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Seems that end of year nearing time to suggest a 'what have you been upto?' thread with some ace pics and stories.
Rules: choose three rides from 2021, three pictures and a few words to say why that ride was important / amazing / memorable / ridiculous this year....
I am off to think about my three...
I'm only going to go for 1 really. This was in Wales, the Haibike enduro weekend.
For so so many reasons.
It as my first ever Enduro race.
It was my lads first ever Enduro race.
We had beer, we had cake, we had ice-cream, the weather was astounding.
It was incredibly HOT
It was very very tough, physically and technically...
It was simply and epic weekend away with my lad.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51324793122_f03e29e4d1_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51324793122_f03e29e4d1_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2mcoYSf ]2021-07-21_09-47-35[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
My first is from the beginning of the year. I've been riding since 1987 and it was the first ride we did after buying my Marin Bear Valley.
Technology has moved on leaps and bounds but Cutgate always brings a grin. As its near to us we ride it regular but I always get a buzz
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Next up is in Greno Woods, again another local to us.
It's always nice to ride and have fun with your kids, my jumping wasn't getting any better so Abigale took us to give us some coaching on Steel City.
Had a great time, learned alot and Kevin busted his foot.
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Last but not least we had to postpone our trips to the Alps and Finale so went up north and had a fantastic week of riding in Scotland
We had a limited time frame between the rides on the East and West but managed to fit in Heartbreak Ridge as we were passing through. An amazing ride in near perfect conditions
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Hard to chose as there are loads more that I could have picked
In no particular order...
Pic of GF during our first ever trip to Calderdale with the bikes.
Pic on a trail at Dalby - part of a mini roadtrip down South to England - just great to get away
Pic of Merrick descent - represents every single ride in the local hills as they all been good.
First one was tough - we had so many amazing rides on this holiday, but hitting the Harris Postman's Walk route on a 20*, relatively calm and almost midge-free day was one for the memory bank.
Next was a whisky fuelled weekend in Islay and Jura with old friends, made all the more special as they headed off home to deal with cancer treatment the next week for one of them.
My last one was a walk for me, a ride for other family members. Watching my son descend Ben Lomond, placing second on Stravaaaa, was amazing.
Bump
Will stick sommat up later.
Trophee des Ruelles race in Seez. I've taken part in loads of these over the years, but we finally got involved in organising one. On the night, we got hit by a downpour so we didn't get the turnout we hoped for. On top of that, I'd been hit by some bug and as far as the actual racing went, it rapidly became more about avoiding humiliation than anything else. All that aside though, it was great to be part of organising an event in my local town, the course was cool and we got great feeback on it. Also, as this photo proves, for one glorious spell of around 20 seconds from the start, I was winning.
This is probably my favourite guided day that we do. A big hike a bike to a proper summit. Alpine moonscape at the top rapidly leading to amazing rock slabs. After that, the most stunning knife-edge ridge line, some old-school flow and another jaw-dropping bit of exposure down the side of a gorge. A proper mountain journey, flowy trails, mind-blowing scenery, big-mountain exposure. This is one of our guides, Rab, on the rock slabs, reminding me that he is good at riding bikes and I am pish at it.
For the past few years, once the season is over, my wife and I pack our bikes up and go on a road trip. Chance to wind down, spend some time together, and, importantly, ride bikes together. Sometimes we get lucky and we can borrow my Mum and Dad's bling camper. More recently, we've been stripping the seats out of one of our uplift vans and putting a bed in the back. This year, we went down to race at Roc d'Azur, then headed over into Italy. We were down riding in Tuscany and had finished a ride by the beach. We were looking out to see and wondering what the island we were looking at was. 12 hours later, we were on a boat to Elba for the best day's riding of the trip and a great wee couple's adventure that we'll remember for a long time.
Great thread idea.
Really got me thinking.
The three I picked (at random) reflected my year nicely. First time ‘doing’ trail centres and bike parks in any great significance. Up ‘til now, they’ve been an annual or bi-annual event, but I think in response to last year’s lockdown, I’ve visited loads this year, and thoroughly enjoyed them all.
Three stand outs, and they were all from trail centres.
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1) A first encounter with some wildlife was the biggest memory from the year. My first time biking in Canada (this was at Whistler). The bear caught me totally by surprise – I’d never really considered bear encounters. Previously only been skiing in Canada, so they were fast asleep. This one really hit the emotions, it felt amazing. Not the final sighting of the week, but definitely the most impactful.
