Pushing yourself and the Season starts in earnest.

A few weeks ago a friend, whom I know from working at the Fort Bill World Cup, came to visit with her boyfriend and we headed out with a couple of their other local friends. It was great to actually ride with other people, particularly with keen bikers, while my housemates enjoy mountain biking it’s not their main sport so we don’t push each other much. Out with these guys I was struggling to keep up and launching myself into stuff I would have avoided if I was on my own. Not to say I didn’t chicken out of a couple of things they did without blinking.

It was great to show someone new the trails round here and they were certainly impressed by having such great tracks 15 mins out of the city centre. Having recently been back up to the Nevis Range with a mountainside to play on it’s easy to let that over shadow Ashton Court/Leigh Woods but the trails are easily comparable, in fact there’s one point on the Leigh Woods trail that reminds me of Nevis every time I ride through it. Not only that but it’s so close to the centre and Nevis Range takes a bit of a ride/drive to get to  and the new pump track at Nevis was a bit rubbish especially compared to Brunel way.

While out with my friend I talked about struggling to push myself, as I had no one better to ride with and to try and keep up with, so she told me about a great app for smart phones called Strava. This app has also just been reviewed by MBUK and is great for motivation and for pushing yourself harder and faster, once activated, with GPS turned on, it tracks your ride recording your speed and your times around your ride, then posts it into a leader board of everyone who uses the app. Not only does this help you keep track of how much you’re riding it also gives you competition and from the first time I started using it I’ve been determined to claw my way up the table. www.strava.com

The British Downhill Series started a couple of weeks ago in Combe Sydenham and will continue at the other end of the country this weekend up at Fort William. The first round, down south for the first time in a while was won by Manon Carpenter just pushing out Rachel Atherton, who was competing for the first time this season after taking a bit longer off to insure recovery from injury. The rest of the World Cup season should be very competitive amongst the women. The mens race was won by Rachel’s GT team mate Marc Beaumont, however Gee Atherton was out with a broken Tibia. 2^nd and 3^rd were taken by  Josh Bryceland and Brendan Fairclough, showing it should be another year full of World Cup Podiums for the Brits.

Since then there have been several races at home and abroad, seeing Rachel Atherton take her first win at the IXS European DH and Bryceland take 4^th in America at Port Angeles.  Also the Mac Avalanche took place in Glencoe last weekend with locals Hannah and Joe Barnes taking the wins in the women’s and men’s races, always good to see these two do well, especially as Joe was the guy sorting out my mates hire bikes for Nevis Range the other week.  Check out the Mac Avalanche here, it’s a bit nuts as is the guy who wrote the article having ridden it on a fully rigid 29er.