The fear.

Any excuse to start with this.

Originally this was a post that I had intended to write about the fear in mountain biking and how actually a little bit of fear is a good thing.

Well I have work do to in preparing year 11's for exams so seems like the best time to write it is now...

The point was going to be that yes, there are times when crippling fear is counter productive.

Where freezing when skipping over roots and slamming on the brakes, which may seem a logical thing to do, actually is really a bad move. A really bad move, like telling your partner what you really think of that outfit is a bad move! Suddenly all grip goes and you slide and skid your way down something slowly and struggle to find purchase when you inevitably have to put your feet down.

Likewise approaching a drop that when you get to the edge of it seems much more of a void than you originally believed and 'oh no' you scrub all speed and topple like a drunken baby lamb over the drop and just about cling to the bike as it bounces front end first on the floor of the trail.

Again in both of these examples you think that grabbing the brakes are the right thing to do, sometimes it is, however in most cases this safety blanket is actually more dangerous than just going for it.

In the case of roots a lack of rotating tyre actually removes the grip that you should have meaning you are no longer sticking and drops are easier if you hit them at speed and try to land both wheels together on the other side. Which I know in theory but am still yet to master instead resorting to go go gadget arms to get me out of trouble way more than I should - really bad form.

However there are plenty of occasions where the fear is a good thing.

It is the fear that means when you come to a berm you slow down in plenty of time in order to take the corner safely. It is the fear that means that you don't push beyond what you know you can do and stay rubber side down. Which as anyone who has ever done a huge bin will tell you is always preferable to picking your self and your bike out of a bush after flying off the trail. In most cases a lot of crashes are because either a) you lost concentration or b) you pushed beyond your means and came a cropper.

So in mountain biking a balance between the fear and fearlessness is really important. It helps keep us safe but also allows for those beautiful neuro-chemicals to be released (dopamine, endorphins and adrenaline) so that we have that natural high at the end of a ride -a little bit of fear goes a long way in enjoyment.

However that article never really got written, which I guess it has now, but never mind! Instead the fear is now related to my triathlon training.

Fear for me in this sport takes the following forms;

1. The open water swim and being able to cover the distance and not flounder and sink.
2. The open water swim and looking down at the deep, dark, murky depths.
3. Bricking my legs after the ride.
4. Blowing up on the final run and vomiting all over the world before crying and collapsing in a heap.

This fear is real people, and it is terrifying. 

I no longer think of the fear as being some safety net, instead it is pure boiled crippling, pit of the stomach I can't do this, cold sweat fear. 

The kind of fear you had on your driving test, or on a first date when you know you are punching way above your league. 

Which means that as someone who is training to constantly improve times and actually try and be half decent well the fear is something I have to overcome. Unlike my fear of heights which is totally rational and keeps me nice and safe at all times!

However if life and movies have taught me anything (not sure they really have though) it is that fear can be reduced (though never defeated) with training and exposure. So as a result the following has been part of my training.

1. The open water swim and being able to cover the distance and not flounder and sink. Swim as often as possible, I have done a splash and dash covering 750m swim and 5k run as an event. I try and swim at least 750m in ever session and know that I can swim much further in open water when defaulting down to breaststroke. This has built my confidence in the open water swim and I now feel much more comfortable when swimming.
2. The open water swim and looking down at the deep, dark, murky depths. Again there is nothing like getting in the water for this. I had a lesson on my breathing technique which made the swim much more comfortable, however an upshot of this (and getting breathing on both sides) is that I HAVE to look down. In churned up water (like on a race day) this is not so bad because I can focus on my rhythm and breathing. However on a clear watered training day. Still a little bit terrifying. 
3. Bricking my legs after the ride. Up early in the morning, quick blast on the bike to get the legs moving (40 minutes at least) followed by a run straight after racking the bike. While this may not prepare my legs for the bricking that could happen following a longer bike ride it at least is getting my body used to the differing groups being used in quick succession. I still need to practice going for a longer ride before a longer run. 
4. Blowing up on the final run and vomiting all over the world before crying and collapsing in a heap. Early morning runs before breakfast (fasted runs). Luckily I have a park near my flat with a 400m running track. Slowly I have started to extend the run and am now able to shabbily amble a nice 5k in the mornings - takes about 35 minutes. This is I feel pretty handy training to avoid this and also a good way to get up and going in the morning (as much as 5 am starts seems a bit shite).

