A quick ride at Haldon

Friday 20th April

Tom, Andy and I managed to get upto Haldon for a quick ride after work on Friday. Andy decided to use his new 661 Body Armour out-fit. While I don't doubt it's protection, it looks more than tough enough, it does make Andy look really daft!

Andy looking daft in his body armour

We had a good quick ride, it's a shame so much of the top section of the red run is still out of order, it really shortens the route alot. Plus the black run is still a work in progress, so it's no longer worth the walk up the hill to that part of the trails.

There is no excuse for either of them!

I had the biggest crash I've had in a long time. I'm sure the length of time between crashes is directly proportional to the amount of injuries sustained in a crash! I rode the ladder drop, the two berms, and then attempted to squash the jump into the rock garden, in order to keep my speed up. In reality I rode the ladder, the two berms, mis-timed the jump and nearly got thrown over the bars, almost regained control as I entered the rock garden, realised all hope was lost and bailed, just missing a large tree, but hitting the floor hard with lots of me, including loosing most of my speed via my head and the floor! A little shaken but still in one piece I carried on. I now have a large bruise above my left knee, two bruises on the back of my left leg, a bruise on the top of my right thigh, cuts up the back of my right leg, a graze on my right shoulder and a sore neck. Not bad!

In future I'll try to fall off more often, but with less injuries!

A Pig in the Freezer

My wife decided that seeing as the Farm she works on are getting rid of their pigs soon, now was the time to buy some pork cheap while we still had the chance. So she ordered 'half a pig'. She staggered back home with it today, just over 40KG of pork!!!!!

The biggest rolled joint, about 15kg

It's loosely called 'half a pig' but I'm sure alot of it is based on weight, but we now have a freezer exploding with meat. Two hams including trotters, three racks of ribs, over twenty chops/gammon steaks/ loin steaks, three bags of 'mystery meat', a whole liver, and three rolled belly/shoulder joints (the biggest weighing about 15kg!).

Bags and bags of cut joints

We Chopped up the rolled joints into smaller more manageable bits, they still made fifteen separate cuts! I'm going to be living on Pork for months and months!

Better sharpen my knife!

BBQ Action!

Well like it or not (and how could you not like it!) BBQ season is here. With warm, light, long evenings there is nothing better than sitting around with a bunch of friends enjoying some food, a few beers and a laugh!
The Fatman Andy kicked it off big style this week with a great BBQ. There's not alot to say really! But it was good and nobody seemed to get ill from Andys cooking!!!

Jemma at the BBQ, Ewart with his favourite BBQ sauce!

A good turnout L to R: Alice, Jemma, Andy (with finger up nose!), Owen, Louise, Steph, Ewart and Louise

A well laden grill

Burger and beer, brilliant!

Ewart and the Nali from Malawi, great HOT chili sauce

Ewart is Now dreaming up a 'BBQ League' where people will casually compete for the best BBQ, based on criteria such as choice and variety of food and drink, location, and entertainment, with himself as chief judge obviously!

Pines Ridge jumps

A bit of a back-log from the last week to update, this from last Sunday.

Apologise for the poor camera phone pictures, couldn't be bothered with big camera for the day!

With the glorious weather continuing it feels like it's all go at the moment, trying to make the most of it while it lasts, surely the weather will break sooner or later! Sunday saw me hit the bike again for a lot of jump and park action. I started off early with a session at the 'Pots skate park, before it got to busy or hot. I've never really been much of an MTB skatepark rider, but I enjoy the odd session and it was good to push myself abit on the quater pipe. Only to be shown up by some pimply youth on a BMX! but what the heck, I was having fun!
Then in the late afternoon it was off to the Pines Ridge jumps at Woodbury with Tom KP and his little brother Phil. There's a good variety of drop offs, step downs and small jumps, as well as the main attraction, a huge line of dirt jumps, plus a smaller tabletop and a variety of interesting/sketchy doubles and gaps!
We decided to start off on some to the drop offs. But on his second run Phil head butted the floor, and put a end to our excitement! he survived with a sore head and a painful hand. So we headed round the corner to the tabletop, and spent much of the next few hours clocking some airtime and smoothing our style.

