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Some regular readers of this blog may wonder what the hell I am on about as I have mentioned having two children. Well it is all to do with mountain bike trail centres, I went to the Gisburn Forest in the Ribble valley over the weekend. It was my first time I have ever been to a mountain bike trail centre and it was hard but enjoyable fun. For those of you who don’t know what a trail centre is, it is a site (in this case a forest) with specially laid out track for mountain bike riding. These range from gentle down hill single tracks to twisty, rock strewn paths and death defying drops all supposedly to be ridden on a mountain bike.

To make it a little more interesting I was still suffering from the throat infection from hell, so breathing was going to be fun. Fortunately the trail centre is in a valley which blocked a lot of the howling wind which was sweeping a cross the camp site a quarter of a mile away. Once down in the tree and with the sun breaking through the temperature started to rise.

A group of ten riders set out with me being the novice of the group but they all aided and encouraged me all the way round waiting at the end of each section for me to catch up. The hills were the killer for me especially the one that was basically a rock garden you had to ride up.

I took one or two tumbles during the four hours riding and as the afternoon wore my energy levels began to train to the point where I was offered a bit more technical riding (read for riding in the rock garden) or going to the pub, guess where I went?

Sat in the beer garden at the back of the pub in the sun (the pub blocking that wind again), a pint of larger has never tasted so good. After about half an hour there must have been about 25 riders at the pub enjoying a pleasant end to the afternoons ride…………with the exception of one young lad, he had travelled with a group of friend for a days ride at Gisburn but unfortunately he fell at a particular steep section and injured his elbow (possibly broken), so being a perfect group of mates they left him to find his own way back to the pub and he had to push his own bike about a 3 mile walk, think he needs to get some new mates!!

All in all it was a great weekend, met many new friends and had a very pleasant couple of days away, parties of Friday night and Saturday were good fun, Hawaiian theme for the men on Saturday, most men had the Hawaiian shorts over there thermal leggings and their thick wind proof coats under their Hawaiian shirts, made for an interesting look.

With the weather closing in on Sunday (after I woke up early to a lovely blue sky) it was a day to pack up and get ready for the 295 mile trek home. Six hours 20 minutes later which included a diversion as the M40 was shut (and was probably longer than the 295 miles) we arrived home. All we had to do next was unpack ready for me to take the motorhome back in the morning.

My first blog was posted on the 6th May 2009, so tomorrow my blog will be 1 year old. A lot has happened in a year, starting life on blogger.com and then slowly dying like many blog’s until I gave the blog a new name and a new home and slowly but surely the blog has trundled on.

While much of the present blog looks at my cycling and dieting I still drop in the odd random subject like the A338 in Bournemouth and the miles of tail back caused as they cleared the drainage ditches in preparation to the major rebuild that was planned and now won’t be going ahead till 2011 as the County Council are £24 million short in the budget to carry out the work ( more here.

My hate of idiot on the road, work and life, there all in the archive for you to read. What does the next 12 month hold, well if I knew that I would not be sat here writing blog’s, that for sure. But what ever happens I will add it here and you are welcome to comment as you like.

Me I am going to go back to suffering with the sore throat from hell……………………

Well it was bank holiday weekend and the previous two mornings had been early starts so I had a bit of a lay in this morning, eventually surfaced around 7:15am. Continued with a leisurely breakfast and loading the car eventually hitting the road at 10:15 for the short drive to Moors Valley Country Park. Loading the car I noticed there was a very strong gusty wind and it was cold, so I opted for the Lycra trousers and a heavy top to keep me warm.

Before I go any further I am going to have a little whinge, Moors Valley is a lovely country park, it has a large adventure play area for the kids, numerous trails to follow, a couple of ponds, but I do find the car park fees a complete rip off, at £7 for 4 hours it is not cheap (check the car park prices here). This is why I park in one of the many gated entrances around Ringwood Forest and then ride out from there.

Today my son was joining us for a ride and we were going to take him along a section of the single track cycle trail. He was well impressed to be riding along the old Ringwood railway line at the start but not to sure about having to push the bike up the large hill though. He is only nine and has only been on two wheels for about 6 months so he still and wobbly novice and he found a couple of the slopes a bit hard going but he was keen to succeed. We eventually got to the single tack section and I shot off at speed with our son following mum at a more sedate pace. I was a little concerned he may have found the track a little to tight for him but he thoroughly enjoyed it.

Coming through the trees, the light was bad through here

He also enjoyed going up to “The Look Out” which is a large roofed platform situated on the side of a hill looking over the forest, I think it was the fact that nobody else was there and he could cycle into the building.

View from Moors Valley Look Out

Once we had finished the single track sections the wife and son headed for the park while I headed off to do some more riding. I was keen to cross the road (B3081) into the other section of the forest. Where I enter the forest here it starts with a long drawn out climb of just under a mile that climbs quite hard in the last 300yds. After the previous days problems I wanted to prove to myself I can still climb and climb it I did………….still in the saddle. I was wheezing and panting a bit……….ok a lot then, at the top but I did make it to the top. I then followed my normal route half way and then decided to find a new route back (I normally follow the same route back). This worked out quite well as I rejoined the long hill about a third of the way up the hill which when I rode up the hill earlier I said that would be a good place to come back down.

Once back in the main park area I headed for the visitors centre to meet up with wife and son. After a quick bite to eat it was time to head back to the car. By now dear son was struggling and on one section I had to give him a helping push up a couple of section. I don’t know if anybody else has tried this but I placed on hand on my son back and pushed him along while trying to avoid his wobbles which forced wobbles from me, how we never ended up in a heap I don’t know. WE eventually got back to the big hill where the wife and son walked down the hill and took a couple of photo of me coming down the hill.

