stuff and nonsense

It has come to mind of late, that I may well have been losing touch of some of the things that are most important in my life. This flying business has been taking over so much of my time that most everything else has been put on hold or neglected in some way, this blog being no exception.

I’ve had very little time in the hills, virtually no time climbing and minimal time on the mountain bike over the past couple of months, and it became very apparent to me on Tuesday, just how much I’ve been missing it all, even if I’ve failed to realise it at the time. On Tuesday I met up with my old friend Adam for a blast out on the mountain bikes over on the Long Mynd.

I love the Mynd, it’s just a beautiful part of the world, the views of Shropshire and across the borders into my home county of Powys are truly gorgeous, and the geography of the whole thing is wonderful and makes for some cracking walking and/or biking.

It had been a good month since I’d last had the bike out, a fact of which I was all to well aware on the first bit of ascent. The pain in my legs and lungs was almost entirely quashed by the simple joy in my heart at being out, up there, breathing the fresh air with the wind in my face and a good friend by my side.

The joy did rather change to fear and cramp in my hands and feet as our descent of Minton Batch under what can only be described as ‘rather muddy’ conditions very quickly revealed just how poorly my tyres grip in slippy, gloopy Shropshire muck (my tight-fisted desire to not spend any more money on bike parts may have now developed a tyre buying exception clause). A major sidewinder moment left me wondering exactly how I’d managed to not end up on my face in a pile of sheep droppings as I heard the never to be forgotten cry of “there’s a puddle in my gusset!” from a rather amused, if damp Adam riding behind me.

Wet it was. Muddy it will probably remain for the rest of the winter, and a joy it will always be. I love Minton Batch, I love the Long Mynd and I love being out in the hills.

Roll on the winter and some more soul clarifying days and nights into 2012. I’ll be back to re-sample my sanity out there as soon as I can.

biking on empty

Just lately I’ve been suffering. Illness is the curse of the common masses, especially at this time of year and doubly so when you’re running yourself down by working all hours of the day and not getting to bed until gone 1am each night. So yes, I caught the annual cold. It’ll be nice if I don’t catch another for a while, because to be honest, spending two weeks barely able to focus let alone do anything, really isn’t helpful or motivating in any way. Sorry to moan.

This weekend just gone I was still coughing and croaking, but having begun to feel as though I had at least started to partially resemble a human being again (so long as you didn’t look too closely), it was time to get out and do something. The plan had been for Matt and myself to head down to South Wales to spend the weekend mountain biking at Afan. I’ve been wanting to head down and check out the trails there for goodness knows how long, and this weekend was meant to be it – we were going. Anyway, predictably we didn’t go – me having barely (i.e. not) recovered from my cold and Matt becoming seemingly more and more convinced that his last ‘off’ at Penmachno may actually have done some real damage to his wrist (bud, if you read this, go get an x-ray ok?). With the two day epic postponed, we did decide we’d at least get the bikes out for a run on the Saturday, and having heard that a new section of black graded trail had recently been opened up at Llandegla, and neither of us having ridden said new section of trails, off we went.

Of course no trip to Llandegla would be complete without an hour or two’s procrastination in the cafe over a cuppa and a bacon sandwich/slice of cake (depending on what type of mood you’re in – both are really good). Eventually we were also joined by Adam of www.elitemountainsupplies.co.uk fame, who had decided to come up and join us to test out his new BB and cranks, and then we were off. Out into the mizzle and mist we charged, wheezing and whinging our way up the fireroad to the top of the hill (yes, ok, it was just me wheezing, but I’m proud to say it wasn’t actually me that did all of the whinging), whizzing our way down the initial few km of red graded trail until we were off onto the black.

For anyone that hasn’t ridden at Llandegla before, the black trails aren’t really black. They’re red. There’s very little full on technicality and the severity only really becomes apparent when you ride at some considerable speed. The singletrack is smooth, flowing and littered with jumps, berms and the occasional small drop. The steep climbing switchbacks and the intimidating looking boardwalk are also for me minor highlights (am I odd for enjoying the climbs?) and the whole thing has always been just really rather enjoyable fun, until you get to the end of the fun stuff and are faced with a few km of dull, tedious, flat track back to the car park…or at least that’s how it used to be.

