The next Mountainboard Derby Monday Night Session will be held on
Monday 14th May 2012 at our
usual spot on
Darley Park..
Matt and family are usually there from ~5-6pm till 8 with Ade there from 7.30pm(ish) till dark and beyond at our
usual spot on
Darley Park.
If you want to borrow any kit such as boards, helmets or pads or want to use the mini ramp, then give us a shout!
Discussions regarding this session can be found on the Mountainboard Derby Facebook page.
See you down there!
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
When TV gets things right: Freesports on 4
It's usually the case that terrestrial television covering niche or 'extreme' sports will inevitability turn out bad, whether it's shouty presenters, bad camera angles, crap music, presenters 'having a go', or 'action' that's just a bit boring. So it's nice to find a programme that tells things as it is and just lets the action get on with things.
So it is with the Channel 4 coverage of the 'Freeride World Tour' on on the occasional early Sunday morning with plenty of repeats throughout the week on 4music.
Freeride World Tour? From the official FAQ pages, "Forget placing slalom poles down the mountain. Forget building artificial jumps and hips and halfpipes and tabletops. Forget grooming the slopes even. Freeride contests are 100% natural, 100% clean. Indeed, the event is all about celebrating the god-given terrain features found on any mountainside in the most exciting and elemental format possible. There‘s a start gate at the summit and a finish gate at the bottom. That’s it. Best run down wins."
The snowboarders cover the first half of the show, followed by the skiers, interspersed with brief thoughts by some of the competitors between runs. What more do you need? Certainly not Chris Evens.
So would the format work for mountainboarding? I don't see why not - perhaps there is room for us on the telly, even if it is at 7am on a Sunday morning.
Latest episode can be found on the 4od page here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/freesports-on-4/4od
Keep track of when it's on next from the handy Radio Times pages:
http://www.radiotimes.com/programme/cfbr/freesports-on-4
...and more importantly, learn more about the competition itself on the official pages:
http://www.freerideworldtour.com/
So it is with the Channel 4 coverage of the 'Freeride World Tour' on on the occasional early Sunday morning with plenty of repeats throughout the week on 4music.
Freeride World Tour? From the official FAQ pages, "Forget placing slalom poles down the mountain. Forget building artificial jumps and hips and halfpipes and tabletops. Forget grooming the slopes even. Freeride contests are 100% natural, 100% clean. Indeed, the event is all about celebrating the god-given terrain features found on any mountainside in the most exciting and elemental format possible. There‘s a start gate at the summit and a finish gate at the bottom. That’s it. Best run down wins."
The snowboarders cover the first half of the show, followed by the skiers, interspersed with brief thoughts by some of the competitors between runs. What more do you need? Certainly not Chris Evens.
So would the format work for mountainboarding? I don't see why not - perhaps there is room for us on the telly, even if it is at 7am on a Sunday morning.
Latest episode can be found on the 4od page here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/freesports-on-4/4od
Keep track of when it's on next from the handy Radio Times pages:
http://www.radiotimes.com/programme/cfbr/freesports-on-4
...and more importantly, learn more about the competition itself on the official pages:
http://www.freerideworldtour.com/
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Want to stiffen your soggy MBS deck?
Karl (may or may not be his real name)*, is local Derby rider who we met up with for the first time recently. He likes to freestyle and likes to go big and so really pushes the flex of his board to the limit. In doing so, over time the MBS deck naturally became a bit soggy and so used the following modification to stiffen things up.
The Trampa handle is apparently a bit of a bugger to fit to the MBS grab handle holes, but when fitted, stays in place nice and tight. The effect of doing this is that on landing, the deck is restrained from flexing upwards by the stiffness of the handle. Result: one stiffer deck that is also portable!
Disclaimer. Karl snapped his deck a couple of weeks a go. Not necessarily as a result of any modifications but we here at Dirt Box HQ accept no responsibility whatsoever. Thank you!
* - it is his real name.
The Trampa handle is apparently a bit of a bugger to fit to the MBS grab handle holes, but when fitted, stays in place nice and tight. The effect of doing this is that on landing, the deck is restrained from flexing upwards by the stiffness of the handle. Result: one stiffer deck that is also portable!
Disclaimer. Karl snapped his deck a couple of weeks a go. Not necessarily as a result of any modifications but we here at Dirt Box HQ accept no responsibility whatsoever. Thank you!
* - it is his real name.
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Want to win a holiday?