T om KP over the table at woodbury

Phil gets a good boost out of the tabletop

Tom KP rides one of the smaller drops

Phil with some good hang time

After we were done with Pines Ridge we drove back into Exeter and had a quick session at the smaller and quieter skate park at Exeter Arena. It's a simple park, with a multi level jump box, and a small quarter pipe. Liberally sprinkled with broken glass it kept us focused! We polished off the last of the day light hipping off the jump box, and trying to ride the quarter pipe. All in all a good long days riding!

Back in the Surf: Constantine

With this winter being so wet I spent most of my free time in a kayak, enjoying all things whitewater on Dartmoor. But with the British whitewater paddling season over and done with for another year, my thoughts have turned else where. All the trail building and biking has been good, but I've been itching to get back on my surf board!
Loads of great winter swells have passed me by and my surfing gear has been getting dustier and dustier. But it was high time I did something about it. All this good weather and high pressure had killed off any surf for the last fortnight or so, but with a hint of low pressure back on the charts things were set to change. A fresh swell started to push in early this morning, and so I found myself, three surfboards, two wetsuits and a sausage roll, stood looking out over the waves at Constantine bay at 8am this morning!

Unknown surfers enjoying the reef at Constantine

Another empty hollow wall races over the reef

The expected 2 foot waves looked bigger in the morning light, and the reef looked great, but a bit much for me I thought! So I kitted up, and set off across the beach with a 6'8" swallow tail under my arm, thinking that it would be the weapon of choice. The waves were certainly good, but after a great deal of thrashing about on the short board, and only two waves under my belt, I was beginning to doubt my board choice. Then after loosing a contact lens, I decided that enough was enough, time to get out the real surf board, a mans board, none of this silly short board nonsense, wheres me Longboard. So with two lenses in, and my trusty 9'2" single fin under my arm it was back down the beach I went.

Another unknown surfer on the reef

Good waves and great conditions at Constantine

Oh what a difference! Easy and fast to paddle, so much easier to catch a wave, and fast down the line when it counted! The waves seemed to get bigger and bigger, helped along by the pushing tide, and soon I was dropping into chest to head high waves.
I got some good rides, I got some heinous wipeouts, and I enjoyed the calm serenity of sitting outback, in clear green-blue water. After a couple of hours my shoulders stopped acting like shoulders, and became merely bits of jelly holding my arms to my body! It was time to dry off, and find the camera.
I fired off a few pictures and finally slunk of home. Tired but grinning ear to ear. Next time I wont leave it so long. In fact with some luck I'll hit the waves again Sunday.

The more the shore

Well, the back-yard shore trails are growing and growing! After the success of our wall ride trail there has been an explosion of activity and building. There have been a few days of building and BBQ-ing! polishing up our existing trail and adding a few extras. I finally managed to get up there with my camera again and capture some more of the action.

Rob and Tom K have been thinking of building a BIG Huck line, and have added a big kicker that should fire you over the wall ride, but it's then a long way down! and they now need to build a REALLY BIG down slope!

Me on the wall ride again

The big huck over the wall ride

The ladder drop takes shape, time for some digging!

I wanted to add a nice ladder drop, so I knocked up a ladder out of a few bits of wood, chose a spot and put it in. Then I realised that it was a long way down too! So I had to go back later and add a down slope. With all hands on deck on Monday, and lots of mud shovelling we finally managed to get a down slope built.

Rob tweaks the ladder gap

Me, on the ladder gap

It turns out to be an absolute gem of a drop. Easy to ride, and a super smooth landing. Rob And Tom K had lots of fun hitting it up, and seeing how tweaked they could get it, or how long they could jump!
Then it was time for some more BBQ action. With the weather being as warm as it has been recently almost every trip to the trails has been accompanied by a BBQ. Brilliant!!

BBQ, Brilliant!

