The ride no to be

Today I took the day off for a ride I’ve been pondering for a while and is definitely do-able and a cracking day out with the intention of not stopping. Glentress Black, Glentress Red, a Glentress enduro back to Peebles, then drive to Innerleithen and do the Red. All in all I reckon it was about 50 miles of fast hard mountain biking. The forecast looked ok early on, so I left Glasgow at 6 to arrive at half 7 to make the most of it. Cycling in to get the legs spinning it was great to be possibly the only person in that early with the sound of the birds chirping. Cycling up to Buzzards Nest I made some good progress, emerging to snow!

Last week I refused to pay the £100 for my fork servicing so downloaded the manual and did it myself, which is a doddle (and a fair bit cheaper whilst making you instantly more manly)! I think it’s always great to be able to fully service your bike, and that now completes every bike task I can think of doing. On a plus note it worked faultlessly and felt plush! Got the pre-load working again J Nothing to be nervous about there!

Continuing up the black, I forgot how long and how steep some of those climbs were! Got the old lungs and ticker going, but making it to the hut I had a celebratory ‘sprinter’ (Morrison’s faster and smaller version of the Snicker). From there on to the mast it was all but leaving tracks in the snow dusting and cracking the ice with the wheels, something I always enjoy for some reason.

Following the boundary wall I was making good progress until disaster happened. Through 4 years of abuse the pedal threads on the right crank snapped and my pedal became wobbly. Trying to fit it on once or twice it was proving futile so in the end came out at the top of deliverance and started following the fireroad back to Glentress Peel, peeling off to do some of the red.... realising unable to stand on a hardtail your bum gets punished! After a few minutes of pushing back on the roads, I dropped my seat to the bottom and scootered like little kids do back down. Unfortunately by now there were a fair few people able to witness this. Good fun and massive speed but not the day I intended. 

A consolation bacon sandwich and scooter back to Peebles ended the day. Apparently a pretty common occurrence but new to me and a real pain and gutter. Good job it wasn’t middle of nowhere! This ride is to be continued!!!!

 

Also toying with getting a full susser – test riding in two weeks at a test event so we’ll see what I’ve been missing out on or not. Sorry to my beloved Genesis, I feel we may drift apart even with all my fixes!

Glencoe Ski Session

Today Beth and I took the day off work to go up to Glencoe skiing. First trip for our new exclusive snow sport club (post one xscape session)! Looking at the webcam all week, blue skies and good coverage more or less to the car park dominated so we were excited to head up. Unfortunately the weather was forecast to change on the Friday but we headed up anyway. It was the first time I’ve drove up there so which was quite fun, especially with Beth’s great music selection…dance to a good bit of Taylor Swift I may or may not have sang loudly along to! We arrived at 09:00 and by the time Beth got a snowboard and me getting a bacon sandwich for us both from the café and subsequently eating it in the queue, making many jealous in the process; we were on the scenic chairlift for 10:00…and into the clouds.

We skied/boarded by memory to the cliffy chair then up to run down the green. Beth’s snowboarding was good so I headed down the blue to meet the bottom of the closed Tombola run. This definitely wasn’t any fun for Beth as once you turned onto it you were on sheet water ice which would be much better for climbing than anything else! I enjoyed this…Beth’s bum didn’t as she slid past. There was good snow on the groomed runs though.

 

Unfortunately the boarding only lasted an hour as the binding snapped so we slowly had to head back to the chair to switch it out, and change to skis as she’s much more confident on this and better for the conditions anyway! I headed down the lower red making it pretty much to the car park with some ingenuity on the final line right against the ski fence. The run was good though, icy with massive moguls, but out of the cloud and fun.

We headed back up hearing the very top had good powder, though visibility by 13:00 was all but 10m, unable to distinguish snow from sky and skiing from memory! Obviously the reds and above runs were closed but the blues were strangely quality skiing in such conditions. We ran top to car park a few times, and with no queues at all we did lots of skiing and all in all, despite really poor weather (probably the worst I’ve ever been in!) it was still a cracking day. Just avoid those rocks as they appear quick when you can’t see them! :)

The Cobbler

Gordon, Graham and I left Glasgow this morning at the early time of 05:30 to head to the cobbler with the intention of doing SE ridge. Arriving at the car park at 06:30 we packed up the bags and split the gear…upon which in my lapse packing the night before I realised for the first time ever I forgot my harness! What an idiot! Nevertheless with a bit of ingenuity I reckoned I could make a pretty robust harness from slings at the base of the crag. We set off with the head torches, reaching the top of the tree-lined path to the fields just as the sun came up, revealing a most spectacular sunrise against crystal clear skies and snow on the ground. 