The new section of trail, for those that know the forest and the old trails, has been built starting just before ‘The Twins’ on the red trail (so you’ve already ridden the old black trail and have re-joined the red again). It’s after the run off into ‘JJ’s jumps’ and is blindingly obvious as it starts with an epic long section of fast, undulating built up boardwalk.

I should admit here and now that the one and only part of the trail I did not ride was the initial rock drop onto the new boardwalk – I was being a coward, I hold my hands up to it. The rest of the trail was just fantastic fun, with long fast descents strewn with jumps that just beg you to carry enough speed through them to let them just fling you skyward with virtually no effort whatsoever, interspersed with some brutal, hell climbs (ok so these were by this stage in the day for me quite unpleasant as my sub-optimal health levels were catching up with me). I won’t say any more actually, just that the new section of trail really makes the venue fully worthwhile now – I always enjoyed riding there before, but now it really is something quite fabulous. There’s still no real technicality, but the grin factor when you just let go and let the trail carry you is immense.

The sunday did in the end also yield some mountain bike action, with all three of us returning (after a bit of an issue with a certain party member’s van that had to be left in the car park overnight), just having a play on the jumps in the skills area in between eating cake and drinking hot chocolate. Adam and I also decided to have a crack at the blue trail once it had gotten dark – I have some new lighting combinations I was wanting to try out. Unfortunately by the time we’d wombled our way back to the top of the forest we were in such thick fog that neither of us could even see the obstacles we were riding over. Sheer sensibility dictated that we simply rode back down the forest tracks to the car park rather than stumbling on with our eyes unfocussed in the thick foggy gloop. A good call me thinks.

The lights did work incredibly well in the clear, and at some point in the not too distant future I have every intention of writing a post detailing my setup and talking about how and why I think things do and don’t work for night riding, not just from a rider’s point of view, but from an electronic engineer’s too (for that is actually what I am in case you were unaware of my professional background).

Anyway, to cut a long, rambling story short, the new sections of trail at Coed Llandegla are well worth a ride if you enjoy fast, flowing, jumpy trails (and the cafe is still fantastic), and my fitness levels are still remarkably good considering how ill and lazy I’ve been lately, which is nice.

‘not for girls’ the deuter race x air 14l pack

Wow I’m such a slacker! I’ve had this bag for ages now and am only just getting round to writing the review. Slap my wrists Webtogs!

Anyway, what do we have this time? Basically having run out of things I really wanted to try out camping/walking/climbing wise, my mind was instinctively drawn to kit that could be used for my other main outdoor hobby (no, not aerobatics) – mountain biking.

The Deuter Race X Air is a lovely looking piece of kit – a very simple, 14l hydration system compatible rucksack, designed primarily with cyclists in mind. Idea for longer days out on the mountain bike where you want to carry a waterproof and some sandwiches in addition to all the regular kit you carry on a short trail centre blast. In fact Deuter say this:

The Deuter Race X Air 14 L Backpack is a compact and sleek bike pack for fast and light tours.

The proven Aircomfort-System with mesh shoulder keeps your back cooler and drier.

Features

• Front pocket with stowaway helmet holder
• Interior valuables pocket
• 3M reflector and attachment loop for the optional Safety Blink
• Hydration system compatible
• Mesh pockets
• Weight 940 g
• Capacity 14 L
• Dimensions (H x W X D) 47 x 22 x 15 cm”

Looks nice no? I was really pleased with this pack when I first received it, although a couple of things niggled right from the off – firstly, it’s not actually that light despite being marketed as a ‘fast and light’ style bag. Over 900g for a 14l sack isn’t what I’d consider all that lightweight really, especially when you open the bag up to find that it has nothing in the way of organisational pockets or the like, despite its weight. Now, I also do like my biking packs to have stash holes for things like pumps and multi-tools, so I wasn’t overly pleased to find this minimalist open void that just swallows everything you throw at it – however I was impressed at just how large this thing does seem to be inside and how much kit I managed to fill it with – it’s certainly big enough for a summer day-ride, although you might want something bigger in winter if you’re carrying insulation layers and the like.

