More New Trails
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I seem to have been blogging a lot about new trails, so sorry if anyone is bored! It’s just the time of year. Spring is springing in Spain and the mountain bike holiday season will start in under a month, which means it’s the time to get our existing trails ready, and search out all the singletrack that I saw last year but didn’t have time to explore. There is only so much biking I can do though, so it’s also a great time to build the sections of trail that I have been planning since last year. I really enjoy this time, I love riding my old favourite trails, but I get really excited about all the new singletrack. |
Last October I checked out a new descent which was very overgrown but looked like it was be an awesome technical challenge once it had been cleared. I christened it “The Hives” because it ends at a set of bee hives in the middle of nowhere. I had pointed it out to Carlos and over Christmas he had done some of the clearing, so this weekend we had a go at it. It totally exceeded my expectations and has shot straight to the top of my ‘favourite trails’ list! It’s very, very hard so I guess I won’t be taking a lot of guests there, unless they fancy a real switchback challenge! We didn’t count but there must be over 30 switchbacks.
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It’s been a great weeks mountain biking for me and I’m loving being back in Spain after a month away. I’ve been biking on Aiako Harriak, a local mountain, clearing some new trails deep in the forest, which has been a great way to spend some time. I’ve also been putting in the vertical km’s to start building my fitness for the season so it hasn’t all been downhill and singletrack!
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My video making hasn’t been quite what I wanted this year! For 2010 BasqueMTB will be investing in a HD head cam and seperate video camera so that we can offer all our guests a short video of their holidays. This will also form an essential part of the coaching weeks we are running with UK Bike Skills , and will allow video feedback to help master the skills. Here are some of the videos we made in 2009 though.
You can see our videos on Vimeo and short versions on Flickr. One of my favourite sites on the web at the moment for videos is MTB Movies where there’s all sorts of videos that you can see. Well worth checking it out.
Back in sunny Spain! What a difference from 5 days ago when I was cycling in Scotland, in the ice and snow! Don’t get me wrong, I loved Scotland and it was stupendously beautiful; it is always a real privilege to ride in conditions like that. Today, though, I left the house at about midday, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and rode over to Jaizkibel, a local mountain on the coast. I climbed to about 500m, just below the summit to check out a walking path that the government were building when I left for Christmas. Their plan is to create a long distance path, sticking to the coast, and to use local materials and environmentally friendly techniques.
2009 has been a great year for biking but it’s also been a great year for taking photos! There’s something about the contrast of colours in this area of Spain, with the blue skies, turquoise seas and lush, green vegetation that means photos tend to turn out well. It’s a bit of a ritual for me to take my camera out with me, get home, shower, make myself a large coffee with Cola Cao and go through the photos I’ve taken. For this post I’ve gone through my favourite photos and videos and tired to give some background information on them for everyone. As always on this site click the photos to make them bigger!
It’s funny but very often one of the first questions that people ask me is about how my bike’s lasted up over the season. I guess it’s a good way to get a real world view of what kit is going to be reliable and what’s not. So with that in mind, and having just completely stripped my bike for a service, I thought I would write down review of how the various parts of my bike have held up through the year. In addition I will be writing reviews of individual parts as they come and go.
It was with a mixture of sadness and excitement that I packed my Hustler into it’s travelling bag this month and boarded a plane for Scotland. Obviously I’m excited to see my friends and family, many of whom I haven’t seen for a year, however, the Basque Country has come to be a place I don’t care much to leave.
As I boarded the plane in Biarritz, (comfortably warm in only a t-shirt), the sun was setting and throwing up a beautiful backdrop to Larrun, Mantale, Aikao Harriak and even Ernio in the distance. I subconsciously stopped at the top of the boarding ladders and set off a chain reaction of people bumping into the person in front of them!
For the end of the season I’ve been using Maxxis Highrollers, the 2.5 UST 42a ones front and back. I wrote about them in a previous review but I have done a lot more miles on them including some miles in Scotland so I have some updated information. I’ve also been experimenting with some new tyre combinations and here’s my initial opinions. I mainly ride in the Basque Country, in Spain, where the terrain is a bit tougher than a lot of the UK. You can see the type of trails on my biking pages.
I have a few more tyre combinations to test out but in a few months I’ll put together a summary of all the tyres I’ve tested and my top three combinations for the year ahead; watch this space!
It’s a problem I’ve had for some time but couldn’t find a definitive answer on the web for. The adjuster at the top of the motion control leg on my Rockshox Pikes has been leaking whenever the fork is turned upside down. Following some advice from the mighty hive mind of Singletrackworld I set about fixing it. It’s dead easy and took about 10 minutes. Here’s how…