Compared to Gordon and Brian’s trip the week before there was a big strip of the snow, with the ridge clearly being in more summer than winter nick. We therefore headed to do Chockstone Gully into Great Gully. This proved cracking fun with Gordon leading the former and Graham the latter with a tasty finish off the left of the top gully on fickle ice but frozen turf. Good moves with a tasty pull up into it. Admittedly in both there wasn’t as much snow as I’ve seen in pictures but still more than enough for a good climb. We topped out into a ferocious wind coming in from the north, a marked contrast from the warm and calm south side. 

I was apprehensive about climbing given the 2013 accident I’ve not still fully mentally recovered from, but it’s good to keep ticking away at it. The lads then did another route up to a pretty big cornice they traversed around and we were down and back in Glasgow for 18:00.

La Thuile Skiing

Again it’s been long while since I wrote an update to this. A fair bit has been going on, and I’ve managed to get out and about though as always not as much as possible especially into the bigger Scottish mountains. However last week myself, Martin and his friends went skiing in La Thuile in Italy for a week.

 Flying out solo from Glasgow and meeting everyone there was a big bonus, and proved particularly useful coming back given the extra two hours in bed I got, before turning up at the airport to be greeted by everyone as their flight was delayed for almost three hours! Also if you look lonely you get given the extra legroom seats on departing; though no such privileges on the flight back!

 

La Thuile itself proved to be a quiet resort in terms of nightlife and also on a more positive note on the slopes too which were great, compared to the chaos of Bansko last year! The lifts were good and the slopes having great cover and being pretty long, especially the steep black runs down the gondola. The added bonus however was that the lift pass covered the other side of the mountain, allowing you to ski down into La Rosière in France, effectively doubling the amount of runs. Furthermore combined with a local bus (and friendly driver) allowed you to ski two days in another resort in the Aosta valley; Coumeyer being one €4.20 and half hour away. We utilised this, spending effectively 2 days in each resort keeping it interesting and covering loads of runs from steep blacks in all three resorts to good powder, to in parts flat-ish blues and deceptive soft off-piste powder and routes; though I guess that should be expected off piste in trees!

The weather was a mixed bag over the week, improving as the week went on but with so many aspects and resorts visibility wasn’t an issue and by the sounds of it where we chose to go each day played perfectly into the best weather. It was a great trip though the best bits were:

Mont Blanc bottom from Coumeyer

• John providing a live ‘You’ve Been Framed’ lift entrance (loosing a ski) and dismount (failing to get off, being helped by the lift guy, standing up again and getting stuck back in the chairlift as it went round, being removed again by the lift guy, standing up again then being pushed back down by the lift guy as the next chair would have taken him out and incidentally only narrowly avoiding taking himself out in the process, and the fallen ski coming up on a chair and almost not been taken off the lift) – would have been a great video 
  
• Going fast down some very steep blacks and reds
  
• Covering three different venues with some excellent runs
  
• Dean not ‘snoring like a train’ as I was advised to expect (except that one time I slept outside for 3 hours despite it being at least minus ten!)
  
• Good food in France and Coumeyer food portions (Italy minus one restaurant in the old town by the church disappointed, but the cheese made up for it)
  
• Winning big on the arcade machines
  
• Setting off the hotel fire alarm at  08:30 making a great bacon sandwich

Didn't take many photos as it was so cold the first few days I didn't brave taking the camera out the bag! Video may follow pending Kelly’s movie skills!

Danger!!!

Northumberland

Dovehole

As I’ve not been out doing any climbing of sorts for the past wee while, minus a cracking day at Dunkeld Polny Crag with Brian, I organised a cheeky 3 day boulder trip with 5 of the boys to Northumberland. This was their first time down so it fell to me to be the tour guide of the trip, using the campsite in Belford as the base. 