Secondly, despite often being marketed as a hydration pack, this bag does not come with a hydro pouch. This wasn’t a big problem for me as I already have several, but if you’re looking for a full hydration pack system bear in mind this one doesn’t come supplied with a pouch. (I tested both a 2l Source roll-top pouch in this and a Nalgene 2l screw-cap pouch, both of which fitted fine – I also don’t see that there would be any issue using a larger 3l pouch if you wanted to).

Thirdly, it seemed to ride up my back somewhat when I rode with it – walking or even running with it were mostly ok, with the large gap in the vented back system meaning this was the only bag I’d ever used that hadn’t made my back sweat. Sadly none of the niceness of having a sweat free back actually matters when you find yourself hurtling downhill and unable to move your head back properly to see because your bag has ridden up and the stiff back system is now digging into the back of your neck…

It was after that little ‘incident’ that I swapped bags with my riding partner Matt and swore (quite profusely) that I never wanted to see the Deuter again. A shame really, but for me a biking pack that interferes with your head movement is an absolute no no. Don’t necessarily let this put you off though – please read on.

Matt (aka @carriedcarpet for all you Twitter types), being a different shape to me (I am an ‘average’ slim woman, he is a slightly taller, trim but athletic male) seemed to have none of the back issues I did, and hence the next glowing part of the review is from him:

“Not for Girls.

Some people spend their weekends with their girlfriends or their wives, visiting national trust properties, cafes and random events or beer festivals. I spend my weekends with Ingrid, a feisty German girl who is super quick, but also rather unforgiving. Ingrid is my cross country hardtail and before you all feel sorry for me I have to say that I see myself as one of the lucky ones, my bike doesn’t bestow me with in laws and though she throws me off at the slightest sign of cockiness, lack of commitment or skill, she rewards my passion and effort with the pure thrill of speed . The sheer concentration of a long technical downhill gives an almost meditative effect, removing the strain and tension of a hard week at work (that is, when I don’t fall off her in which case I often end up face down in a stream...)

So to the matter at hand, Laurens Deuter Race X Air running and biking pack. I usually use another brand of biking/hydration pack (think humps and deserts) so I was keen to do a swap on a ride around the black run at Llandegla Forest (which it should also be noted is the home of one of the best bacon sandwiches in Wales.) From the off the mesh back system fitted well - this isn’t a new thing and has been around for at least ten years, however Deuter have made something lightweight [ed. – see my earlier comments about weight] which also seems to fit my rather scrawny/athletic physique really well. As a bike pack it’s fairly minimal, with external mesh side pockets for jelly babies (or if you’re posh energy gel), a zipped front pocket and an internal divider in the main compartment to separate out your hydration pouch from the rest of your stuff. If bells and whistles are what you are after this probably isn’t the pack for you, however to my mind less is definitely more, and what this pack does is provide something simple but in a really well tailored and designed package. I took the pack running round the Ironbridge Gorge and this seemed to be where the pack really came into its own - the back system was really secure, even with 5kg of weight in it, none of the normal annoying bouncing up and down and the waist belt didn’t cause my top to ride up, luckily preventing too many tourists on Ironbridge being shocked by my bare mid riff. Some people baulk at the idea of a built in rain cover, thinking it’s best to keep essentials in dry bags, but for this type of bag it is a great feature. Having still not quite got used to people trying to run me over when running at night, pulling out the hi-vis raincover means I have an extra chance of survival when out in the dark. The other bonus is that on the rare occasions I bike to work I can transform my muddy pack into something a bit more smart and socially acceptable.

