Posted by kevin
Just a quick post to say that I’ve had a great day today mountain biking in Wales with Nich and Liz. In stark contrast to last Sunday, the weather down there was spectacular with sunny blue skies (albeit there was quite a chilly wind!)
We did a couple of laps from the Glyncorrwg centre, the first of which took in the new north shore ramps on the Whites Level and the second was a quick climb and descent down the Skyline. The latter was as the sun was setting and made for some pretty spectacular views and photographs.
I’m planning to send this one (see right) off to a couple of mountain bike magazines to see if I can get it published!
The most important thing is that my faith in the wonders of mountain biking is fully restored, having enjoyed a wonderful day on the Nomad without getting ridiculously muddy, wet and cold! This is what mountain biking should be like!
Posted by kevin
I was delighted to hear today that after a laborious few days my friend Nicole gave birth to Isabelle Brown. Isabelle weighed in at 7lbs 15oz.
My congratulations go to Nic and Julian for becoming parents and I’m looking forward to meeting Isabelle.
Posted by kevin
Having not been on the bike since early January I thought I’d take my Santa Claus out for a spin in South Wales today.
This was my anticipated experience…
The weather forecast: Cloudy
The route choice: “Black Mountains Magic” from a 2002 issue of MBR, sweeping through the black mountains with lots of climbing but lots of fast descent.
... and my actual experience…
Weather experienced: Rainy and wet with zero visibility on the hills
The route choice: Mud, mud and more mud. Where there wasn’t mud, there was plenty of… erm… roads and puddles and swamps and marshes and sheep and fences and unopenable gates.
Actually it got so unpleasant and difficult to navigate because of the visibility that at the furthest point from the car park, I opted for a return by road. This was for two reasons: firstly that I figured I could navigate safely home by road, and secondly it was going dark (although my mega lights would have easily reversed the latter).
So all in all, not a fun ride and it only served to remind me how nice it is to ride where it’s hot and sunny. Yes this does happen in the UK over the summer months but I keep seeing desktop wallpapers from Utah and thinking about that sort of riding all the time. No wonder I’m disappointed when I head into wet wales!
One positive to take out of it is that despite all the rubbish that’s posted on the Singletrack forums my Nomad still hasn’t clogged up with mud to the extent that it’s not rideable. If I only ride in sunny dry conditions from now on, I don’t think I’ll ever see it clog up!
Posted by kevin
Not only am I back to work after my successful cataract operation in December, but I’ve been biking (once in January) and skiing for a fortnight in Whistler with Neil, Lou and Kath. Neil and Lou were lucky enough to have blagged 6 weeks off work so not only were they there two weeks before Kath and I arrived, but they were also coming home and then flying straight out to Torino for the starting ceremony of the Winter Olympics. Sweet!
Anyway, we arrived to find a lovely condo awaiting us and we quickly settled in. In the first few days we realised that Neil had purchased the advanced/expert guide to Whistler and had been working his way through the book with the inadvertent assistance of Rob, a friend of Neil and Lous’ out there. Fortunately Neil had drawn the line at some of the really extreme stuff like Krakatoa (involving two cliff jumps on the way down to the Blackcomb Glacier)!
It soon became apparent that the book would provide us with inspiration on where to ski during our time there but despite minor jibes, I was refusing to do anything ridiculous (like Couloir Extreme, the double black diamond on Blackcomb mountain). However, as time went on and the snow got deeper, we started to get a feel for the Pow (Canadian term – believe me!) and on the penultimate day of skiing we took a look and I threw myself over the edge. The entertaining thing at this point of no return was Neil shouting that he wasn’t following me after all. He was only joking so I laughed a lot and proceeded to describe Neil’s descent in a very nasal Californian surfer dude voice.
This voice became the overbearing anthem of the last few days of the holiday but resulted in much entertainment as we threw ourselves down various sweet runs with me describing the Pow in a very vocal manner. In fact, we collated the video clips of this sort of activity and provided a debut for Neil’s first ski video, entitled “Extreme Pow”. See it here.
The snowfall in January was a record 470cm and we skied in it every day. The most entertaining evening was when we walked out of a restaurant to find that it had snowed 40cm whilst we had been eating. Lou and I did the only logical thing, which was to bury ourselves in the snow drifts and proceed to create body shaped outlines in front of the condo.
Sadly, after 12 days of skiing, the day came to return home. As last year I found this very difficult and so immediately got on the case about a return trip in the not-too-distant future… Watch this space for more details.
