common injury is bruised kidneys from slapping the water! Anyway hope you can Photoshop them to make me look like the pro that I am....)
ciao
Jay
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