Son shot of me coming down the big hill

The day ended on success, it was weigh in night tonight and I lost 3lbs so that finished my day of nicely. bit disappointed that I never made my target I set in January but a lot of things have happened since then but at least my weight is going down if ever so slowly. I now have a short week to look forward to as I am heading up north for a long weekend.

Well today was the 2nd of my three days of riding. Woke up early and left on time (a first for this family). It had rained overnight and there were shower as we drove to the Purbeck’s but there was no sign of the strong gusty winds that had been forecast. We arrived at the Banks Arms Studland just after 8:40am.

Primera (the LBS running the event) had set up shop under a large Marquee next to the pub (was to be very handy later in the day). Sun, Marin, Whyte, Cannondale and Specailized were represented with around 28 bikes in total to test ride. Once the formalities of signing disclaimer and fitting pedals was done we were ready for the off, this is where my problems started.

I had chosen to test a Whyte 120XT, this is a full carbon frame, 120mm travel, full suspension bike. This was to be my first ride on a full suspension bike.

With two lads from the shop acting as guide and chaperone for us (there was easily in excess of £15000 worth of bikes we were riding) and 6 riders we set off at a brisk pace determined to put these bikes through their paces, unfortunately unless it is downhill and the wind behind me I am not a fast rider. In short within the first 2 miles my legs had expired and I was well off the back of the pack although they did wait for me at each gate. I was given the option to take a slightly easier route over a hill which I took so me and one of the shop lads headed off one way and the rest went the other way. Well the hill was not steep just long and drawn out with much of it covered in sandy soil and I have to say that I walked the bike for a fair bit of it. Eventually we reached the top and rejoined the rest of riders, I tried to apologise for my slowness (I felt like an unfit pratt) but everybody waved it off so I shut up.

We were soon heading off down hill, now I have never ridden on the Purbecks so knew nothing of what the track held for me. So it was with blind faith in the bike that I was throwing myself down this narrow single trail at speed as though I knew every twist, turn and root on the trail. It goes without saying something was going to happen, fortunately it was only minor, I clipped one of the ruts which threw the handle bars into a gorse bush and I managed to whack the middle finger on my left hand on the bush. Think I must have bruised it because it don’t have hurt. Finally as I got to the bottom of the hill I had a muddy puddle to negotiate, as I went through the mud it pulled the front wheel to the left and as the bike veered to the left I lost my balance and parted company with the bike, now I really felt like a prat. I remounted and we our way back to the pub.

When I got back to the pub I realised that I had not thought about the bike as I was riding, it dawned on me that I had missed the saddle hammering my butt over the bumpy stuff. I realised that I knew very little about the bikes capabilities and yet I was happy to throw it down the narrow single track not knowing what was in front of me and I did not know if or how the bike would handle it. When I was riding some of the more technical bits it coped very well. I think the fact that it handled everything that I threw (literally) at it, seem to show that it is a very capable bike.

I had intended to have another couple of rides on some of the other bikes but due to the results of my first ride I decided that this would not be a good idea. I felt pretty peeved of with this but I knew I had not really tested the bike on my first ride as I had spent most of my time trying to keep up, another ride would of only been the same. I think had I done the route on my bike I would not of been any faster but I would of ridden more of it.

By now the weather had closed in and the forecast wind and rained had made an appearance, so I decided it was the ideal time to leave. As I said my goodbyes Alex (Primera boss) offered me the chance to take a bike on a days test which hopefully I will do later in the year.

Below are a few pictures before we left and the Marquee that was being used.

Primera new shop at the Banks Arms

Some of the bikes available to test

Not only bikes on test

Me getting familiar with my steed

Group shot just before the off

The bank holiday is here and I have 3 days of riding booked, whether that happens we will have to wait and see but at least the first days riding went a head. Saturday is normally a slow cycle with the wife and today was no different. I decided to visit the local heath, there are numerous trail on the heath and many of them I have not tried so today we were trying a couple of those new trails and get the wife to visit Delph woods for the first time.

The first part of the ride was nothing exciting, we followed a new path which was a wide gravel and found it brought us out onto one of our normal trails. Only interesting parts was we found the local free style jump area, so we be going back to play with that later.

The wife had her obligatory fall of the bike, she learnt that you can’t lean forward going down a steep bank and apply the front brake sharply, when you do it results in a face plant. Fortunately the only damage was superficial and some bruises.

Still a few muddy bits about on the heath

We were soon finished on the heath and heading to Delve woods, which is basically a wooded area which is part of the heath but on the other side of the road. Now I know the first half of the route but I don’t know the end bit so it always a guess the route through the trees after the half way mark. I found the stream this time so like all kids I had to have a play in the water.

Playing in the water

Playing in the water again

Ready for the splash

Once I dragged myself away from the water we found the route to the road and headed back toward the heath (via a different entry point, the part we leave is down a steep hill). The wife decided she had had enough and headed for home I decided that I would also head for home via the heath as I wanted to add a few miles to my riding, I like to get between 15 and 20 miles in on a Saturday. Tried a couple of other new trails on the way back, one was downhill through loose sand, that was fun at speed!! I eventually made it home for a round trip of 16.5 miles.

Tomorrow I am off to a Demo day where I have two test rides booked on full suspension bikes, will let you know how that goes tomorrow, providing rain does stop play.