So there goes the fear? Well, no not quite, see the fear is something that has to exist in sport. Where mountain biking, triathlon or darts (yes a sport - game of physical skill).

There has to be a fear of failure, there has to be a fear for your safety and a fear of embarrassment, probably other forms of fear which I am too scared to mention.

Otherwise why do it? The enjoyment factor is not enough, because without fear the enjoyment is diminished. There is is nothing to overcome. So while it is a good thing to reduce the fear so that it does not dominate you or reduce your capacity to perform and compete there also has to be some remaining, nagging fear to keep you moving forward. And safe. See while confidence in your abilities is a really good way of staying safe as well I believe (and people may disagree with me) that confidence and fear have to be balanced. Yes if you are confident you will just go out there and do it, and in most cases that is probably enough. However in sports like mountain biking and open water swimming there has to be a caution to your activity. That comes from fear. 

Long live the fear? maybe, mostly though I guess is an acceptance that the fear serves a purpose. A re-imagining of fear as not being negative. Fear can be positive. 

If we start thinking of fear as being something positive, an odd concept I know but one that is not beyond the truly insane levels of imagination we possesses, then surely we can begin to use it more constructively in our preparation and training. 

So yeah, lets make a little fear a good thing, a driving force for improvement and keeping us happy and safe in our activities. 

Which I guess I said right at the beginning...

Oh.

The Two Types of Tired.

I have become convinced in recent weeks that there are two types of being tired.

There is no detailed  evidence or research for this, nor have I done any background reading to support my claims. The closest I have to empirical information for this is my own feelings based upon two time frames.

Firstly the long drawn out winter months of marking tests, coursework and books. That draining work based tired that is more tiredness of the soul. Any student who has completed a caffeine sponsored dissertation or essay before getting up the next day for lectures and submission knows this feeling. It is the tiredness born out of work. That is to say a tiredness forced upon you because you had to get something done for someone else.

This is guess is one of the main gripes people have about work/life balances. You work hard for someone else, you get tired for someone else and you make sacrifices for someone else and in the most cynical of statements the then ask you to repeat this process ad infinitum. This is the tiredness that you can't shake. Like stale cigarette smoke on your clothes from days before the smoking ban, even when you wash you still feel it - that morning shower doesn't truly shake it. It''s also true to say that the rest of your life can be seen through the fog of this tired. Food becomes an escape something to comfort eat to make you feel happier and activities get reduced down to sitting in front of TV to 'unwind'. Occasional forays into midweek entertainment (gigs, cinema, meals out etc) seem to elevate the burden of the work tired but you know, somewhere in the recesses of you mind that work looms.

This all sounds thoroughly gloomy and downbeat but as a teacher my colleagues and I know this well. The week before a school holiday morning conversations are very similar 'morning, I am so tired today! Still one week to go.' Or words to this effect. Perversely one week into the new term and conversations run along the lines of 'I am so tired already, feel like I never had a holiday'.

Try spotting this now you know of it, I guarantee the amount of times people talk about being tired will surprise you. This by the way is called the Baader-Meinhof phenomena - once we are aware of something we spot it more often because our minds are alerted to it.  

So, the work based feeling of being exhausted and mentally drained is pretty horrific and common.

However there is a second, deeper level of tiredness. The tiredness of exercise.

I have felt this before during my ultra marathon training but having been cycling and not running for nearly two years I think my mind buried these feelings deep and hidden somewhere. This however has all changed in the last few weeks.

This actually begins at Christmas and a 'gift' of a triathlon entry. So far so good, a thank you for the gift and a move on to other cycling adventures. However for some reason over the last month it started to dawn on me that training for this might actually have to happen. This was crystallised by a painful duathlon experience. The 3 mile run was slow and plodding but not too painful, the 15 mile ride again was fine (although I miss counted by two laps), All of which means my training has significantly increased in the past few weeks.

It was a case of very little exercise all week and probably a ride on a Friday night, maybe a ride or run at some point over the weekend.

