The Mountainboard Bugle - Monday 8th Aug '11

You know what they say, 'all work and no boarding makes for sporadic blogging'.  Well, only a few bits and pieces to get off my chest this week so they're lumped together into one big blog.  Enjoy!

Fun at Chicksands!

Inspired by a recent Surfing Dirt forum thread, I had opportunity yesterday afternoon to ride Chicksands Bike Park.  Work needed doing just up the road in Bedford, but not too much work fortunately and it seemed like a long way to come without checking out what the woods had to offer.

Turn out, loads is the answer!  Parked up at the parking sign, crossed over the road into the woods, through the new gate fencing off the site and explaining 'bikers only, no walkers', and through the woods before finding myself at the wooden bike 4X roll-in.  Couple of biker dudes sorting some stuff out by a car so I ask if they mind me using my board on their facilities.  "Not at all!" is the response, "but you'll still have to pay the day-rate of £5".  Fair enough I think, "plus it's almost like a bike anyway" he says.  Nice of the bikers to be so cool about it all.

Started off on the 4X but didn't enjoy it so much as they seemed to like random logs here and there in-between berms and it flattened off in the mid section.  One of the fellas advises me to try the dual slalom as the gradient is a bit more constant.

Dual slalom is ace fun!  I thought riding the bike track at Hales was tight but this is mental.

My usual turning technique of...
turn a bit
will I get round the corner?
no
turn a bit
will I get round the corner?
no
turn a bit
will I get round the corner?
yes!
...was useless here with precision and speed the name of the game here.  The KentATB photos in the SD thread above just shows how much fun two people can have riding at the same time.

Only had a handful of hours at Chicksands before having to head home, but after a brief bit of freeride further round the hill, concluded that there is loads to do there and people tell me that there is loads more I didn't see.  The bikers are cool and all chatty, and the vibe is good.  Rumour has it that there is a burger van there most weekends so that sorts out food.

Map of Chicksands here.

Ps. Watch out for them squirrels - they'll pinch your chocolate.  Is anywhere safe these days?

Edensor Success


As written about previously here, for a while now I've had the intention of riding a 1 mile drop into Edensor, just outside of Chatsworth.  In summary, the route is relatively rocky but perfectly rideable as long as you watch out for the track dropping away sharply to the left on a couple of occasions.  Nice and quick if you want it to be with the road starting point essential to get past the first shallower section.  Popular with walkers unfortunately and one of them chased me through the middle section on my second run, forcing me to hide behind one of the stone walls for a while until my exit was clear.  Possible on 8s, but more fun on 9s.

I parked at the top of the hill but had a good chat to one walker on the way back up who was a little hostile till he realised that my contraption didn't have an engine, then he was more than happy to share his mountain biking downhill routes.  If only his memory had been a bit better and his descriptions a bit more clear then we'd have some more tracks to check out.  In the meantime, Ladybower will probably be the next exploration trip.

ATBA Round 4 - Court Farm

All the details on the facebook page, here!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=194054727318930

Want Videos? 

Follow what's going on on Surfing Dirt TV and you wont go far wrong.  Rumours that a big atcproductions/projectdoc/magicmedia film is on the way are brewing.
http://www.surfingdirt.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=9

New Blogs on the Block
http://leapb4ulook.wordpress.com/
Nice one Roger!

That'll do for now.  Right then, back to work.