My only real niggles with the pack was that there weren’t enough clips to stop spare straps flapping around, something common to most packs and easily sorted with some elastic or duct tape. I also had a bit of a hang up about the mesh shoulder straps, they worked brilliantly and were really comfortable, but somehow they made me think about tights. However Ingrid didn’t share my hang ups, she really liked the bag and I wouldn’t dare argue with her!”

 

Matt and Ingrid pack testing at Llandegla, after my tantrum

 

So there we have it – two rather different opinions on the same pack. I didn’t find it fitted me terribly well, which wasn’t a problem whilst walking (my first excursion out with it had been a day’s bog slog in the Berwyns and I found no fault with it whatsoever, in fact I rather enjoyed using this pack as a walking day bag – however my primary use for it was meant to be as a mountain biking pack and for this it simply didn’t suit me). Matt found the bag actually fitted him really well and enjoys using it for biking, running and walking on regular occasions.

 

The link bit:  http://www.webtogs.co.uk/Deuter/

cli-machx

For those of you that don’t know, I’ve been doing very little in the way of exercise just lately, due to the fact that my ankle injury has led to a recurrence of an old chronic knee injury. I’ve been desperately trying to rest it all to allow time to re-hab and heal, but for an active person like me, this has been agony, which is why, today I risked it and went over to Machynlleth with Matt and our mountain bikes.

I’m not going to say too much, nor am I going to post up any nice pictures (I did take the camera with the intention of getting a couple of snaps, but somehow the urge to keep riding and riding just meant I never stopped long enough to take any). Basically, getting out on the bike was the tonic I’ve been sorely craving. My injuries held up fine, my fitness levels were no-where near as bad as I’d feared they would be (they were bad, just not as bad as I’d resigned myself to!), and the trail was one of the best man-made trails I think I’ve ever ridden.

My short conclusion is, to anyone riding mountain bikes in Wales, who hasn’t yet ridden the Cli-MachX trail just outside Corris, near Machynlleth – get over there. It is awesome, especially the black graded final descent (apparently the longest in Wales). Go go go!

http://www.dyfimountainbiking.org.uk/Dyfi_MTB/ClimachX.html

filler in

So what have I been up to of late? Just general life business I suppose, you know, van building (I have a transit I’m converting into a ‘stealth camper’ of sorts), aerobatic flying and general Pitts Special flying, mountain biking, looking for work…

Yes, I did say looking for work. Depressing as it is, the only way I’m going to be able to keep up the flying and attempt this mad career change thing (which, incidentally is still a notion open to options…current thinking is centring around possibly trying to get a commercial license and flight instructor rating, although I’m investigating everything else I can think of too), is to get more engineering work. More contract days would be ideal and we shall see what happens.

If anyone knows of anybody in need of a Radio Engineer, then let me know, please!

Also partially related to the career change and flying thing, is my latest major acquisition – the ex-police Ford Transit I’ve just had a bed built into the back of. It’s fabulous! I’ve always wanted a van camper, ever since I can remember seeing one a few years ago on a climbing trip. All hardcore outdoorsy people seem to have them – climbers, bikers, guides etc. Up until now I’ve never been able to justify the extra cost of owning and running one (over the cost of running the estate car), but with plans afoot to do more consecutive flying days, it makes no sense to be driving backwards and forwards to the airfield everyday (a 2.5 – 3hour round trip), and hence the van has become a hugely sensible option. It will also give me somewhere to chill out before and in between aerobatic flights AND somewhere to cook dinner/brew tea etc, thereby also saving on the amount I spend in the cafe. It all makes sense, honest!

The current build project, now that the bed is mostly done, is the ‘mountain bike quick access storage’ thing. I have some cunning ideas in the pipeline and some interesting bits of hardware on order, so hopefully in a week or so it’ll all be sorted and I’ll be posting up a complete set of ‘pimp my ride’ style photos for you all to yawn at.