This was a huge change from commuting in on the bike 3/4 times a week and a long weekend ride either off road or on over the weekend. At first I hadn't physically felt much my fitness or physique slipping away. However very quickly (once training again) I have noticed how far away from where I felt I was that I am.

That is to say I have gotten a bit fat and wheezy.

So first thing to go was booze. Not for any major training reason but the extra calories in my beloved pale ales and porters where just something I could do without. I also switched my meals around a bit focusing on energy shakes in the morning and recovery shakes after exercise - all made with fresh ingredients and no powders etc. The final change was one really that was more for the benefit of my girlfriend and so dairy and gluten have been slashed from the diet. This has been replaced with way more vegetables and protein rich foods.

The other significant change has been in my sleeping habits. For a long time I would wake up at 4:30 and roll over and sleep again until my alarm went off at 6 and then drag myself out of bed to get ready for work any time between 6 am and 6:30 and aim to be on the road by 7. However one issue with upping a training regime is fitting in training around 'real' life. Often work has to be done at home and my evenings are already pretty busy as it is - and this is without having any children or animals demanding extra time of me. There is a lot of my job that I ignore or try to get done during 'office hours' but there is always some overspill, meaning a training plan in the evenings is not something I can 100% commit to.

This has meant getting up at 5am to go for a run or a ride/run combo at least 3 times a week in order to get some exercise in. On the most part the early starts have been exciting and fun and starting the day with exercise is a very satisfying way to go about things. None of these early morning sessions are of an extreme intensity and none last longer than 50 minutes. However they are noticeable in that I am already starting to feel much fitter and my /km times are starting to drop.

In addition to this I have been swimming more and more regularly. Going from 1 session a week to 3 swims and a pretty busy race calendar coming up, not only in order to practice and get used to the water but also to keep the motivation going for when I start feeling the strain of doing extra.

To avoid burnout I have aimed to progressively increase distance and intensity of sessions so that I am pushing to 75-80% each time (a HR monitor watch has been invaluable for this) and then be able to go back out the next day. I have also factored in rest days to allow my body to recover and rebuild from the previous few days exertions and catch up on work/life that has been moved slightly while I train.

However.

I still feel bloody tired all the time.

Yet this is a different tiredness. OK so it is still exhaustion and a feeling of being ruined, but it is not so much a mental weariness. It is firmly in my arms and legs and general body. It is a feeling of pushing yourself and trying to find the next place to go to keep on moving.

And it feels good.

Obviously the body chemistry inside me is going mental, endorphins and dopamine are being produced continually and hurling themselves around, I can't wait to get back into the water and swim again because it scares the hell out of me and has a huge danger element to it. I can't wait to get back out running because afterwards when you finish a session and your lungs are burning and your feet are sore, well you feel like a hero. A euphoric high if you will.

As always any excuse to get out on the bike is easy to take - cycling is the greatest.

So this is the point (as ever, if there is one) the first type of tiredness comes from work and mental fatigue and is hard to shake because it makes your life feel like it is on rails. A mind numbing procession from from Monday to Friday only stopping to eat some food, watch some TV and climb in and out of bed.

The second is far more exciting, that is to organise your time differently and really go for something, lock-stock, and make yourself tired for you. For doing the things your enjoy and roll with that feeling of tiredness because you know that the reason for being so ruined is worth it, that you can't wait to get to that stage again because it makes you feel in control, free, alive.

In the battle of the two types of tired I know which side I would pitch my tent. Only you won't find me in it, I will be out on my bike (any excuse!).

Riding Snowdon

You often hear people talk about taking themselves out of their comfort zones. Often it is said in a matter of fact way as if it is the most natural thing in the world to do something that is truly beyond what you can do. Be that to do with fitness, fear or just general lack of skills. However we all know that to truly push yourself is hard, and in most instances very scary.

Sometimes people suggest ideas to you about something that you know, in the base of your skull, will take you way beyond your comfort zone. Something like riding Mount Snowdon.

The concept is easy enough; take the Llanberis path up the mountain, have some photos at the summit and then ride down the Rangers path back to Llanberis itself.

