Monday 16 May 2011

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).

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5 comments:

  1. Love the glorious mud post. Well done.

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  2. Just a short and sweet one, need some better pictures for future MTB posts I think :-)

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  3. The jump section at Llandegla is cool, were you doing the little flat table tops? It's brill to have a short section to practice, over, and over again to build up confidence. I was trying to go round the berms at speed, but can never quite get it right! (i.e I don't lean over enough!)

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  4. Hi Lauren! I just discovered your blog through @SourceOutdoor's twitter stream... so glad I did. I'll be stopping by from time to time.

    This way if I can't be in the wild or the mud at least I can read about it at work! :)

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  5. David, yeah those were the jumps I was playing on, will be going back, need to do some serious practice (berms are my other major weakness too!)

    Jim - thanks for the compliment! Hope you continue to enjoy my inane ramblings :-)

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