How this one passed me by, I don't know.... Anyway, turns out that the overall winner in each of the categories in the 2012 ATBA series will win a snowboarding holiday courtesy of Pleisure! So if you're eligible for the Pro, Seniors, Ladies or Masters, there's all the more reason to fight for the finish, with the only stipulation that you have to compete in all three disciplines - boarder X, freestyle and downhill. A good reason as any to tweak those methods to the max and get freestyling, or boarder x-ing, or down-hilling...!
info via http://atbauk.wordpress.com/
info via http://atbauk.wordpress.com/
Whinlatter or Bust!...
...a short story where Phill and Ade travel for 5 and a half hours and sleep together in an incredibly cold tent in order to ride for a grand total of 16 minutes* in the far north of England
* Fortunately this was 16 minutes riding in the beautiful Whinlatter forest, for the first ATBA downhill competition to be held in England on a proper mountain.
Starting at the beginning though - Lessons learned from 'Dave 2011': a) travelling the night before and sleeping in the car or b) travelling there on the morning of the comp itself is not the best way to do things. With this in mind, Phill and I left Derby at 2.30pm on the Friday and headed north with my eldest son in the back seat. If I was going to have fun in the Lakes, the least I could do is drop him off at Granny and Granddads on the way to take the pressure off the missus back home. With him sorted, we could speed up the A6, through Stockport and get round Manchester before joining up with the M6 motorway. Best laid plans and all that.
Unfortunately, all the tourists seemed to have a similar idea with the consequences of this being that we hit Manchester bang on 5pm and resulting in our average speed dropping considerably. Perhaps I should have gone via Stoke on Trent... Hey ho, onwards and upwards to where the hills get hillier!
Arrived at the campsite at 7.30 and paid just £6.50 instead of the usual £7.50 by quoting 'mountainboarding' thanks to the tough negotiations made previously by Chris 6th Degree - nice one Chris!
Despite changeable and contrasting weather reports, the day was dry, the air clear and the local scenery fantastic. Plenty of riders had arrived earlier and there was loads of room for everyone plus everyone else due to arrive much later that evening.
With high efficiency we get the tent erected and make the decision to hit the pub rather than eat either Phills or my food rations. Probably a very good idea - Phill had a good stock of breakfast food and I had the usual rubbish - tinned rice pudding and baked beans. To my credit, I had remembered a tin opener and a spoon this time!
Going for an evening ride was considered and rejected - it was going to get dark soon; probably get far colder and we could conserve our energy for the next day. Besides, I wasn't entirely sure where the designated track was and given my current personal circumstances with small children back home, I wasn't going to pass on an opportunity to hit the pub.
4 pints later and we're back at the campsite. It's cold, but as it's a clear night, the night sky is amazing. Reports come in that Mark S has been pulled over by the police. Later on that night he arrives with Jenna in his bright, yellow van. "How fast were you going, then?", "65" moans Mark.
More is drunk. People mill around for a couple of hours looking at the various boards on display. Campfires are lit and the mood is good for a good ride in the morning.
Night-time. Frog-me*, its cold. (* - with a 2 year old in the house, self-censorship is almost automatic now. We have a lot of frogs, sheep and carp on a daily basis).
Next morning and everyone's up bright and early ready to roll! Perhaps everyone else was ready, I was cold and couldn't sleep. Also wondered why the free-roaming chickens seemed so interested in Eddie's tent?? This became evident much later during packing the tents when Eddie and his late night pavement pizza emerged as a result of dodgy food the night before. Unlucky one, Eddie :-(
After a fantastic slap-up breakfast cooked by Phill in the boot of my car (the flame kept going out when it was exposed), we were good to go and had the luxury of being able to follow the snake of cars heading up to the Whinlatter Visitor Centre. We headed out of the carpark and immediately turned left, exactly the opposite way to the way I would have guessed. Probably a good job I didn't try and find it the night before!
Was only a couple of miles or so to the Visitor Centre with it's £6.50 all day parking. I thought it might have been a bit cheaper up north... Hey ho, it's all supporting the local forestry commission and all that. Instructions come through: 10am we can start to register with riders meeting at 10.30.
From the visitor centre it was a nice, slightly downward slope into the woods so might as well get on and ride, approximately 300 metres. At this point, the track split in two with a path to the left going slightly uphill, and a path to the right going steeply down. Not wishing to climb back up if it's the wrong way, we all sit down and wait for further instructions. (not that we're lazy or anything....)
Registration took place with a slight hint of rain in the air and two biros. Everyone signs the disclaimer and promises not to sue anyone and we're given the choice of taking the van up to the top or walking the route. Having only watched the track on-line walking seemed like a good idea.