Sounds so easy, a bit of nice cross country riding, people do it all the time. Why not give it a go?

Then you commit to the idea, you say ‘yep I am up for that’, you prepare for a riding holiday with this one ride the shining jewel in your week. You are excited; here is a true adventure, a big challenge for you, something you know that when you have finished it you will be dining out on for ages; ‘I rode Snowdon’.

Then the day arrives, still feeling good you head off from your campsite. Winding around the valley roads you get your first look at the mountain, your heart sinks a little. Is it really that big? Is it really that rocky? How much further into the cloud is the summit?

You talk to the local bike shop who tells you how tough it can be, what to look out for, how dangerous some parts are and where not to go in order to get lost and end up on a different route entirely. You realise that you are less fit, less capable and on worse machinery than your friends. You feel like you will blow up on the mountain, get lost, come off. You read a guide book about it, one that talks about the dangers of the ride. It rates it double black. Double black you think, does that even exist?

You can’t back out, you try to tell yourself that you have enough food, enough drink, you will ride what you can and if it gets too much get off early and navigate down. You will attempt it; you will be fine, even though you feel this is too much, too far beyond you, you convince yourself that all will be good.

You push as many bad thoughts out of your head, negative thoughts will do you no good at all. You begin the ride, the road up from Llanberis to the start of the path is steep, so steep your friends drop you almost instantly. Soldiering on in the granny ring you reach the trail. The bike hike – ride when you can pattern has begun.

You admire the view, you chat to people coming back down. Inch by inch and step by step you begin to relax. You begin to, and whisper this, enjoy it.

The fear and apprehension over the ride begins to dissipate. It is replaced by building excitement. The wish to ride down the other side grows and grows.

Slowly you make your way up the mountain. You catch your friends when they stop for a drink and photo break. You feel fresher than you thought you might, the whole psychology and outlook of the adventure changes. Positive vibes and feelings course through you and before you know it you have crested the summit.

You begin to ride down off the summit, blanketed in clouds. You are hyper alert, your lines are smooth, your pace steady but not quick. Then the conditions change. The weather smiles on you and the clouds part. Everyone stops in their tracks and admires the stunning view afforded to you. This is what it is to feel truly alive, this is what adventures are. This is why we push ourselves to seek out things we thought might be beyond ourselves.

You begin to ride down the Rangers path, there are bits that are beyond you but it doesn’t matter, you feel no shame walking down some of the boulder sections. However you feel huge a huge sense of achievement when you ride down some tricky bits, even though you see your mates ahead of you pulling away it doesn’t matter, you are making it down. Slowly and steadily you are doing it.

Carefully and deliberately you pass the hardest sections and the ride begins to get easier, you catch up with your friends fixing a mechanical at the foot of the mountain by a lake. It is a stunning place to stop and fix a flat, you look back. Did I ride that? Yes I did. I did ride that and I rode more than I walked too!

You are still not fully home, a short climb up to a section with badly placed stone drains (which will claim 3 more inner tubes) waits.

However these are footnotes to the tale.

You know you have made it up Snowdon and most importantly back down Snowdon in one piece.

You started nervous and finished confident. You completed the ‘best ride ever’ and an ‘epic adventure’.

You pushed yourself out of your comfort zone and in doing so set a new parameter for where that comfort zone is. You have grown as a person by riding, who knew it could all get so deep?

Still buzzing at the end you look at your friends over a beer and ask the question ‘so, what are we going to do next year?

Photographs by Geoff Flower.

Road and trail, where do I stand?

There are about 3 or 4 topics I want to write about. However they are longer posts and deserve more reading and editing.

Currently I am sat in a plush hotel suite about to turn 30. I have started writing in a diary and have also begun a physical bike log.

Both of these new editions I will talk about in another blog post however for now the point is, as I sip my second glass of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin champagne, I need to get something off my chest.

I love cycling.

There phew I feel better.

However I do not care what form of cycling I am doing.

Lately as you know I have purchased and been riding a little BMX. So much fun, so much pain to fall off.

I also have been hitting the trails hard.

I have given up on Strava.

All of this should point to my total movement away from roads and to the dirt. I love being out in woods, thrashing about on trails and exploring the landscape.

Except.

