never laugh at peoples bike set up.....

walking out of the sign on hut at a race today , i caught some people having a laugh at my bike set up , it went along the lines of look hes got full XTR on that santa cruz frame with middleburn cranks and hes stuck those crap forks on it. all the gear no idea....just as i picked it up and rode off,

in the race i sighted these boys about half way round my third lap .......and passed them , meaning id then lapped them , then finished second to a boy on a cyclocross bike. whos laughing at my bike set up now ?

for the record i was using borrowed forks off a mate cause i cant afford new sids yet and i gave my girlfriend my MX comps for her christmas.

never say never

Rode to Dundee this morning at 7am for some strathpuffer temprature training ... the garage was -5 when i went in to get my bike

rode to dundee steadilly and handed in the computer to ninewells. opted for the 23 mile time trial on the way home , averaged 30.2Km all the way home on the a92 on a 42:16 fixie , very happy

The title of this post comes from a mate just asking me there if i was giving up downhill for good since ive sold off most of my mr big , my only reply could be never say never ....i still enjoy it its just that the money involved in racing in downhill is rediculous !

bad night !

out night riding last night

got to the first road junction , stopped realised i hadnt done up the velcro on my winter boots , twist my feet and nothing ...proceed to fall straight over onto mike !

riding along down a technical descent end up one wheel either side of a log and then over the bars

riding across a fire road about to drop into a steep descent and didnt spot a hidden log in the grass
sommersault the bars ! and run out stylishly

stopped waiting on people around rode to speak to mark ...proceeded to fall into him

off to see if i can buy a new sense of balance from madison now !

Falling into place at last

Having had people be sceptical about me "winning" a "free" trip to New Zealand its a relief to be able to say i am in possession of all the tickets and information i require to go !

thanks to everyone at NOFUSS events .... do 10 under the ben folks !
Richard Pascoe for all his help in organising internal flights/bikes
and David Brookland for all his local knowledge

me and Jayne are both really looking forward to going now its all becoming so real now

University will hate me for leaving for 2 weeks but its too good an offer to pass up on !

"to push ones limits one must first find his limits"

first round of the ABC winter series today ....big turn out ... 5 of the hardcore

in an effort not to take the race seriously and get some training benifit out of it i chose to ride out from arbroath to glamis station woods which is about 35k on the road using the heckler . Combination of Sonic boom six gig and my mates ensured a late night prior to this. So leaving my self only 1.5 hours to get there things were a bit pressed for time.

got there just on time , and started off with an easy start in second for the first singletrack where a stick went through my rear mech !!. stopped progress for a little while . removed it and dropped to the rear of the pack. Got stuck for that section of singletrack nitemare !

over took 4th place on a steep descent and then pushed hard to catch up with the main pack of three

caught up , 2nd place slipped on a root on a climb and dropped behind me , 3rd place let me past after some pressure so i ended up in second before midway round the first lap.1st place had a similar fate to my self involving a stick in the wheel so i over took him , and seemed to cruise off into the lead and managed to open up a good 2min lead.

kept it up till the 4th lap where i blew up on an early climb and the pace dropped from 20-25kph to 15-20kph , this allowed second place to catch me. had nothing left to give and just limped home for second place.

lessons learnt ...dont do 60k on 2 bananas for breakfast

quick cheese ploughmans and another 35 k ride home

Good training though

it has been suggested im going to hard at this training malarky after doing spin sessions at the local gym in favour of turbo training and doing 185-195 bpm HR for the whole session twice a week but i think thats because im out of sync with my mates training schedules. they are aiming to peak for june and im aiming to peak in february/early march ....then i can have a month off training hard to study for my finals and then start the training again

Certainly been seeing alot of stars in my training sessions recently ... but coupled with some good long rides though