Speaking of mountain bikes, this weekend just gone Matt, Philip and I finally managed to get over to Bwlch Nant yr Arian (near Aberystwyth) to try out some of the trails there, and I must say we were mightily impressed. Stunning views, a great little cafe, brilliantly fun sections of fast, technical singletrack, scary exposure and relatively sociable fire-road climbs all made for a fantastic day out. We will be going back I’m sure!

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/bwlchnantyrarian

Fantastic view from the cafe deck. The Red Kites are great to watch too.

Somehow, despite deliberately taking the camera with us, we failed to get any good photos on the trails, but the big grins on our faces here tell the story – a truly fabulous day out on the Pendam and Summit Trails

Oh yes, and I probably should just mention that flying-wise, plans are afoot for me to be competing at the Tiger Trophy up at Sherbern-in-Elmet (near Leeds) on the 16th and 17th of September. Hopes are that I’ll be able to enter the Beginners category again on the Friday, and also enter the Standard on the Saturday. So right now I’m studying like mad to make the very most of my flight time in training over the next couple of weeks. I love it.

compare and contrast

Monday: Bailed attempt at riding the Trans Cambrian way due to horrific levels of wind, and a severe drenching.

I would just like to offer an apology to everyone for the storms and extreme winds and bad weather we’ve been having – it seems most likely that Matt and myself are the main cause of said ‘less than ideal’ weather conditions, because we’d decided to pack all our gear onto our bikes and head off into the wilderness for three days on the Trans Cambrian Way. In fact, it’s probably my fault these storms have hit, as I’d made the bold statement prior to the trip, that the only reason we might not commit to the route would be if the weather conditions were actually dangerous…

For a while it was funny, hilarious even, to battle the winds on the ridge-top, but after an hour or two of cycling with a ten degree lean just to stay straight, and being forced into the lowest gears on the ‘granny ring’ in order to make progress on downhill sections (much of the up we’d had no choice but to push, no matter how shallow the angle – the wind was truly insane), we decided enough was enough.

By this point I was less amused – my feet were cold and extremely wet, my panniers were too damned heavy, and I’d really had enough of the wind

Drenched to the skin by rain that had been blasted at us at god-only-knows what kind of speed, exhausted from hours of fighting the conditions and getting next to nowhere and realising that at the rate we were progressing we’d have no chance at finishing  the route, we made the only sensible decision and headed for the nearest tea shop and then the train home.

 

Tuesday: A fabulous day out in the sunshine (still a little windy) on the Long Mynd and riding Minton Batch

Having bailed on our intended route, Matt and I decided to head up onto the Long Mynd today for a fun day ride – Minton Batch is a classic singletrack descent from the Mynd I’d been hearing lots about and really wanted to do, so we chose a route to incorporate it.

Up, up, up (not the most fun part)

There were some cracking views to be had today – you could actually spot most of the places labelled on the topograph for once!

Minton Batch – Shropshire Mountain Biking classic. So good we changed our plans to do it twice!

If you click on this one to make it bigger, you can just about make out the plastic pigeon Matt is having a conversation with just after we’d ridden the Batch descent the first time round…it was so good he just had to share!

Such a good day and such a fabulous place to mountain bike, Shropshire will be seeing a whole lot more of me and my trusty steed in the future I’m sure! Cheers for the laughs Matt!

mud, mud, glorious mud!

I’m really starting to get into this mountain biking lark. Despite the pain and ultimate discomfort, there is a huge grin-factor associated with going down something steep and technical at speed.

Last Thursday I had a quick hit trip to Llandegla with one of my MRT buddies, Tom. We didn’t ride anything particularly technical trail-wise, but Tom did push me into the Skills area and onto the jump section, where he then proceeded to shout encouragement and abuse at me until, eventually, I was actually jumping! Oh yes, it begins…

Friday was an altogether more sedate affair, in that no jumping or extreme speed occurred (the mud was both too sticky and too slippery all at the same time). There were, however, a rather large amount of mud, sheep poo, water, rain, wind, stinging nettles and ‘navigational challenges’ involved as Matt and I ventured out into the wilds of the Ceiriog valley – out on the bikes away from the trail centres…

Both of us fell off in the mud. Both of us and our bikes got covered in some rather unpleasant sticky, stinky brown stuff, we stood around looking blank as we tried to work out which tracks to take and we even missed out on food in the pub, but we both loved it!