I never feel 100% comfortable.

I love it, but in the way you love someone who is bad for you. The way you love someone who you know, deep down, is going to hurt you.

Today I did a blast on the road bike. I planned it last night, I worked out the route and I was only out for 42 minutes.

It was literally a short ride.

However it just felt like home.

I talk a lot about the feel of things with my bike mates. We talk about how roadies tend to feel more serious and anal about things. How mountain bikers seem to be more chilled out.

Yet I feel I straddle both camps. I love the chilled out carefree nature of a mountain bike ride. However I just don't feel I really one hundred percent belong there.

Yet I am not a weight weeny, time trialing, uber serious, power output roadie.

Although I think I could be if I let myself go for it.

I think the truth of what I am might be in the middle somewhere. I think my light carbon road bike may have been a bike that maybe I should not have gotten.

I think I should have purchased a tourer with paniers and I should be built for comfort.

The journey is more important maybe?

Or perhaps I should get a cyclocross bike and go for the halfway house?

Most likely I maybe should stop worrying.

I shouldn't care about what I am or where I best fit.

Maybe I should continue to just enjoy being on my bike. To keep getting fitter, stronger and better.

Oh and to keep finding new routes to enjoy/endure.

Technology makes you lazy. Or extreme. Or something?

There is an interesting discussion ongoing on the STW forum with regard full suspension bikes making you lazy. Now I do not own a full sus however I have hired one before, and to be honest I loved it. However I can appreciate why the use of a full sus regularly might diminish some skills.

That is to be expected, the same as having suspension at all makes you less in touch with the ground in front of you having the full suspension means that your appreciation of the roll of the land is lessened as the shocks smooth everything out. However it is the same as saying that hydraulic brakes mean that you are spoilt by being able to hit steeper descents.

Actually I am sure someone on that forum thread has made that point, as technology moves forward we don't get lazier in fact we go after more and more difficult terrain. Surely that is progress?

Always riding on the edge, like the Reverend and the Makers lyric goes - if you're not living on the edge you're take up too much room. That is why we do this isn't it?

Well yes and no, sometimes you have to go back to basics. Slow down, take it steady and really think about how you are handling your bike.

A few weeks ago I went out on my BMX to try and hone some lacking skills by riding on smaller wheels, with weaker brakes and almost no grip in the tyres.

In trying to push it too much I crashed in a spectacular manner. However having sort of fixed the brake - electrical taped the cable to the handle bars - I set out with a one brake machine in order to do some laps around Cuckoo Woods.

The first thing to note is that one brake is probably more than enough on a bike with tiny wheels, while it gets up to speed pretty quickly it does shed speed quite fast as well. That said the brake was of little to no use and mostly caused the rear wheel to skid about, fun for quickly changing direction but rubbish for stopping. Or indeed for stability!

Although I think that has more to do with the bald tires than the brake.

Now small tires do tend to catch on everything in sight, which means small sticks, ruts and logs that would be gobbled up be the hardtail suddenly become a challenging obstacle. Any incline in the route has to be hit at speed otherwise you can't climb up it without spinning wheels.

Added to that the fact that sitting down is almost a no-no (too unstable when you're 6'2) and you end up with both an excellent physical work out (seriously I was constantly out of breath and with sore legs) but also a full on mental one. I felt more aware of having to pick lines much earlier than usual and I spent a lot of time walking trails and deciding where I would brake and pedal and how I would take corners - even considering where I should shift weight and when. This was exacerbated by the fact that in a lot of cases I had to walk the bike back up slopes to the start of my routes.

This was totally new to me, normally I am very much a grip it and rip it type of rider - and I must admit I quite enjoyed the cerebral side of thinking long and hard about where and how I would ride the trails. It also allowed me a chance to practice some of the lines I saw on yesterdays ride. In fact for most of the trails I have ever ridden the only time I know what is coming up is by riding it, not walking it and thinking about it.

Now I am not claiming I rode any of this at any great speed - if felt it though - but as said above it was a great work out and also had me giggling and laughing throughout the ride.

Again I did not Strava the ride although I did take a lot of photos. 

Coppicing has been extreme!

Lots of small flowers out and about.

