The trip to Winlatter got under my skin. The long adventures we had taken in the past
were great, but there had been something about the defined route, prepared
surfaces and interspersed technical features that really appealed to me. Maybe it was also the quick access to cake
and coffee as well… regardless of the
cause, I found myself almost instantly looking at mountain bikes once I got
home. By the end of September 2011 I was
in Halfords spending £850 on a hard tail Boardman MTB Team and shaking at the
prospect.
You have to consider that the last bike I purchased was for
£99 and this seemed to be a large sum of money to let go on something without an
engine. My first little run around 125cc
scooter only set me back £650, but the obsession with Winlatter and the
memories of the Black Hawk galvanized my resolve to put my money where my mouth
was and the Boardman was reportedly the best kit I could get for under a grand.
I was not aware of the brand snobbery at the point of
purchase and even now, when I do, I do not let it bother me. The welding on the triple butted frame was
exquisite compared to the rough handed job done on the Trek and Specialized bikes
priced at 30-50% more than I was paying and yet the components were either the
same as these pricier rides, if not slightly upgraded.
I collected the Boardman on a Thursday evening and on the
Friday drove up to see Mark who now lived in Stevington rather than Olney, with
my new and as yet to be ridden and unnamed steed on the roof. On the Saturday I transferred my bike into
Mark’s “Skoda Van” and off we set for Woburn to meet up with Paul.
Woburn was not a trail centre, but did have designated and
easily followed trails. It was on my
first descent, following Paul, that I learned how sharp my breaks were. Paul had stopped and in response I had hauled
on the anchors, only for the wheels to lock and for me to complete a full, slow
motion, overhead rotation, landing on the top of my head and sinking up to my
ears in the mud. The rest of the day was
full of moments like this as I tried to get accustomed to the new bike, but I
never once disliked the experience. If
anything, it fuelled the already growing love of the trail and set a fire
beneath my need to improve.
The internet is a wonderful place. I found technical articles on handling a
berm, body position, drops, manuals (when did it change from being called a
wheelie?) and drops. I also unlocked the
best playground ever, hidden away behind my house. “The Heath” as we all now know it is MOD
training ground spreading for mile upon mile.
Some sections are deeply wooded, littered with trails left by deer and
other mammals. Other sections are vast
sand boxes, rutted and pitted by tank training and then there are long stretches
of bracken, gravel and thick mud. Every
surface you could imagine can be found here as well as naturally formed drops,
rock gardens, root sections and big jumps.
I was up there at every opportunity, setting the gears too
high so as to force the need to drive down the power and literally manhandling
the bike so that I was the pilot rather than the passenger. I was so rough on the poor thing that when
the six week tune-up came about the poor guy in Halfords stood looking at it
with real shock. He was too accustomed
to rich Surrey people buying expensive bikes and keeping them in the shed as a
trophy. He was not expecting a six week
old bike to be so thoroughly ridden.
Thinking holistically and knowing many of the things I
couldn’t do on the bike were likely caused by lack of fitness, I joined the
local gym. I was on a real devotion to
improve and more so since Baz declared his Stag-do was going to happen in the April
of the following year and would be “The Seven Stanes” which consisted of seven red
runs in Scottish trail centres to be conquered over a period of just 3.5 days.
My gym workout every morning started as long efforts on the exercise
bike and I felt I was getting nothing from it.
Searching the net again I stumbled across “Bike James” and read with
interest as he explained functional movement, functional strength and
functional skill forming a pyramid that we should fit our efforts into. In effect he was telling me to look beyond
the “bike” and get stronger in all aspects to be better on the real bike.
My gym didn’t have kettle bells so I used barbells and dumbbells
for the various lifts and squats. I then
got creative and added dips, pull ups, inverted rows and all manner of
exercises based on movement and then movement with weight. The result was dramatic as my body fat
percentage plummeted to just 11-12% while my weight, although falling off at the
start, began to lift until my BMI put me as obese.
The translation of improved functional movement and strength
when applied to the bike was incredible.
If the Boardman thought it had a hard life before, it was now in
hell. I rode it harder and faster and
more aggressively until one day it earned the name. I was tearing down a twisting piece of single
track between the tight packed trees, slamming down the power even though it
was downhill. A click, click, click
started plaguing me but I ignored it, but then on a sharp turn I buried the
right hand pedal for speed out of the bend and the crank came clean off. I was clipped in so did not lose it as it
hung to the sole of my shoe, but I was now hurtling down the trail with barely
any control until I finally managed to balance enough to sit back using the one
leg and brake.
“So that is the point of a Bulgarian Split Squat” I thought
as I giggled and there was the name “Crank” created. Once again the boy at Halfords was also in
for a shock. He was also shocked later on
when I separated the cassette from the rear wheel (earning me a brand new Mavic
on warranty) and they also had to replace the entire unit of my front Avid
Elixr 7 brake.
The next time we were at Woburn I was a new animal and had
transitioned from the poorest rider in the group to the most technically able
(excluding Baz who could not travel from Cumbria to the South for a day trip to
Woburn). We then hit a new place close
to Woburn, named Chicksands, which again was not a trail centre but more a
Haven for downhillers who like to push their ride back to the top after each
run. Mark and me did no such thing and
earned our descent by pedalling to the top and on a few sharp transitions,
where I stood up and put down the heat, I even left the master of climbing
behind.
It was early 2012 before I knew it. I knew I had the movement and strength and the
heath sessions had bagged me plenty of functional skill, so I suggested to Dan,
Paul and Mark a visit to a place known as Aston Hill. There was no green option here. There was no blue option either and the red
runs were accessed only by surviving a portion of the black run. The hill is steep and earns the name Aston
because it was the testing place of the Aston Martin for hill climb
racing. Now it is “Plastic People Mecca”
where people arrive on full mountain bikes with more suspension that my Honda
had, wearing more body armour than a Storm Trooper.
We rocked up on hardtails in bagged shorts and with no pads. Of course we wore helmets and gloves, but it
was not long before I wished I too was clad like one of the “Plastics”.
The early part of 2012 was wet and Aston hill is formed of
chalk. The two together explained why it
was relatively quiet when we arrived, but this revelation only came after the
first section of black trail that claimed a lump of flesh from my shin as I
took the lead at full pelt and crashed out of a drop from roots into a wet,
chalky berm. I actually lost count how
many times I hit the ground that day, but every time I ignored the blood
pouring from my legs and carried on, sometime crashing just metres from where I
had last landed. The others crashed far
less than me, but mainly because they had sense to judge Aston as out of our
league and sensibly chose to walk many of the sections that had claimed my
flesh. I guess in many ways, my lack of
self-preservation (I see it as an unending desire to be good at something
awesome via a baptism of fire) served as a trigger for them to either continue
or get off. My scars therefore saved
them from harm, justifying my idiocy completely.
I do remember one particular section well as it was almost a
disaster for Paul. I had taken the lead
down the run and managed to remain on the bike all the way down to the bottom,
but had put enough pace between me and the others to have to wait. When Paul finally came into sight he looked
down at me and smiled as he rolled onto the last section of North Shore, considering
himself home and dry. Watching that
smile alter into horror as the North Shore ended in mid-air and dropped him
down onto the trail beneath will remain with me for a long time.
Despite being completely battered by Aston Hill we all came
away from it feeling we had achieved something great. There was a little fear that the seven trail
centres would in fact be seven Aston Hills, but I found it better not to dwell
and to instead maintain the training.
After all, it was too late now; I had mud in my blood and it was never
getting back out.
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