The Magnificent Duo Ride Again
The saga continues…
One thing I really love about my mate Ian is his passion for the outdoors and Mountain Biking. As humble as I am, I was looking for someone to ride with (not much fun when your by yourself) and decided to ask him if he would be interested. Like a child in Willy Wonka’s Choloate Factory his eyes lit up. The only problem was his wee commuter bike. It would not last 5mins on the tracks/trails we hit. So we kept our ears to the ground and eventually found him a bike that could handle everything the hills/mountians would throw at it (some more than others).
On his first adventure all you could hear were screams and laughter of sheer exhilartion as he came charging down the trails shouting at the top of his lungs ‘the was emmense’, whilst laughing his head off at the same time. And so the door was opened in which he walked through and embraced it fully.
One trail we do is called the OK’s those in the know will know what I’m talking about. It’s one of those trails in which you don’t look forward to because the climb is absolutely ‘PUNISHING’. There is a gradual climb which gets steeper and steeper and steeper, until the only thing that would assist you is a pair of ladders. The pic below does not do it any justice as it does not capture the gradient.
We have attempted to climb this hill a number of times and each time it has beaten us. As a result I decided to speak with someone in the know. He advised the following:
1) Keep your backside in the saddle
2) Tuck your elbows in
3) Put your weight on the front forks and the saddle.
With that in mind, we will give it a bash next time. Anyway back to the main story….
After finally ascending the hill we started the down hill section. Immediately after going about 500yrds I noticed I didn’t set the travel on my forks which would mean heavy duty bumps would go straight through me. I pulled over while Ian went past me like a rocket. I eventually caught up with him and we took the next section. Cycling on a sheer cliff face with a 50-75ft drop into a loch takes a bit of getting used to so we erred on the side of cautioned and took it easy. The great thing about being in the bike is you can access areas that are normally out of bounds to others. As we cycled on we came to a small loch and it was beautiful. There was a reflection like something out of the Forrest Gump movie, absoltutely stunning.
It would appear the forestry commission are chopping down trees and in the process of doing so they have made us a little track. That was groovy, we started picking up speed as we took the meandering corners with ease. I decided to track the trail on RunKeeper Pro and true to form it kept us in it’s sights all the way down. It also tracked our speed and we both clocked 31.9mph, ha ha ha.
We took the next track and unbeknown to us there was a slight mud film on the trail. Mud film = Splash back. That’s where out eye shields came in handy. All they are, are clear sunglasses that stop mud and debris going into your eyes. The splash back began to obscure our vision to the point where we had to angle our heads, keep our eyes straight and find a clear spot to see where we were going. Coming to a hault Ian bursted out laughing saying ‘Look at the nick of you’ and I did so like wise.
Coming down after the last trial was an absolute riot. I forgot to mention I got a pair of Clipless Pedals and shoes. I was concerned that if I came off the bike would come with me. ‘Don’t worry about that’ I was told. So I didn’t. However, this one is priceless. We came home and hosed the bikes down. I clipped in and took my bike round the back to put it to bed. I forgot to clip out and fell like a tree! MasterCard!!!!!
Great day out, challenging, and fun. That is the reason why we ride!
Next up our friend Pedro is hopefully coming with us. The more the merrier.
Blogged From My iPhone