I do love exploring a new trail.

Sometimes one brake is as useful as no brakes.

Am I suddenly a better rider? 

Well no probably not. 

Do I have a better appreciation of some skills? 

Yes I probably do. However like all sports this is about practice, practice and more practice.

Which gives me a good excuse to go back out and explore and play about. 

Not that I need one really.

For the record I managed to spend nearly 2 and a half hours out today just running laps around the wood. 

And it isn't all THAT big!

It is awesome though!

Hunting the Medway Megaliths

Following on from the idea of going and exploring today I set out to find the Medway Megaliths. These are a series of Neolithic stones that are in the general vicinity of the River Medway. Hunting for stones that don't move is a bit of a misnomer however I didn't take a map with me so had to rely on memory...

The stones are roughly split into two main groups those the other side of the river and those on my side. Unfortunately the Coldrum Stones, which seem to be the better preserved stones, are the wrong side of the river for me to find today. So I set out to find Kit's Coty House, The Countess Stones and The White Horse Stone. 

I  started as I always do with a quick blast around Cuckoo Wood, again I took a slight detour and found more singletrack with good potential - I am seriously finding that wood to be a wood that keeps on giving.

I also found lots of wild snowdrops which meant it was time to photograph the P7. This was to be the only reason I took my GoPro out today, and I must admit it was a bit tricky to not try filming some (bad) runs at times.

This would become a bit of a recurring theme during this ride, however being freed up from the constraints of Strava and in no particular rush to get anywhere meant that I could spend my time photographing everything in sight.

Once I had finishing bobbing about Cuckoo I started the climb up to Bluebell hill. This time I did not initially climb up to the top of the hill instead dropping off halfway in order to find Kit's Coty House.

Found it!

A running theme.

Trying a different perspective.

Shame the view wasn't great behind the Coty.

The back of the Coty.

You can just make out some 100 year old graffiti.

Making the most of the GoPro's fisheye lens!

Apart from having to spin the wheels up a hill for 10 minutes Kit's Coty House was nice and easy to find - just required walking the bike down a steep flight of steps to get down to the bridleway. 

However my attempts to find the Countess Stones came to naught. Basically I took a wrong turning, ended up in a private field and panicked. Not something I would recommend. Having looked at the map and worked out where in relation to Kit's Coty House I should have gone I feel confident that I can find the next Megalith next time I head out (see always a silver lining). 

Feeling slightly frustrated at not being able to find the Countess Stones and not wanting to go to the White Horse Stone just yet I took a bit of a detour to something I knew the location of. This is not a Megalith but a Bronze Age Burial Mound (barrow). 

The first step to the burial mound was a panicky ride off private land and back to something resembling a public right of way. Fortunately I found a road and quickly a track way I recognized from ultra marathon training runs a year ago (time flies!). I then pointed the P7 upwards and slogged up to the top of Bluebell Hill (again). 

From the picnic site on Bluebell Hill I followed the trail down past Wouldham Common and towards Shoulder of Mutton Wood.

Here I found the barrow and repeated the trend of photographing the P7 in all its glory.

P7 standing proud/propped up by a well placed tree stump.

Odd to think no one knows who was buried here or why.

Always cool finding trails and history on your doorstep.

On the way back up to Bluebell hill I stopped for a much needed banana break having been out and about for the best part of two hours by now.

Happy because I have eaten.

Looking good.

In the summer this is a spectacular view of the Medway valley, honest!

I then hammered my way up and over Bluebell hill. Then I tried to be clever and wind my way down the hill via a woodland, however the woodland ran away from where I needed to be and it was muddy.

Like the Somme muddy. That thick, sticky, strength sapping mud. 

So I retraced my steps swallowed some pride and rolled the bike down a road until I reached the cross roads with Pilgrims Way. 

When I used to do a lot of trail running I ran along Pilgrims Way in order to get up to the top of the Downs. I have no idea how I haven never spotted the White Horse Stone before. It is ridiculously easy to spot from the main track. The shame is this has meant that people have drawn on it quite a bit and it does not look as impressive as it should do. Bare in mind this is a Neolithic stone (4,000-2,500 BCE!), possibly a marker for something much bigger which has since been lost - like the nearby Smythe's Megalith which was in a field that I have run along many times (who knew?).

