Wednesday ride...

Meeting as usual at 5pm tomorrow evening. This week the weather looks pretty good and we may try and extended route. We've got Nant-yr-arian in the calander for a fortnights time so we need to get the fitness levels back up!

Stickers

The new stickers are here so grab me at the next ride for yours!

Friday rant...

A good friend of mine recently told me (no telling who it is!) that it's funny how to the North lies Scotland, a country with its own Parliament, numerous mountain biking "heavens" and a population able to work with its forests to build on the growing popularity of our biking past time. Then Wales, with its Assembly, and yet again, numerous mountain biking "heavens" and a co-operative spirit between riders and, what I shall loosely term, "governing bodies". 2 small countries that have really got it going in the right direction.

Then we have good old England. I could write numerous things at this point, but I wont rant. Basically, the attitude is fundamentally wrong. A thriving and growing sport, potential tourism and economical drivers for mountain biking centres. Do you see them popping up in your locale? No, didn't think so. And even if you do, you know the level of ball ache it takes to get it going, and its the riders pushing it 200%.

So England, sort it out!

Fun fun fun

Good ride last night. After an epic 2 days at work, it was great to leave before 4, even driving home i was looking forward to getting on the bike. Got up to the reservoir, prep'd the bike and waited on other arrivals. Duly arrived James H and I then smugly noted how well I'd been looking after my bike, and how manky his looked!

Still, we climbed up feeling some pain from Sunday, but generally climbed well, I struggled come the road climb, but I am just only back on my fitness regime! Preps to James for going whole hog, and for reminding me my bike is so heavy, great excuse for me pushing that last bit up!

After that Charity lane rocked, I love how that place constantly gives different conditions, in this case white water rafting conditions from the recent monsoon weather alla Macclesfield.

Good ride, learned something new on seatpost different downhill ride heights on the beast, and still in love with Miss Stinky :) so all good. I'll be riding Macc forrest and Teg's nose this Sunday/Monday, let me know if anyone wants to join me.

Macclesfield ride

Good fun tonight but again just me and the boy Warnock. Weather stayed fine, even had some sun!
Both of us felt the exercise from the weekend, but I re-instated with a solid climbing performance. Charity Lane was great fun as usual, but VERY wet - like a damn river on the lower half, and typical, the 'racing' line was the wettest!

Hopefully we'll see more of you next week - slackers.

Blast from the past

Had an email from Ben this morning:

Hi James,

Just caught a mention of fearingout on homegrownpushbikes so I thought I'd drop a line to say hi. Am back in Macclesfield for a year starting end of July so it would be good to meet up and get some rides in.
I hope that you are doing well - see you soon

Ben
PS drop me a email if you are riding in south wales in June as I should still be down here!

As Scott mentioned we're riding tonight, in the pouring rain. When will the summer start up here?!!

Ready...

The brake is fixed (for now, wtf is going on with it I don't know, might have to return to high peak and get it proper fixed rather than doing patch up bleeds every fortnight!) and the rain is out........so it must be Wednesday......ride on for tonight as usual, I'm making a long awaited return, so a little monsoon isn't going to stop me :)

Bring it on.

Be prepared...

...The famous scout moto, maybe one I need to think about before riding!

ClimachX trail sounded good on the web, the pics and helmet cam video whetted the apetite even more, so having got excited for the trip, I was so keen to get my kit loaded into the silver bullet, I left behind my tool box, AAAaaaaaaargh! No axle stay for my front hub, no tools, no gloves most importantly! So on arriving in the middle of a valley in the middle of somewhere unpronounceable (that must a be a hard language to learn) in Wales it was officially monsoon season.

Fuck it we thought, this place sounds ace, let's get on it! So I patched together my bike, tightened up the axle as tight as I could make it, cried about having no gloves, then we began climbing. It's clear this place is built around the final descent, but despite this, there were a few chortles, though short, in the warm up climb. Being particularly unfit and having not exercised for about 4 weeks (lazy c*nt, I know) I took it easy, not knowing how steep it could get, but tbh, the climbing was easy.

Anyway, as we made our way round, the singletrack sections started and stopped with the odd big air opportunity. As we sensed the final descent was looming, the landscape was crying out for a mega downhill gradient, but initially we had wet rocks and slow technical passages.

Then suddenly, BANG, awesome tight, twisty and very fast downhill, bike loving action. As James spot on pointed out, our bikes were made for this shit. Due to my lack of gloves and annoying re-occuring rear brake problems I didn't quite hit 100%, but the bike flowed, no big air, but letting the bike glide below you, taking every tweak, every bump, every berm and tight turn, that final descent really is up there with the best of them. Plus we tried a random little north shore style freeride section, good fun :)

Rock on. It was fucking wet, but it was fucking ace and we will be back. Awesome day out.

What would you do?

You own a meaty free-ride bike with 7" of travel but fairly low end forks
You also own an old XC rig - something that started it all...

OPTION 1
Splash out the cash on a bling bling set of Marzocchi 66s for the free-ride rig.
Keep the XC rig pure and use it for fitness.

OPTION 2
Buy a street/jump/4X frame, some bling bling Hope brakes and a few other bits and pieces and build up your dream street bike from scratch using the forks, wheels, cranks etc from the XC rig.
Keep the free-ride rig standard as you like the dual crown forks.

No prizes for guessing whose this quandry is though ;)

Cli-machx this weekend

We're visiting the Cli-machx trail at Machnylleth this Sunday. Leaving Macclesfield at 8.30am so should be there for 11.30am. Email has gone out to the regulars about it.
Check out the website here


Episode 6.1 Premiere
Now arranged for this Sunday at 7pm. Meeting at my place. Please bring a fiver with you, and the DVDs will be ready before the end of the month.

