out bikin'!

24/TWENTY FOUR

Had an amazing day out ridin' with the dirtmonkey (outinfront on his Norco Bigfoot hardtail) and Owen (on his Orange Five pro full susser) up at Llandegla today, taking in about 24k (or thereabouts) of great trails, mixing up the red and new black routes.

It's not exactly the most technical place compared to Coedy or Gwydyr (or most of the MBing in Scotland, I imagine) but we had a blast - totally adrenalinagogo - although Owen came a cropper on a steep dropoff on berm no3 whilst I took the sensible step of getting off my bike and carrying it down a few metres like a big wuss (it STILL gets me everytime I just aint got the bottle to goforit )). Justice was served though, on a section of downhill singletrack when my front wheel slipped as an off-camber section levelled out and I slamhugged a tree (good job I've got big shoulders).

Oh how I'd love a fancy full susser but heyho my GT Pantera hardtail is good to go, so will last me another year or so yet. At least It'll help me improve my ability eh.

Took several pics, none of them much good, when a mahOOsive glider swooshed and circled tight above us as the trail opened up at the side of the mountain. I've never seen one so close to me before - T'was amazing to watch figureofeightin' - especially when sume huge bird of prey joined it - but alas that's when my camera broke!

Had lots of other 24k pics in the pipeline, but had to admit defeat. (Something has fallen off the front of my lens, which means when I turn the camera on and the lens rotates out the lens cover doesn't open). Totally p155ed-off as it means my camera is now useless (what happens is visible at the bottom of my pic, which is the result of 2 blips merged).

SO - means I am now sans camera, unless I manage to get mine fixed or I take a semi-descent pic with my mobile phone (will need a lot of playing about with to get a pic worth blipping. I may have some sporadic luck though and get to use a friends'/parents/thework camera. Can't justify getting a new mobile with a better camera because, well, I hate mobiles frankly. And can't justify getting a new cheap camera 'cos I'm saving up for a swanky digital SLR one. It'll be a few months yet though, so I'm GUTTED to say I'll be away from blip or at the very best a lot less frequent for a while folks :-(((