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2) First trip to Kielder. Had to take the easy trail (Lonesome Pine?) as I’d hurt my hand the day before, but what a treat. Northshore that I wasn’t expecting, views and I had the place to myself on an incredible autumn day.
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3) Summer trip to Afan, just after the loosening of restrictions. It was sweltering and my first (and probably last) time doing Blade. I smashed the rear mech somewhere on the uphill section, so was riding this final part of the ride singlespeed and it was getting me down TBH. But then we popped out of the woods and got this view. Made up for everything.
Has been a great year all in all.
Bit of a weird year for me with heart related health scare (cardiology say it is benign so ok now) but it meant I lost about 3 months of proper riding and never really got properly fit. But despite that had some really smashing rides. Hard to pick a top 3 but these one stand out
1) Bivvy ride with my mate Kevin. First ride back after being given the ok to ride again. It felt brilliant!
2) ride from my house over to ...I'm not telling you where... on the ebike. 5 laps of enduro runs off the hill at the end then load the bike onto the train with 5% battery left and ride home. 60km and 1700m of climbing by the end of it
Not done that ride (on normal bike) since 2019. The ebike takes it to another level - a great xc route all the way out and then so much descending before train home. Did that ride 2x. Brilliant.
3) Lakes biking weekend. Kind of missed it (well, missed our favourite campsite due to it being shut) in 2020 so great to ba back in borrowdale. First day on a certain hill North of borrowdale was superb. Discovered a new descent and just missed a fell race coming the other way. Perfect timing and conditions.
Honourable mention: Not a ride as such, but getting confident on medium sized gap jumps has been great also
1. JOGLE - scottish section, offroad following GB divide route on our new tandem. Amazing scenery and challenging 2up riding!
2. Week in Scotland using trail forks to the max around Ballater
3. 2 weeks ago, new bike, best mate, cwmcarn off piste. Had a blast
Ooh good one! Mine would be first ride back in the tweed valley after lockdown- it rained, didn't care. New trails to ride, old trails to revisit, and I'd accidentally become fit without realising it.
A last-minute uplift day at innerleithen in November where the weather was perfect, the trails were perfect, the company was good... my crank may have fallen off a little bit but it didn't matter, nothing could dent that day.
And the Glentress Seven. I enjoyed the riding but it was just the whole thing of getting out, meeting up, seeing so many people all doing the same thing for the first time in ages, I just wanted to go round hugging everyone.
Riding with the dog locally in February for the first time.
Claire Heights with Sandwich Jr in August
And Machynlleth earlier this month
Most of mine are, inevitably, from my Year in Mtns thread.
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/2021-a-year-in-mountains/
1 - The Cairnwell Munroes. A big ride on my own that wasn't all just about the gnar - it was also about a nice day in the hills.
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2 - Lake District Death Tech. A bit of a random ride that turned out to be absolutely belting - really hard, in grim weather with old pals and new ones.
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3 - It was a close run thing between a ride in the Lakes with old friends and this, but I've had some great bike rides with my wife on her new gravel bike/hybrid thing I built for her this year. It's very specific to her requirements- light, but with a suspension seatpost and headshock style fork to take the edge off, and low geared. The best ride was out into the Cairngorms - she got to see a side of Scotland she'd never seen before because of that bike.
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51779160227_7f086725fe_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51779160227_7f086725fe_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2mTxJnR ]IMG_20210708_141039_2[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/183377889@N06/ ]Luke Bradley[/url], on Flickr
Tricky to choose three this year as my riding has been badly affected by injury and health issues, and has also been mostly local. But here goes...
April. Only a short tentative bimble around the local woods, but was my first ride since January thanks to the worst flare up yet of my (still, after ten years or so) undiagnosed foot condition(s). Was just brilliant to actually get out on the bike and pedal without any pain or weakness. shame that wasn't going to last...
August. Again, after another two months off thanks to a non-working foot got my first 'away' ride of the year up on the North Yorks Moors. Was meant to be just a short test flight along the cinder path between Robin Hood's Bay and Ravenscar, but I got distracted and ended up chasing the light and prehistoric carved stones up on the moors. No real gnar but great to be following my nose and dotted lines on a map rather than Strava times...
