The double half way down the Ae Line at Ae Forest. This sends you into a chute & a super fast table top which I think they call the coffin.
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Friday 28 December 2007
Thursday 27 December 2007
Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) damage
30 years ago when I was 8 years I had a major accident with a big iron rocking horse that were common place in most playgrounds. To cut a long & painful story short I was pushing it from behind & it took me off the ground & when it came back down to earth so did I with my leg underneath it. This smashed my leg up pretty badly & because of this my ACL has never grown back in my right knee.
Thankfully it has never stopped me from doing all the sports that I have enjoyed throughout the years, although rugby & football became a no no just because of the constant impact when running & being tackled.
Although I have always been into biking, it is only quite recently that full suspension has become a breath of fresh air to people like me.
Pain is a funny thing & is something you do get used to, ask anyone with a tattoo, after a while you just get used to the needle. This is the same for a re-ocurring injury like the ACL but without products like Glucosamine, Collagen & Chondroitin I'm sure the pain would be a lot worse.
For anyone out there who has trouble with their ACL not only in biking but any sport should really try out the above herbal tablets. I get mine from Healthy Direct but many other outlets sell them.
Another temporary solution are knee braces. Chain Reaction Cycles have some on their website which although not cheap do seem to be considerably cheaper than the famously branded Donjoy knee braces. I have only ever used a Donjoy some years ago but I could still play squash with it on with very little obstruction, although I'm sure people looking on may well have thought that by the looks of it I should have be in a wheelchair.
I had my last knee operation a few years back & when I asked my surgeon if it would be all right for the snowboarding trip that was only 1 week away he did say that it would only be the pain that would hinder me. Although I don't like meeting my surgeon because it usually means I'm lying on a table & he has a scalpel in his hand, I do like his attitude & with him being a skier he does understand what it is to do these types of sports. The boarding holiday was a relative success with me boarding for a day & resting for a day or sometimes 2 but I did get some powder which always makes it worthwhile.
The moral of this story is don't let a bit of pain stop you doing what you really want to do. Equip yourself with the correct lotions & potions & you'll be fine. You are long time dead.
Thankfully it has never stopped me from doing all the sports that I have enjoyed throughout the years, although rugby & football became a no no just because of the constant impact when running & being tackled.
Although I have always been into biking, it is only quite recently that full suspension has become a breath of fresh air to people like me.
Pain is a funny thing & is something you do get used to, ask anyone with a tattoo, after a while you just get used to the needle. This is the same for a re-ocurring injury like the ACL but without products like Glucosamine, Collagen & Chondroitin I'm sure the pain would be a lot worse.
For anyone out there who has trouble with their ACL not only in biking but any sport should really try out the above herbal tablets. I get mine from Healthy Direct but many other outlets sell them.
Another temporary solution are knee braces. Chain Reaction Cycles have some on their website which although not cheap do seem to be considerably cheaper than the famously branded Donjoy knee braces. I have only ever used a Donjoy some years ago but I could still play squash with it on with very little obstruction, although I'm sure people looking on may well have thought that by the looks of it I should have be in a wheelchair.
I had my last knee operation a few years back & when I asked my surgeon if it would be all right for the snowboarding trip that was only 1 week away he did say that it would only be the pain that would hinder me. Although I don't like meeting my surgeon because it usually means I'm lying on a table & he has a scalpel in his hand, I do like his attitude & with him being a skier he does understand what it is to do these types of sports. The boarding holiday was a relative success with me boarding for a day & resting for a day or sometimes 2 but I did get some powder which always makes it worthwhile.
The moral of this story is don't let a bit of pain stop you doing what you really want to do. Equip yourself with the correct lotions & potions & you'll be fine. You are long time dead.
Saturday 22 December 2007
Freeride mountain biking in Winter
It's that time of year again for the all year round freeride mountain biker to don his thermals, breathable tops & try & fit something warm under their full face helmets only to be drenched in cold sweat after the first downhill run of the day. Hopefully your full facer will have been cleaned after the last huck otherwise you've got that smell to contend with aswell.
Get out of the van with mountain bike, usually in the middle of nowhere in a forest car park, check out the brakes & set the suspension up & get kitted up for the first big push of the day. Wondering why you bothered getting out of bed this morning to drag your lazy ass past everything that you are going to come down or past, picking the best lines & hoping you can remember it all before you nail it at warp factor 10. Eventually you get to the top & rest & contemplate what lies ahead. The chat has stopped realising you've got to carry out what you were bragging about on the way up here.
Making sure everyone is ready, the first pedal turns as rider number one sets off. All follow closely behind watching as much as they can those in front for any doubles or pitfalls or stacks.
