Back on Black

Welcome to week 8 folks. Yep - a whole two months have almost past since I arrived, so this week I though i'd treat you to something special :-)

I'm sitting here typing this, somewhat bruised and battered after yesterday taking on the might of the Black Trail here in the Glentress forest - all 29km of it! The things I do for the love of my art eh? ;-)

Before I recount the events of yesterday, I'm happy to report that the weather up here has definately taken a turn for the better. Temperatures are well up and we've been getting our fair share of blue sky's, which reveal the true beauty of the surroundings. I took this pic on the way to work on Sunday morning. It's a panoramic shot (a number of pics stitched together with clever software) so may look a little small at first, but as with all the photo's just CLICK ON THEM TO SEE A BIGGER VERSION :











Kinda pretty eh?

Anyhoo, work has been busy as ever - the nice weather brings people out in their droves wanting to explore the forest. I have quite a nice week this week as i'm only working 3 days out of 7, although I then pay by working 7 days straight - just the way our rota's work. I'm making the most of this week though and started by hitting the Black Trail yesterday (it hit me back too-see later).

Unusually for my day off, the weather was perfect. Only a few clouds in an otherwise blue sky and a nice breeze made ideal conditions for a long, tough ride.
Here's a question for you. Have you ever ridden a bicycle worth close to £3,000? Nope, neither had I - until yesterday. I'd asked Brian, our manager, if I could take out one of our fleet of Demo bikes (ie:expensive ones) and being a nice chap, he said I could. After consulting with the other guys, I went for the Giant Trance 1 - a VERY sexy all white number! Yes, I'm now sad enough to consider a bike 'sexy' :-/

Anyway, Nic took a pic of me with the bike outside the shop before I set off :


























So, armed with my Camelback (a rucsack with build in water bladder and tube, so you can drink while you ride), energy bars and feeling excited, I began the journey.

As with the Red Trail I did last week, the first half of the Black pretty much involves climbing up through the forest on singletrack & fire roads of varying degrees of difficulty. The first section of the climb did'nt feel too bad at all and I was feeling fit and happy. I took the first of a number of self-timer pics at this point - part of THE GOAT TRACK section of the trail . Please bear this in mind as in most of these cases, I had to find something to rest the camera on so the results vary. I'm investing in a tripod for my next outing. In this shot, I had to set the timer at 30 seconds then leg it to the rocks in time to be in the shot! (You can just about make me out perched on the rocks) :

From here, there were some more steep climbs through the forest :

Those climbs were well worth it though, not least because of views like this - a section of the TOWER RIDE :

On the way to this point i'd also hit some excellent downhill sections - most notably the RockSteps and Stone Chute. Both as hairy as they sound but ace fun :-)

The next section took me closer to the summit and I took a rest for food at the quiant shelter spot, which also gives some stunning photo opportunities. The next series of pics all come from this spot, including another panoramic pic at the end :

Fed & watered, I hit the last section to the summit which included some energy sapping rocky climbs. I eventually arrived at the top though, but found it a bit of an anti-climax as it seems to consist of just a transmitter mast and some shabby buildings :-/ See for yourself :

I did'nt hang around here much and instead headed onto a section named BRITNEY SPEARS (Hit Me Baby One More Time) ! As the name suggests, it's a bit rugged to say the least. I took a snap a the top of the section :

Note the red exclamation mark on the signpost. These are placed at the head of particularly hairy sections and this was just one of many on the Black Trail. I negotiated Britney without trouble (insert your own pun here) and followed the BOUNDARY TRAIL through to DELIVERANCE, which was great fun, especially the twisting, stoney trails with sheer drops to one side :-) This pic shows some of Deliverance but I was too busy concentrating to snap any of the REALLY scary stuff!

All of this was great fun. I had a BIG grin on my face as I blasted downhill, in the belief that the rest of the trail was mainly downhill. Big misjudgement :-(
As I rounded another bend, I was greeted with a view of the trail vanishing a long way into the distance up a VERY steep climb. My earlier grin was replaced with a painful grimmace. Little did I realise that this climb went on and on and on and on in seemingly endless procession of switchback's through the forest. I later discovered this to be the section known as REDEMPTION - and for good reason.