November. Nothing special, just a Friday night blast round the woods after work. But in a year where I'd only ridden less than half as much as usual and my fitness was (thanks to lack of riding and/or Covid hangover) as bad as it has ever been, I got back to something close to my previous times on a little 5km loop/interval I use to informally gauge fitness and speed. Eleven months in to 2021 and finally felt kind of comfortable back on the bike and pushing reasonably hard (if only for a short time)...
More walking than riding this year, but three stand out. A post-summer solstice overnighter in the bivi bag on the Eastern Lakes fells, setting me up above a dawn inversion.
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A really nice overnighter on Exmoor for autumn's last gasp before Arwen rolled through.
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And a cracking winter solstice bivi a long way from anywhere.
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Always hard to pick but I remember a hell of a lot of enforced local only riding. Some of it was just fantastic. It's all we had but it was great.
But later on, we got to go further afield again.
3 standouts maybe are...
Riding on the flooded and frozen meadow right near my house where nearby, folks were ice skating.
It's normally a no-go area for much of the year as it turns into a lake, but back in February it was cold enough to freeze and reclaim the space for a short while.
Magical sound of the ice under fat tyres.
Hadn't been to Cwmcarn for ages and so it was great to get back there. This time it was on an eeb and so it was brilliant to be able to ride so much more of it after the drive to get there.
Then more recently, during storm Arwen I ventured up on the Malverns solo. Fantastic ride with the incredibly strong winds and exposure knocking my depression for six.
Lovely pics, Montgomery! Great thread, too I'm appreciating the nudge to think about the biking year - didn't use strava for many rides this year.
1) 1st trail in May ish with my eldest, 3ish. Mac ride and his balance bike. He got uplifted, rode around 5 miles of downhill, me going ahead a bit and having him come to me. He absolutely loved it. "Again!"
2) A day's coaching at Dyfi. A mate asked me what I was hoping to get out of it, I said "hopefully, a bit more than "heels down, strong legs, look where you want to go"!" But, in a nutshell, that was it! Brilliant day, though, loads of progress. Turns out having someone tell you what strong legs are and when you're current;y not deploying them is very useful. And same with heels down.
3) Local Christmas biek ride. Great weather, great trails in perfect nick, great bunch of people, great pubs. I took the rigid SS, plus front 26er witht the moto bars and and had an absolutely brilliant time on it. One of those "blimey, I'm good at biking!" rides. And yes, even before the booze started to kick in!
Well done 2021, not bad.
Here's my three - with a bonus fourth photo, because.
All ridden from my door in Stirling.
24 Jan: Colsnaur.
Have done this route many times this year with Thump, bubble friends and others including the legend that is Mr Falloffalot. Always fun but this one was a gem of a ride in the snow.
Tuesday night - 09 Feb: Dumyat
A Tuesday night after work. Bonkers fun from our doorsteps in deep snow with the lights of Stirling below. The only time this year I've stooped to riding the tourist path.
07 Mar - Bengengie
What a screamer of a descent on a glorious day.
You can see my house from here.
https://imgur.com/3ujREr0
Are we allowed a fourth?
18 Dec: Dumyat in an inversion
https://imgur.com/kdglOxG
Cheeky 4th there Crispin
All my riding was local this year, unless you count a couple of forays into the next county over!
So, a celebration of the local, starting with this photo which happens to come from a ride where we conquered a recently constructed steep/loose trail I'd had some small hand in:
https://www.instagram.com/benjihaworth/p/CPNxFuHhDBK/?utm_medium=copy_link
(This pic is not the scary bit...)
Sort of sums up "progression" for the year, which is to say, riding sketchy lines we managed to hash out in the woods in order to scare ourselves 🤣
Next up, an unremarkable ride in poor weather which should have been a group ride but ended up being just me:
Unremarkable at the time but ended up taking on a sentimental significance as the bike I was on got nicked shortly afterwards. You never know when it's your last time.
Finally, pretty much the perfect summer night ride. Felt like ages since we'd done such a thing, trails were at peak buffness, and it was a new route for one of our number so stoke was high as they say.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CPY5UiMBmRX/?utm_medium=copy_link
Rounded off with beers and a wonderful view of the sun setting over the valley, and an appreciation that where we live is alright really. Staying local is no hardship!