Rob, styling the ladder

Me, ready for a smooth landing on the ladder drop

Tom K showing his skills on the ladder

Fools bash - Haldon

It's April Fools day today, and also the Fools bash at Haldon Forest Just outside Exeter. An organized day of mountain biking demos and events. Loads of the local Bike shops turned up with stalls selling off kit cheaply, and offering demos of all the latest bikes. Plus Trials biking demos, and people riding the big demo shore that was set-up by Oke freeriders.
We had a quick look round, chatted to a few people, sat on a few bikes, checked out was going on and spent our hard earned cash!
Then after that we hit the trails. Lots of the trails at Haldon had been badly damaged by bad weather over the winter, with water washing away some parts of the trail, and trees falling over and damaging other parts. But with lots of hard work, much of the trails have been rebuilt and are even better than they were.
We ripped it up, check out the action!

Tom K, hucks the ladder drop

Andy hucks the ladder


Me, Railing a berm


Tom K, enjoying the sweeping berms

Tom K, riding the new rock garden

Andy in the rock Garden, me following.

Tom K, in the middle of another berm

Me, sketching my way through a berm

Andy, chucking his bike through a berm

Big Props to Ewart, for taking all the pictures, and having to wander around and watch us biking and enjoying ourselves, while he waits for his thumb to get better. Cheers chap!

Build your own 'shore

Build your own 'shore. For anyone whose confused, or not a mountain biker, we're not talking about beaches or seafronts here, we're talking North Shore. Wooden and dirt trails for riding over on mountain bikes. Originaly from the deep dark woods of Canada, first built to cover stretches of bog, now built just for the fun of it!
We've been allowed access to a piece of private woodland so that we can make our very own 'shore, jumps and general MTB mayhem! It helps lots that the land owner (another Tom K) is a keen biker and paddler and general outdoor sportsman, and was just as keen to join in the action as we were!
It was the first time I'd been upto the woods, but Tom and Ewart had already started on the trail building, but this time there was a whole mob of us, Tom, Ewart, Andy, Phil, the other Tom and myself. Plus this time we'd brought power tools with us! So armed with a chainsaw, a hammer and a pocket full of nails I set to work.
Ewart acted as trail boss, having fallen off his bike two days before and badly dislocated his thumb, he set to, telling us what to do to turn his shore vision into a trail reality! Most of the action began with finishing off the wall ride that had been started on previous days. Ewart, rake in one hand, started marking out the rest of the trail, and Andy started trying to clear under growth.

The wall ride takes shape

Ewart his rake and his busted thumb

Trees were cut (only using what had already fallen or was dead), nails were nailed, Berms were dug, and pine needles were raked. The wall ride started to take shape. Tom and Andy made a ladder, for a bit of elevated shore action. This was incorperated into a step-up jump onto the ladder, with a jump off the other end, onto a downwards sloping ladder.
The wall ride was finished and christened. Tom K (the land owner) rode it first, and became its first victim, sliding of the wall half way round! I rode it second, and going a bit slower, managed it all the way round.

The step-up and ladder in the making

The trail then snakes across the hill side, weaving between the trees, before a tight berm spits you out towards the step-up. With a last all hands on deck effort the step-up, ladder, was finished. With the light rapidly fading under the trees there was only one thing to do, RIDE!

Two views of the trail weaving through the woods

Andy hits the wall ride

Andy and power tools, and dangerous combo!

Trying to keep enough speed through the tight berm was daunting, but with a reasonable run out and some gradient there was just enough room to gain the speed for the step-up. After riding it a few times Phil and I realised that with enough speed, you could jump up the step-up, and then launch off the top of the ladder, getting a good bit of air, before just landing on the end of the down ladder.

Phil, air from the top of the ladder

Me, also airing the ladder

Phil steps up

me, landing the step-up

There's still lots more trail to be dug, but what we've got so far rocks! with a few more Sundays spent digging, cutting and nailing we'll soon have some awsome trails!

Sunny Sundays at the pots

Its a Sunday, the sun is shineing, the Exe levels are perfect, theres only one place to be. The Mighty Pots. We arrived a little late, (having had to fix Andys Playboat first) and found a few of the usual faces getting off. But Sam A was still on, Greg was in his squirt boat, and Andy and Ewart were soon kitted up and on the water as well.

Ewart wheelin'

Andy trying not to split his boat again

Sam Clean wheelin'