After what seemed like a lifetime and by far the hardest part of the day, I finally hit a gentle flat section of trail where I took time for a rest and some much needed energy bars! These pics were taken at my resting place :

Refreshed and sort-of ready to move on, I followed the trail back into the forest where I happened upon EWOK VILLAGE & DOUBLE X.
Now this looked like GREAT fun! Basically it's a trail on raised timbers of varying widths and heights and is inspired by the big riding phenomenon out of Canada called Northshore. I took a couple of pics at the start of this section, which give you some idea of what it's about :

As you can see, the raised sections can get quite high. What you can't see is that they suddenly narrow from 3ft-odd, to maybe a foot and a half and suddenly you're hitting a stretch of timber around 8 inches wide and 5ft plus off the ground. Going quite fast. The result was yours truly bottling it at this very point, nosediving from the raised timber, over the handlebars and 'Face Planting' into the dirt, rocks and tree roots below. A 'Face Plant' is a term for exactly what it sounds like.

Other than my helmet, the only padding I usually wear on a ride are arm/elbow pads. Typically, i'd forgotten them so in trying to protect my fall, my left arm hit a tree root first, followed quickly by helmet & cheek. The result? An egg-sized lump on my left forearm, a grazed forehead where my helmet transfered the force of the impact, a lovely black eye from where my sunglasses impacted and various cuts n bruises which i'm guessing were a combination of the ground and that lovely 3 grand bike falling on top of me. Heh! - crashing is ace fun :-)

Once again, the reasons for wearing a helmet bacame abundantly clear. You'd be horrified at the number of people who don't bother :-/ It's the last time i'll forget my pads too!
Anyway, pride once again dented and in a fair bit of pain, I finished the trail and headed back to the Hub.

On reflection today, i'm feeling sore but very proud of myself and it's another day that underlines why I came here in the first place. If you're interested, you can see a map of the trails here by clicking the following link :


http://www.thehubintheforest.co.uk/TRAIL_MAPS/glentressmap.pdf

You'll need the Adobe Acrobat software to view it, which is available FREE from the following link :


http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html


Take a look at the map and you can see the trails I've been on about the last couple of weeks. Who knows, you may even fancy coming to visit and giving them a try :-)

With that, i'm gonna sign off for another week or so and enjoy the rest of my day off. Don't forget you can email me from the link on my profile page here and thanks again to everyone for their emails / phonecalls etc.

C'ya later,

Dean

;-)

Trail Blazin` !!

Hey folks :-)

This week has been fairly pivotal for a number of reasons. The first few days were amongst the worst i've had since I arrived, the last probably the best.

After a wonderful weekend last week, Emily went home on Tuesday. Was really tough seeing her leave and I reached a real low point on Wednesday, feeling homesick, fed up, lonely and ready to pack up & head back to Birmingham.

Being Easter weekend though, my mind was ocupied by a totally mad few days at work followed by a much needed day off....

After almost 2 months, I finally got out on a ride in the Glentress forest trails where I work. Nic had 5 friends up for the Easter weekend and they'd planned a ride for today - a day off for Nic I - which i'd been ordered to join.

Now although I ride quite a lot, this was going to be a PROPER off road ride with 5 very experienced guys and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit daunted at the prospect :-/

Anyway, the day started with glorious sunshine so it was a good start, and we all made sure to eat a hearty breakfast before heading out. We bundled the bikes into the van and set off to the forest car park, which was totally packed out being a holiday Monday. Still feeling a tad nervous, I kitted up and zipped around the car park to warm up while the others got ready. Then the journey began.

The guys had decided we were to do the Red Route (the routes are graded like ski runs - green, blue, red and black in order of difficulty), which eased my mind a bit as they'd been talking about doing the Black over dinner the night before!
We headed out of the car park and bagan the ascent, initially via the road that leads to the car park higher up the mountain. I was feeling good, the sun was shining and I was comfortably keeping pace with the other guys. Pretty soon we came off the road and onto the start of the Red route which begins with a steady climb through the forest on singletrack (basically a narrow dirt/rock/tree root path). I was still feeling good and had tucked in behind one of the guys, Ian, to climb the singletrack through the forest. In fact, I was concentating so much on keeping tabs on him that I did'nt realise we'd pulled ahead of the other guys behind us.

On reaching the first singletrack / road junction, Ian and I stopped to wait for the others and take in the view, which although we were only about a third of the way to the top, was still mightily impressive. After a quick breather, we continued the climb as a group and pretty soon found ourselves at the highest point of the trail where Nic took a pic for me :




















Pretty nice eh? And yes, it IS as high as it looks :-) As I mentioned last time, if you click on the pictures you'll see a bigger version.