5th at Innerleithen for Fearingout Team Rider!!

Yeah congrats to Tom from the Fearingout Team on his recent 5th place at the NPS DH at Innerleithen.
Full report on the British Cycling website :>:here:

Next up is a round of the Dragon series down at Gethin (check out :Dragon Downhill: for more info) and then upto Fort Bill for the World Cup!

Episode 6.1 Premiere!!

Yes you read right... instead of keeping all the footage to the end of the year and having just one mammothly long DVD the decision has been made to make several shorter videos throughout 2006.

First up is Episode 6.1 which includes extended footage of both the Wirral ride (back in February) and Glentress Weekender (last month).

The DVDs are available to pre-order now. If you want one let me know and drop me off £5. I'll then get them made and distribute them before the end of the month.

The premiere is planned for sometime before next wednesday... Watch this space (and you're inbox!)

Taking advantage of the gourmet weather, myself, James C and Eunice visited Macclesfield Forest for a ride in the evening sun. With James setting the pace, we set about the long climb up to the top of Charity Lane without stopping at the Barn. The rocks on "The Lane" seem to have grown bigger and bumping along the track was quite hard going at times. Suffice to say I had YET ANOTHER puncture, and more or less in the exact same place as last week. When the air hissed out within about half a second I knew this one was severe. Examining the tube revealed 3 mammoth snake bites, each of them more of a gash than a hole. With replacement tube installed we moved on to tackle Chris's trail and the suspension loved the steps - bring them on! We then headed down to the dried up river bed and back round the side of Teggs nose, where Eunice left myself and James to climb back up to the cars. A relatively short ride, but great to get out on the bike when the clouds are hiding away and the ground is nice and dry.

Well it feels like the summer's started early here in sunny Macclesfield... I won't hold my breath though!

In other news after spending a few weeks scouring the internet and bike magazines Mr Warnock has settled on a Cove Sanchez for his new frame (for street, dirt and racing 4X). I've mocked up a sample below:



He plans on transferring components (pretty awesome cranks and forks - okish everything else) over to the new frame, and spraying the rims orange!

Mr Mumford will be joining us again this summer. He starts work at Macclesfield the first week in July so we'll no doubt be hearing more from him again this summer.

Good ride this evening. Just Leo and myself making it in the end but at least we had the weather - what a gorgious evening! Reminded me of the best days of last summer.

Just the usual route including most of the bridleway and Charity Lane. Took a few snaps but mostly just enjoying ourselves.

Roll on the summer!

Thanks for that insight Mr Pickford - looks like you had fun although I'm not sure it was all in the Fearingout spirit and with regards to 'Fearin Gout' - well all I can say is F*** O**!! ;) lol.

Following a week off to recover from Glentress we're riding this wednesday again. It'll be the first test of my new 200mm front rotor!

After a weekend as Epic as Glentress most riders would want a couple of weeks to recover. However I was straight back on it with a trip to Coed-y-Brenin in Snowdonia. Steve and myself drove down Friday evening and met up with Andy and Chris at the campsite. Quite a slow journey really due to caravans and other similarly slow vehicles intent on hindering our progress. But we eventually arrived and had a few beers at the barn that was to be our home for the next couple of days.

Saturday morning and we made an early start on the 22km MBR circuit. Steve was really racing up the hills and pushing ahead without stopping, in similar fashion to a certain Fearingout regular. I immediately decided that my new shin and knee pads were a bit cumbersome and so opted to wear the arm guards only. This was enough to enhance my confidence though and I took more of an aggressive stance on the downhill sections, shifting my weight around effectively on some nice fast singletrack. The trails were for the most part hard packed shale and slate with the dry weather ensuring maximum grip. Starting to really get the most out of my suspension I’ve now got into the routine of locking out the ETA for the uphills and unleashing the full 120mm for the downs. Most of the ups were on fire roads and fairly gentle, so we all had plenty of energy left for the downhill sections, including a twisty but flowing descent very similar to the dragons tail at Gwydyr. Finishing the loop with a few hours of sun left, myself, Andy and Steve decided to tackle the 11km Redbull circuit. Chris retired early to the campsite as he was suffering from some back pain following the MBR.

After what seemed like an eternity of climbing we blasted down Snap Crackle and Pop, followed by another gruelling climb. This was justly rewarded with the Rocky Horror Show, a blisteringly fast single-track descent through trees that makes you realise what it’s all about. As we rode the last section back to the carpark we thought about calling Chris to ask if he wouldn’t mind coming to pick us up. We didn’t need to call – he was one step ahead and already waiting with the Saab and roof rack at the ready! Back to the campsite then for hot showers, microwave food, beer and a game of poker. Job done!

Sunday morning Chris really wasn’t doing well with his back, so it was just three of us riding. We decided to tackle the mammoth 38km Karrimor route, although quite frankly I would have settled for doing the Redbull 3 times! Still, we set off on the ride, taking it fairly steady for the first bit of climbing. The expected series of mediocre descents ensued, with a café stop for tea and flapjacks tactically positioned just before possibly the most colossal climb I’ve ever experienced. To the relief of us all this was followed by a series of four brilliant singletrack descents- Uncle Fester, Cousin IT, Morticia and Gomez. This series is arguably much better than the Rocky Horror Show on the Redbull route and left us all feeling rather uplifted. Just a shame that getting to it involves such a gruelling uphill slog. A few minor slow speed crashes to report, but no injuries and the only bike problems amounted to another puncture for me! I think I’m compensating for my incredible run of punctureless riding.

As Chris was keen on getting back and the rest of us were quite knackered from the days riding we decided to cut the weekend short and headed back Sunday night. Great weekend though and certainly a different view of Coed-y-Brenin than you’d get on a day trip.

Photos can be found at by clicking here