The adrenaline has already kicked in after the first few turns & jumps. Flying past trees, getting the flow of the smooth steep forest tracks winding around the mountain with doubles, table tops, berms, hip jumps & switch backs. A smooth kicker fires you out of the forest & into daylight, your eyes adjusting to the bright sunlight in the nick of time before the next jump is there in front of you. Now you're into a swooping fast track with big berms to bank as high as you dare with each table top in between giving you that weightless feeling as you launch with the sound of knobbly tyres riding over the hard pack & then it goes silent until the sound returns on the down slope. Jump, berm, jump, berm, launch over a set of doubles. The roller coaster ride keeps your arms & legs pumped but you know you need to keep hold of those bars - but not too tight, they're the only thing that's keeping you from eating the dirt big style. You don't want it to end but you know you can't hold on for much longer. You spot the fire road ahead, a chance to breath again. Cruising the fire road, arms dangling getting blood back to your fingers. Until, you shoot back inside the tree line for some single track, over rocks & roots set off camber trying to catch you out. Padding bouncing off the odd tree. The trees space out more for some big roller coaster ups & downs with kickers built in to shoot you into oblivion floating you well over the top & nearly to the bottom of the down slope, keeping your speed for the next one sending you up again, your stomach goes into your throat like a hump back bridge. Over a rock garden & over a series of drops, knowing that the 'speed is your friend' speech is only a short step away if you lose your bottle & brake. The bottom section flows with high walled berms to keep the speed up for the final big floater, tyre noise again followed by what seems like an eternity of silence before tyres touch down again. Whooping & hollering your way into the car park you take your helmet off with a Joker style grin stretching from ear to ear. Sweat & adrenaline drip from every pore. What a rush! Time for a break until the next time.......................in 10 minutes.
The push up never really seemed that long did it? A one hour push rewarded by a 10 minute gravity fuelled blast doesn't sound worth it but believe me you'll remember almost all of it in every detail!
When you finish you remember why it is you start at the bottom, so you can finish there too! Mountain biking rules!!
http://steve-extremesports.blogspot.com
Get out of the van with mountain bike, usually in the middle of nowhere in a forest car park, check out the brakes & set the suspension up & get kitted up for the first big push of the day. Wondering why you bothered getting out of bed this morning to drag your lazy ass past everything that you are going to come down or past, picking the best lines & hoping you can remember it all before you nail it at warp factor 10. Eventually you get to the top & rest & contemplate what lies ahead. The chat has stopped realising you've got to carry out what you were bragging about on the way up here.
Making sure everyone is ready, the first pedal turns as rider number one sets off. All follow closely behind watching as much as they can those in front for any doubles or pitfalls or stacks.
The adrenaline has already kicked in after the first few turns & jumps. Flying past trees, getting the flow of the smooth steep forest tracks winding around the mountain with doubles, table tops, berms, hip jumps & switch backs. A smooth kicker fires you out of the forest & into daylight, your eyes adjusting to the bright sunlight in the nick of time before the next jump is there in front of you. Now you're into a swooping fast track with big berms to bank as high as you dare with each table top in between giving you that weightless feeling as you launch with the sound of knobbly tyres riding over the hard pack & then it goes silent until the sound returns on the down slope. Jump, berm, jump, berm, launch over a set of doubles. The roller coaster ride keeps your arms & legs pumped but you know you need to keep hold of those bars - but not too tight, they're the only thing that's keeping you from eating the dirt big style. You don't want it to end but you know you can't hold on for much longer. You spot the fire road ahead, a chance to breath again. Cruising the fire road, arms dangling getting blood back to your fingers. Until, you shoot back inside the tree line for some single track, over rocks & roots set off camber trying to catch you out. Padding bouncing off the odd tree. The trees space out more for some big roller coaster ups & downs with kickers built in to shoot you into oblivion floating you well over the top & nearly to the bottom of the down slope, keeping your speed for the next one sending you up again, your stomach goes into your throat like a hump back bridge. Over a rock garden & over a series of drops, knowing that the 'speed is your friend' speech is only a short step away if you lose your bottle & brake. The bottom section flows with high walled berms to keep the speed up for the final big floater, tyre noise again followed by what seems like an eternity of silence before tyres touch down again. Whooping & hollering your way into the car park you take your helmet off with a Joker style grin stretching from ear to ear. Sweat & adrenaline drip from every pore. What a rush! Time for a break until the next time.......................in 10 minutes.
The push up never really seemed that long did it? A one hour push rewarded by a 10 minute gravity fuelled blast doesn't sound worth it but believe me you'll remember almost all of it in every detail!
When you finish you remember why it is you start at the bottom, so you can finish there too! Mountain biking rules!!
http://steve-extremesports.blogspot.com
Saturday 8 December 2007
Stainburn
Does anyone have any ideas when the new line at Stainburn Forest (Otley) is going to be completed & is it going to be fast & flowing with jumps, switchbacks & berms etc.? I was told about a year or so ago that the clearing was going to be used for a dual track or something similar. Is this true?
Freeride mountain biking
Welcome to my blog. I'm trying to find out how much interest there is in the mountain biking world for downhill courses & freeriding locations in the UK & especially in Yorkshire as I live here. For those of you who have visited Innerleithen & Glentress (in the Borders) will appreciate how good it can get with a little imagination. There are a few dotted around the country with Esher & Okeford being two other examples for freeriding.
Any info & input on good riding spots or any news of proposed freeride parks would be fantastic so that people who want this sort of riding can find it. Would Yorkshire benefit from freeride/DH spots with the amount of hills it has? I think it would.
I will keep this blog updated with riding that we have done or heard about so other like minded riders can get their gravity fuelled fixes.
It'd be great to hear other riders views.
Thanks.
Any info & input on good riding spots or any news of proposed freeride parks would be fantastic so that people who want this sort of riding can find it. Would Yorkshire benefit from freeride/DH spots with the amount of hills it has? I think it would.
I will keep this blog updated with riding that we have done or heard about so other like minded riders can get their gravity fuelled fixes.
It'd be great to hear other riders views.
Thanks.
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