More time out in the wilds, being ‘adventurous’ is most definitely on the cards (and probably with a proper camera in future, rather than just our crappy phone cameras).

another kind of pain

I briefly mentioned in my last posting, that I’ve been hobbling round on injured knees after a mountain biking accident, and I just thought I’d like to elaborate a little. You see, I’m not a mountain biker, and it had been something like two years since I’d been out on a mountain bike, when I went over to the trails at Cannock Chase to meet up with my old friend Dave from back down south (Dave being a keen mountain biker, and Cannock being a nice half way point for us to meet for a day trip).

I borrowed Matt’s mountain bike (cheers matey), which held a couple of issues for me: 1) the spd pedals he uses (easily solved by the guys in the shop loaning me some flats) and 2) the bike is slightly too big for my petite frame.

Anyway, I had a really good time on the ‘Follow the Dog’ red run, also linking in a few more easy miles of ‘blue’ through the forest before rejoining FtD…it was all going so well, until I fluffed it. Right at the very end of the course, I misjudged a couple of things and to cut a long story short, went flying without the bike…landing directly on both kneecaps.

The bike was fine thankfully, but I had to finish riding the trail in an unbelievable amount of pain. I hadn’t broken anything, but judging by the kind of pain I still have, I suspect I may have bruised some bone underneath the big cuts. Anyway, I’m virtually back to normal now so we shan’t dwell on it too much.

The two most frustrating aspects of the whole episode were the fact that I wrecked my only pair of walking/climbing trousers and that I promptly decided I wanted another bike. Yes, that’s right, I went out, caused myself massive amounts of pain through injury, so of course I decided I wanted to be able to ride better, and in order to do that I need to ride more, and in order to do that…I needed a bike (and some knee pads!).

So here we are, my bruises finally starting to disappear, and I’m looking at my beautiful new hardtail mountain bike – one that’s mine, a bike that fits me and is an absolute joy to ride. Bring on the trails and the mountains…I will get better at this.

mountain biking...

...really isn't my sport. Ok so today's little foray was actually really good fun but I still don't think I'm cut out to ever be a mountain biker.

Dave took me up around one of the local hills on some basic scraggy tracks and trails in the woods and down the chalk slopes. It was quite a long session actually - I left home at 2:00, met Dave at 2:40 and got back home at about 6:15 - all that time spent on a bike. That is a very long time for me.
Ok so we weren't on the bikes the entire time - we did stop at the top of the hill for an ice cream (a 99 with strawberry sauce no less...) and on the way back we stopped at the local chocolate shop/cafe for a hot choccy. Even so, I spent longer in the saddle today than I have for the previous 3 months combined! (possibly a slight exaggeration).

Going up hill is hard work and I'm evidently not as fit as I'd thought. Admittedly the gearing on my bike really isn't ideal for any great climbing effort but that doesn't change the fact that I was pathetic.

Going down hill is fun until you start making it really steep and/or technical. Once it gets really steep and/or technical my brain starts to twitch and get all unhappy - the most likely cause of this is a deeply engrained sense of cowardice or possibly a firmly rooted desire not to hit a tree. Either way I'm not that good at going down hill either. Slowly is bad as it makes it really hard to control where you're going, but fast increases the tree impact risk. Somehow I managed to ride almost all of it today though, not resorting to walking anywhere near as much as I could have, so I guess I should be proud in a way...

I did really enjoy riding back down the path we'd previously slogged up (yes, we went up and down the hill twice via different routes). It was steep, fast and only semi-technical but had the critical advantage of not being particularly bendy and therefore not carrying a high tree impact risk rating. Hence I rode fast - I hardly touched the brakes :D

The hot chocolate was also very very nice...

Now, I'm knackered. Great isn't it?