up a tree
late posting, oh well. over Easter me and Max climbed up a tree up the trails. He’s got all those ropes and business and it was rad.
Quite a lot of effort to get up there, especially when untrained and in my low exercise london life. you have to effectively pull half your body weight on the rope all the way up the tree.
Max put the camera in a bag and I pulled it up. Quite a long way up.
Quite high, strange but enjoyable experience to be up there. I got a phone call just at the top as I got there.
Jumps look cool from up there, gonna film in the summer. Probably look amazing top down with more greenery.
It’s cold at home.
I’m back in Dorset which means it’s time for breakfast:
I went to Bath the other weekend to chill and we cycled down the canal path for a jolly.
The canal was so cold in places that it was actually frozen over!
It was pretty rad weekend. I went into the best convenience store I’ve ever been into, and bought a pretty sub-par stollen for some unknown reason.
Yesterday we went to Bmouth to have a go on a racetrack as we thought that tracks would be dry.
Weren’t very dry really.
Invisible gate starts and impossible speed stealing laps.
end of summer pictures
so the end of summer was good to us; nice.
been trailsing enough, jumps = mad dry!
over and unders been happening.
been to the beach quite a bit too; swimming on the sunnier days.
will swapped his micra from one of the new bedford rascals like boyd has. pretty awesome.
blogging111
some pictures from the other week that I’ve been late on.
summer was looking about right; dusty and hot.
can’t think of much to write so just pictures:
our jumps are working out pretty alright. seems to be mostly just the main big line that gets ridden, but it’s pretty alright so that is good.
tanwall tyres.
so yeah. rad times; would like a return to that weather and all will be fine. might upload a clip of nozco soonish.
february affairs
So no updates since christmas trails video – I guess not much has happened. London keeps on but is a bmx free lifestyle which is not great. Unhealthy. Still go home plenty and digging is getting done. Especially by Al.
He did all the 2 lips in this one morning, we all did the landing a few days before.
This was almost finished but the extreme weather made it like this. That landing was verticle at the back and then it rained and all fell down. The lip was smooth before lots of frost and rain. It is done now though.
On occasion this year we have had a fair few diggers – which is a good development.
Charlie only takes photos in portrait?! Very uninternet. Well here is Al and I chalking up a new lip. All stuff is getting a layer of this powder chalk I found in the wood. It will be almost barendesque.
One of few landscapes; sorting out the current last in the bigline. It is done now but there is not pic. After this when we get the digger there will be a left-hand berm, a racetrack size roller double, a stepup going down a lot after the landing, then a long flat jump, then a 270degree wide berm round a tree, and then hopefully we will build some pointlessly massive jumps to equal ultimate warrior or something. Winmill wants to go nuts.
So I’m very positive about this summer; 09 will be one to remember I think. Our trails are definitely going to be the very best they’ve ever been. And good enough that it might actually be worth people visiting. Bigger jumps, smoother lines, longer lines, big quarterpipe, possibly the pizza oven if we get round to it.
Not only are we building in the woods; there are some rad dudes in dorch building a nuts looking concrete park. Should be done in under a month. Poured seamless concrete with bowls and rollers and the like!
weekends in dorset
I might live in London, but there is an awesome train service and the countryside is better. So I’ve been home quite a bit. We’ve also been polishing off the trail season at home, had some really good final sessions. No pictures really [except a crap one by bryn] because as autumn dies and there are few sacred minutes of flow left you need to get your priorities right.
Weirdly home trails have actually be running best all year last weekend. So that’s pretty nuts. Also tarps mean the big line is going to run well into the winter I think. Been having plenty BBQs to counteract ones missed over the rubbishy summer.
Also went to Yeovil trails the other day, meet Will and Woody up there as they’ve been riding there quite a bit I think. You will know Yeovil trails from classic videos such as No Front Teeth – Luke Marchant section I think, and others that I can’t really remember exactly. Somewhere in Sprung, basically in old Alex Rankin films.
They used to be totally rad [2005ish?] but they have always been totally raped for some reason. After a while the locals up there just gave up digging so they are kind of random lumps. The soil is like Cothill and pretty good to put stuff up with, but dies pretty easy. Especially when ridden by trials motobikes!, quads!! pitbikes and big mountain bikes with downhill tyres. However some stuff gets built, like this mad contraption that somehow Will can air! That is such a shady transition and maybe 8/ 9 foot high.
This is Woody, who is another addition to the expanding obmx trails crew. Which is all good news and more people equals more digging, equals better ridden in jumps, equals more fun. Kids pretty good at X-ups too; doesn’t take too well to trails bullying at Yeovil; but performs well under nonchalant encouragement at the home trails. He will also do what is know in the industry as a ‘special’ radiator installation, on a sunday even, for only 80 quid an hour.
When I went up Yeovil I forgot to take the brush I was going to take with me, so ended up borrowing one off some kind mountainbiker guy to tidy up, and also wanted to smooth up some stuff and fill in some crappy wholes. I asked the other mountainbikers if they had any tools, or maybe they offered, but turned out they had one hand trowel and one saucepan as all the equipment to maintain the jumps. I might go up with a spade or two and I think it would only take about an hour to make those jumps look and ride really nice.
Home trails session was good times. Riding sweet and all in all a good time. Trains and such were going on, so we thought we’d crack out the over under. Pretty crazy really that is takes almost exactly the same time from the start to take two very different routes to the same spot. Next summer is the 4 up over under with one round the berm of the little one and one above, and one over the big one and one riding under them on that. Cool picture one day.
It gets dark quick these days, so it was time for bbq banana splits. Dialled: I love trails and I love the woods. Dig time soon.