Modern world (ish) meats Neolithic.

How I never spotted this giant stone before is a mystery to me as much as why this stone is here in the first place.

With the final megalith found and the rain beginning to fall I decided to end my Megalith adventure and head home for a hot shower and a cuppa. 

I will head back out and try to find some of the other stones that I haven't managed to see or have missed. There is also lots of castle ruins etc to try and find and explore.

All part of having an adventure on the bike and not just falling off down hill or trying to go as fast as possible on roads.

So far its a change that is most agreeable.

Chasing Trails (How I gave up stats and began to enjoy the ride).

There are two things I really enjoy about going out on the bike - specifically the mountain bike. The first is taking pictures of where I am - mostly trees it would seem.

Afan panoramarama

Cuckoo Wood Maidstone

Cannock Chase plus snow!

Sometimes I even take arty shots of the bike!

Ooooooh arty!

The second is a well publicized obsession with data. How far, how fast and how high. I think for mountain biking it is seeing how much I have pushed my body that day that I really liked. The 'oh look 40,000 ft elevation and 2000 km ridden at 6 mph average speed' kind of thing (although that would be a long painful ride). 

Most of this data though is useless, because unlike road, the terrain and weather play a massive role in the ride when it comes to mountain biking. However I have detailed before my growing displeasure at the way in which the 'values' of rides in terms of statistics have begun to replace the true value of a ride - the ride itself.

Which brings me to Saturdays ride. This time instead of going out with a GPS unit and going over old routes I went out with an OS map, Geoff and an idea of some trails based upon areas we used to run when we were trail marathon training. The rest was all down to exploring.

Good old OS maps!

A Geoff is not a requirement but I am sure he would not mind!

We are lucky in Maidstone in that the North Downs runs just outside of town. This is a stunning set of chalk hills that runs from Surrey to Dover. 

Naturally they are pretty fun to ride over, however often we end up riding the same routes - which are awesome - but for variety we headed out to pastures new. We did however stick to existing trails so we didn't get too lost and also so we couldn't be accused of trashing the environment.

The best part of all this is the finding of new trails, well ones that we haven't ridden before. 

Seriously it is surprising how much fun it is to go off and try to find something new. There is a sense of adventure and exploration tempered with the fact that unlike Scott, Shackleton and Feinnes the worst that could happen is binning your machine and maybe some bruising to pride and skin. Plus providing you don't go too 'off-piste' it is easy to turn around and go back the way you came from.

There was also the opportunity for some good old photography and enjoyment of the environment without having to worry/or worrying about lap times or segments. 

Trails? Trails?

There you are!

First Bluebell of the year! Oh and Geoff's full sus.

It is also worth noting that this exploration does not stop up and around the Downs, having bobbed about Cuckoo Wood a lot lately I have started finding extra trails and routes. This I think is the same for everyone, no matter where you are. There are trails in your local woods, areas where perhaps you over look because you might be focusing on the same segments and areas and not just 'exploring' the outdoor spaces near you.

That said the view is always amazing from the top of Bluebell Hill.

Now a few admissions. 

Firstly we knew the areas pretty well - although the exact area we explored was new to us we knew the surroundings pretty well. I wouldn't recommend exploring a totally new area without fully researching it first - you never know what sudden drops etc you might encounter (danger! danger!).

Secondly this area is well known and bridleways are all over it - which means we were in no danger of trespassing - something to consider when riding anywhere let alone areas you don't know about.

Thirdly we made sure that we gave walkers and runners a wide berth - specifically avoiding areas we knew to be popular with them. Common courtesy etc.  

Finally even though this was only timed in the sense that we knew when we left and arrived home I still had to look up the length of the route - sick I know - but I haven't worked out speeds or elevation (I am getting better). 

For those who wondered we cycled for 18 miles in total over 2 and a half hours. 

However as a ride it was much more. 

So yeah, all that aside I would recommend digging out an old map, looking at routes and going on an explore. You may not find loads of singletrack, you may not find some gnar downhill, however what you may find might surprise you and you are still out on your bike. 

Which surely is what it is all about?