Casual Crag Attire

 

Noble attempt at His Eminence

The first port of call I wanted to check out was Dovehole on the way down the road. We couldn’t find anyone in the farm to ask permission as the guide states so left a note on the car. Unfortunately we didn’t get to stay long as we were washed off in torrential rain after just managing a 5+ as a warm up. The crag itself is situated on the hill in a clearing, being a little sandy but with amazing looking rocks and lines. Definitely have to go back at some point! With soaking feet we headed to Back Bowden to the Bat Cave to do Brant (6b+)We tried a few more down by Merlin’s wall though the midges were so bad we retreated… a day of retreat! Not bad to say it was so wet.

A bare foot night in the pub followed, which was good as England were playing so with the Scots in tow was pretty funny with the locals. For once I had the upper hand. To top off the night on the way back I spotted a pair of size 11 boots in the charity shop which I picked up the next morning at a £3 snip! Just a shame I’m a size 8! Still it avoided the trench foot I was getting!!! We spent the Saturday getting sunburnt at Bowden, managing 25 boulder problems in the day. Nothing too special just a few 6’s and the 7a sandy mantle, but some good efforts on His Eminence (7a+) from Jacob and the 6b in the cave we were close to finishing but too drained to get at the end of the day. Sunday was spent at Kyole in the Woods, where I got some new routes including a good 6a+ and 6b+ I’d never done. Brian and Arthur decided to leave an hour before us to head up the road. It’s a shame that when we got back to the cars theirs was still there with them nowhere to be seen. Turns out they’d took the wrong turn and were running around like lunatics trying to find the way out!

Ten under the Ben

This weekend I headed up to Fort William for the no fuss event Ten under the Ben bike race. After last year’s relentless 24hr race as a pair with Nikki we thought we should go solo since it's only half the time. Nikki unfortunately didn't get her solo place but entered in a girl trio, placing well to finish in 3rd.

Somehow I convinced Amy and a few of her friends that it would be a really good idea to come up and support and go walk Ben Nevis in the day whilst I'm on the bike. This proved to be a success with cracking weather on the Ben, however with it being the summer solstice there were supposedly loads of people. On another note after nearly 3 years of not meeting any of my mates she finally met too many of them!

The race started at 09.30 to finish at 19.30 with the extra hour to trail I'm taking it to 20.30. Lining up behind the bagpipe lead out band and then the model t ford I followed Rich to sneak to near the front, thankfully starting ahead most of the 600 people strong pack. This from what I expected and hears about afterwards avoided a fair few crashes, scrapes and mechanicals as soon as the single track was reached.

The course itself was a great 10.5 mile lap, diverted on the first to 9.5 mile to spread folk out. Long fire road uphills and fast technical downhills were the order of the day, including the upper red trail with the big fire road slog. Not my proudest moment getting completely dropped by an 8 year old kid who just flew up it. Didn't see him again! The river crossing seemed to result I. A few pulled brakes and wet feet too!

In the end I decided in lap one to try and get 7 laps in, switching positions constantly on the first 5 with a girl with a bloody elbow Nikki knew. I fuelled up every lap for ten mins but on the 6th I came in for a big feed. I saw her cycle past but didn't have any energy for emotions! In the end she did 9 laps coming 4th in female solo. I did feel for her though as I started looking respectable with the bib shorts under some MTB shorts and a Jersey and top on that. Lap 2 I shed the top and lap 3 the shorts to be in full Lycra the rest as it was so warm! What a treat?! Amy and her friends thought it was funny when they got down off the Ben...though I was laying out in the bibs!

I ended up doing 7 laps (73 miles) in 9 hours 35 mins. I had time for another though I was happy with that as I didn't want to kill myself. Especially since on the last lap my seat bolt sheared off leaving me without the saddle and a protruding pole! Thankfully i was coming near the start so stole another seat of a friend’s bike to finish! Another great No Fuss event which I'll try to do again next year.

Food:

Pack of jelly babies

Jamaica ginger cake

Half warm microwave pasta

Bag of cashew nuts

Spinach

Flapjack x3

7 energy gels