So, the climb to the top done, now came the testing part - going downhill through the forest on twisty, narrow, steep singletrack. FAST!! Now I can't emphasise what this feels like, only to ask you to imagine being on a rollercoaster that also goes over jumps and that YOU'RE in control of ! Oh, and there's no harness either.
In equal measure it's fast, testing, technically & physically demanding, thrilling and heart-in-mouth shit scary, but MY GOD WHAT A RUSH!! :-)

I came to the end of the first downhill section with a mile wide grin. Not only had it been a massive buzz, but I was only a few seconds behind the other guys and had'nt fallen off! Nic just laughed when he saw the grin on my face. "Good isn't it?" he said. Oh yes!
THIS is why I moved here. After everything that had gone before, all my down days, questioning if i'd made the right decision to come, I realised at this very moment how incredibly lucky I am to be doing what I am, where I am.

On a high from the first section, we hit the second. Feeling more confident, I tried to push my speed and lay off the brakes a little more. I was getting to understand the handling of my bike more and taking more risks and although this section was maybe not as tough as the first, it was still enormous fun. Nic had taken my camera and gone ahaead to get a few pics of me as I followed :

Here I come...

Getting closer...


























...there I go!


Unfortunately, these pics don't really do the trails justice and look fairly tame. Believe me, they're not. I'm hoping to get some more dramatic shots in future but at least you get the idea for now :-)

Anyway, up until now i'd taken the last position in the group on each section, meaning I could try to keep pace with whoever was in front but not have to worry about being in the way of someone behind me.Feeling the confidence grow further, I followed Mark in second place on the 3rd downhill section. First mistake of the day.

As I mentioned, I had yet to be in the position of having anyone behind me. Now, I had 4 of the 5 other guys tearing down the trail following me and immediately felt the pressure. Rather than concentrating on the trail in front, I was now paranoid that I was either slowing the other guys down or being scrutinised. As a result, I was pushing harder than I had all day. The increased speed made every judgement even more crucial and I paid the price on a particularly nasty switchback (sharp corner that doubles back on itself), overshooting as I came out too fast and planting my head/shoulder into a tree! There's a reason we wear helmets.

My abrubt halt saw the others fly past shouting concerns as to my well being as they went by. Thankfully, it was only my pride that was slighlty dented and we continued to the end of the Red route without further incident. At this point some of the guys decided to do the whole thing over. The rest of us decided we'd punished ourselves enough and freewheeled the long road back down to the Hub reflecting on the day and rewarding ourselves with tea, coffee & cake :-) The others eventually joined us for post ride fodder before heading home after a great day and a personal milestone for me.

On the car journey home, I asked Nic how he thought I'd done. "You're certainly no slouch" he smiled. He then went on to tell me how he'd been riding the same trail last year with a couple of World Champion downhill riders, one of whom stacked into the very same tree I had, writing off the bike he was on in the process. It was a fairly notorious blackspot by all accounts and that made me feel a little less clumsy and a little more proud :-)

I'm now typing this feeling pretty pleased with myself and a lot more positive than I did just a few days ago. Much as I miss the people I love, today I realised the only destiny I control is my own. Everyone has their own life to live and I'm hoping that I can finally appreciate the opportunity I have here and move on with mine.

Til next time,

Big Love,

Dean

;-)

Welcome Break :-)

Nothing to do with a dodgy roadside cafe, instead a VERY welcome few days off after 8 consecutive days of chaos at work!

Yes, the last few days or so have been wonderful. Emily came up from Birmingham for a long weekend and I managed to get (almost) all of that time off, giving us both a chance to explore the area in more detail.

Believe it or not, after 6 weeks, I'd still not had the time to venture into the forests that surround us at work. Em & I put this right on Sunday, albeit the easy way via car! The weather welcomed Em with the kind of freak conditions that now seem the norm to me - cold, warm, rain, hail, snow, sunshine taking it in turns throughout the day and leaving you wondering what season it is. Anyway, my first trip into the forest has certainly whetted my appetite and i'm determined to get out there more on my bike in the coming weeks because it looks stunning!

Em took my picture on a brief exit of the car... (PS-click on the pics for a bigger picture)


























Looks nice eh? Indeed it was, although about a minute after this had been taken the sun went behind a cloud, temperature plummeted and not long after we had a flurry of snow. Needing no more prompting, we headed back to the car and made our way to the remote Gordon Arms pub for Sunday lunch. Mmmmm.....Sunday lunch......

It had been 6 weeks since my last roast dinner so I can't tell you how good it was to taste roast beef, yorkshires, roast potatoes etc. Oh my! This was after we'd negotiated the vegetarian menu for Em, which confusingly included things like chicken curry!!

