Yet another round up!

Sorry readers, yet another 'round up'. This time we've got Squirt boating in the sun on the river Exe, Louise and I before and after our XC Mountain bike racing adventure at Haldon, and some old pictures of Paddling the Upper Dart at a good level!

Sunshine and squirt boats on the Exe

Louise feeling nervous before the fully sussed race at Haldon

Both of us feeling exhausted after the race

Check out the race results HERE

Somewhere on the Upper, After stopping to rescue a boat!

Euthanasia looking chunky!

A bit of Dartmoor sun and cycling

Some more quick pictures, this time of me enjoying a bit of spring sunshine whilst biking on Dartmoor. The sky was blue the trails were dry, and the riding was awesome!

I'm trying (vaguely) to get ready for a Mountain bike race this week at Haldon. Fully Sussed are running a series of races, including some Thursday night evening races. I'll be giving it a go, its all just for fun!

Sorry its been so long.

Sorry its been so long, I feel like I've barely been able to spend any time in front of my computer recently! So here is a quick run down of what you've missed in the last three months.

Christmas; New year; A whistle stop tour of the UK; Mountain biking; Surfing; Kayaking the Dart; Kayaking the Severn bore; Kayaking the Walkham; A week in Scotland; A new Mountain bike; New Camera stuff; And plenty more!!

Here is a few pictures of just some of this stuff.

Climbing in the Scottish highlands

Cycling round Loch Rannoch

Fun in the snow Loch Morlich

A muddy cycle in Epping Forest

New Macro Camera gear

The Upper Dart

New Yak Team member, Extreme Frog!

Competing at Whitsands Bay surf kayak competition

Ewart Khan, warming up for the Walkham

Team AS/Yak surfin' it up!

On the Severn Bore - I'm the kayaker on the wave on the left of the picture

Waiting for the Severn Bore

Ewart Waiting for the Severn Bore

The Posse rolls out; Woodbury mountain biking

Ewart managed to get together a pretty impressive Posse for a ride on Woodbury Common. 9 riders hit the trails led out by Tom K. Tom knows the trails on Woodbury like the back of his hand, and managed to link up all sorts of bits of trail to keep us going for 3 hours! covering just about every square inch of the common!

The posse, mid ride

Tom K hits Jimmy's gap

Tom KP falls foul of the roots, mind you he did only have a back brake!

Tom took us to some of his favourite test pieces, including this steep, rooty and slippery slope. Some riders managed to get down it cleanly, some had a few dabs, and some collided with trees, and fell down it instead!

The roots and trees gang up on Pete!



Mandy hitting up the jump combo

Ed C gets some air time

Ewart, flying, but hanging off the back as usual!

We also stopped for a quick session on a freshly re-dug jump/bombhole/step-up/step-down! despite being a bit of an odd combo it was very smooth to ride.

Kate, on a steep roll-in in the quarry

Then we set out through the gorse bushes, stopping for some fun in an old quarry, and for a chance to pick out a few prickles!

We eventually got back to the cars, three hours later, dirty, sweaty, scratched by gorse and brambles, sore, tidy but very happy!

This months Round up

I can't really believe that is been three weeks since I last posted anything. It's not because I've not had any news, I've been upto loads. But that is the problem, I've been doing so much that I've not had the time or energy in the evenings to post anything up.

So heres a quick photo round up of some of the things I've been upto this month.

Paddling the River Dart with Ewart, Liam and Kayleigh

Enjoying a dawn mission raid and after work mission in the surf at Sidmouth With Ed, Dan, Owen and Ewart

And Enjoying a great highwater day playing on Topwave and the Loop

As well as this lot I've also enjoyed a great evening messing about in the canal with Playboats, and a short weekend away in mid wales Mountain biking. It really has been all go here recently, more of the same please I say!

O.P. Trails

I got the chance today to hit up some semi-secret somerset trails. Tom KP, Ewart and I headed into somerset to ride the OP Trails, that Ewart and Tom had been shown last week. After a bit of overnight rain the trails had been transformed from last weeks bone dry, lightning fast, to todays, soggy edged, greasy, DH on ice surface.

Tom threading his way through a greasy S bend

Ewart exiting the S bend

This made the riding 'interesting' to say the least. Many of the sections were slightly off camber with occasional roots, this became suddenly very tricky, and my decision not to put the DH tires back on and leave the skinnier AM/XC on my bike looked like the wrong choice! On my first few runs, my attempts to hurl my bike into a berm ended with crossed up handle bars and the bike still going straight on!

Me, about the air out of the bomb hole jump

The slippery conditions get the best of Tom

But after a few runs to get a feel for the slippy conditions we all slowly got the hang of it, with the speed slowly picking up. But then just when you were thinking you'd finally got a run wired, you suddenly wash out, or slip on a root and all of a sudden that great line and speed had gone! Oh well, it was great riding, and it made a change to be really challenged by the conditions.

Ewart airing into the bomb hole




Tom, mid flight, bomb hole jump

A week on the North coast of Scotland

We've just returned from a fantastic week on the North Coast of Scotland. We rented a cottage overlooking Armadale bay, in the centre of the North Coast, and literally a short stroll from the beach. We had a week of perfect weather, blazing sunshine and warm days and not a single Midge to be seen!
We enjoyed a range of great activities that the North of Scotland has to offer. We surfed at Armadale and Farr Bay, Mountain biked at Carbisdale and Balblair on the Kyle of Sutherland, fished from the rocks in front of our cottage, and visited a whiskey distillery of course!

Here is just a quick selection of the pictures we took during our week.

Me on the Black trail at Balblair

Candy mountain on the black route at Balblair

Riding a rock slab on the red route at Carbisdale


Louise on a rock slab on the Blue graded route at Carbisdale

Enjoying good surf, but howling off-shore wind at Farr Bay

Mini Head Dip at Farr Bay

Awesome ride!

Clean on calm waves at Armadale

Fishing from the rocks, in crystal clear water

Lots of small pollack!

The sun sinking into the sea, Sunset at 10.30!

Strolling down the beach at Armadale

Another wave rolls casually into Armadale bay

The view just outside our cottage

Not another footprint to be seen, perfection