As we left the pub, I spotted another photo opportunity....



















Not a particularly great pic, but it gives you an idea of how random the weather is!

I should point out at this juncture that I've been warned at pain of death to be 'selective' with the pics I use involving Emily. Not that i'm a coward you understand, but in the interests of an easy life (and banking bribery options) i have, for now, agreed. (OK, I AM, a coward!)

Em's mission while she was here, was to help me turn my bedroom from a fairly unorganised bachelor pad into something a bit more homely. This involved far too many visits to IKEA than is healthy, but after 5 days of moving stuff around & spending lots of money, the result is definately worth it. Pictures won't really do it justice here, but it's now a home from home and finally feels like a place of my own. Mission accomplished flower ;-)

Next up, we hit Edinburgh. I'd only been once myself, on a trip to the cinema with Nic weeks ago, so it was a bit of an adventure for us both. Em & I had actually been a couple of days earlier, but the weather had been terrible so we did'nt stay for long. This time round though, we were blessed with much better conditions. I won't ramble on too much - the following pictures tell it better than I can....


























Gardens surrounding Edinburgh Castle

Yours truly in same gardens.

The Castle Walls

Em overlooking the town.

Tourist Pic!

You better believe it!! ;-)

I took a great pic of Em outside a bar called ' Dirty Dicks' just after this and had much fun dreaming up a caption. In fear of my life, it's been left out.....for now ;-)

Phew! For whatever reason, this post has taken me forever. As a result, the last few pics go without caption, but are all from a park overlooking Edinburgh.

It's kinda late now & i'm tired + have 7 days of work in front of me, so forgive me for signing off abruptly. My apologies to my familiy, Des + Julie, Jon + Heidi, Dave + Becky, Scott + Sally etc - all of whom i've been a bit slack in contacting of late. I'll try to catch up this week - honest!!

Finally to Emily. Thank you for being here this week. I've had the best time & feel so much better for it. Think I understand now. I'm always here for you, hope to see you soon & love you dearly :-)

XXX

Til next time folks....

;-)

Week...erm..4!!!!

Another week, another late post! I won't make excuses - my initial promise of 2 updates a week was somewhat optimistic in hindsight :-/
Never mind eh - it's not like there's anyone hanging off my every move so if you just keep checking back every now and again, and i'll just do my best.

So then, i've been living here 4 weeks today. I would say time's flown by and, to some extent, it has. In other ways, it feels like MUCH longer! That said, i guess i should view it as some kind of milestone and feel some sense of achievement.

Anyway, work related life has been crazy, culminating in last weekend which saw the start of the Scottish schools Easter holidays. I'm convinced that to a child and a parent, they all turned up to our place on Saturday & Sunday, although despite the chaos and 12 hour shifts it was actually kinda fun.

Before this, I spent the previous week missing out on the staff ride I mentioned in my last post (TOO tired man), only to venture out on my own the following day for a short ride, get hopelessly lost and end up doing a 33-odd mile loop. Ouch!

It all began well with a steady 7 or so mile climb out of the valley, followed by a welcome 3 mile gentle descent to a lovely country pub ( i resisted entering). From here, i took a few photo's along the way.....

























































Not long after this pic, I realised that turning I was looking for to head home had either vanished or i'd missed it. Turns out they don't go much for signage up here and combined with my obvious poor judgement of distance, I actually overshot my exit and ended up in the next town 10 miles down the road! From here, I decided to play it safe and stick to the road to get home - a further 12 miles which suddenly saw the re-invention of road signs counting down every will-sapping mile!

The situation wasn't helped by my lack of planning (hey, I won't need food / water for this little jaunt!), or the seeming lack of ANY shop/garage/outpost for the WHOLE 33 mile journey! Oh, and it rained too. A lot.

Cheery this week ain't I? Not to worry though - I still cycled to work the next day and we even had a kind of staff bonding night out at the bowling alley on Friday which was good fun, albeit a bit brief.

I'm tired now so to finish up, i'll leave you with the weather. Just as we thought Spring had sprung, today has seen the seasons come all day, taking it in turns every 20 minutes to do it's best to confuse every living thing around here.This concluded with the most beautiful sunset being mugged by the biggest cloud you have EVER seen dropping the entire planets stock of hail & snow on our heads in about 10 minutes. I got a pic of the impending Armageddon as I legged it from the supermarket and a mad dash home in the car......





















And quite spectacular it was too! In fact, the events of this evening pretty much sum up my first month here. Who said life was dull?

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

;-)