Heading up, the rain seemed to stop and the track looked the same as in the video, just a bit steeper. Walking with Travis, the only person nearby who had ridden the track previously, he kept repeating that the track was "much steeper" than he had remembered.
The track, a combination of firetrack, gravel path and soft woodland path of just over a mile in length turned out to be not closed off to the public as initially though, but was littered with warnings at every junction to keep the walkers and bikers over to the far side.
Further instructions were given at the top of the hill. Don't hit the walkers or the bikers, fastest time wins. Fair enough! Then it started snowing. Only at the top though, it was almost sunbathing weather at the bottom.
With everyone in one spot it was impressive to see the range of toys brought out to play with various options on what would be most effective. Boards included MBSs, noSnos, Trampas, rebranded MBSs, nompas. Brakes included MBS V5s, ABS, noSno and cable disk brakes, and of course crazy brakeless riders, and tyres included 8 inch, 9 inch, 10 inch and 12 inch as well as the odd large front, small rear wheel combos.
Following a practice run, general discussion seemed to concur that the track was pretty straight forward with not too much to worry about. In a nutshell, a long-ish straight, a reasonably tight left-hander followed by a reasonably sweeping right-hander followed by shorter straight section passing over another track before dropping sharply down a stoney gully. Through the woods with a tight left hander to finish with a large digger on the outside edge of the corner, just to focus the mind a bit.
3 more runs over the course of the day and that was me happy. With decent weather conditions, the track was running well and generally times were able to improve as the day went on. A quick riders meeting voted to chop off the last 10 metres of the track as it was quite boggy and a big advantage to those on larger tyres. This made a lot of sense and was implemented immediately.
The uplift worked well hauling all 30 riders plus boards plus marshals up in one go. This would have been perfect if a) I hadn't of felt travel sick after the first go and ended up walking each of the subsequent times and b) if Ben hadn't of ridden into the van during the practice run when the van had to stop suddenly. I'd forgotten just how travel sick I'd used to be when I used to be a passenger before I could drive and was fine until someone towards the back said 'imagine if someone was sick, and that caused everyone else to be sick'. Lets just say that my helmet came very close to becoming a little stinkier that day.
After a very satisfying days riding, it was a much faster drive back down to the Midlands in little under 3 1/2 hours. What a difference not driving through Manchester on a Friday rush hour makes!
So, big cheers to Roger for all the organising for making all of this a reality and for going smoothly on the day, to the marshals for keeping the bikers and walkers out of the way, to the timekeepers who provided us with regular updates on our progress and to everyone else who made it a great weekend!
With great efficiency, the full results were published a day or so later and can be found in full here:
http://atbauk.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/downhill-series-round-1-results/
Congratulations to JC on an astonishingly quick time on 9" tyres and no brakes.
More media can be found below with an excellent write up from Freeride NW here:
http://freeridenw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/atba-downhill-series-1-write-up.html
* Fortunately this was 16 minutes riding in the beautiful Whinlatter forest, for the first ATBA downhill competition to be held in England on a proper mountain.
Starting at the beginning though - Lessons learned from 'Dave 2011': a) travelling the night before and sleeping in the car or b) travelling there on the morning of the comp itself is not the best way to do things. With this in mind, Phill and I left Derby at 2.30pm on the Friday and headed north with my eldest son in the back seat. If I was going to have fun in the Lakes, the least I could do is drop him off at Granny and Granddads on the way to take the pressure off the missus back home. With him sorted, we could speed up the A6, through Stockport and get round Manchester before joining up with the M6 motorway. Best laid plans and all that.
Unfortunately, all the tourists seemed to have a similar idea with the consequences of this being that we hit Manchester bang on 5pm and resulting in our average speed dropping considerably. Perhaps I should have gone via Stoke on Trent... Hey ho, onwards and upwards to where the hills get hillier!
Arrived at the campsite at 7.30 and paid just £6.50 instead of the usual £7.50 by quoting 'mountainboarding' thanks to the tough negotiations made previously by Chris 6th Degree - nice one Chris!
Despite changeable and contrasting weather reports, the day was dry, the air clear and the local scenery fantastic. Plenty of riders had arrived earlier and there was loads of room for everyone plus everyone else due to arrive much later that evening.
With high efficiency we get the tent erected and make the decision to hit the pub rather than eat either Phills or my food rations. Probably a very good idea - Phill had a good stock of breakfast food and I had the usual rubbish - tinned rice pudding and baked beans. To my credit, I had remembered a tin opener and a spoon this time!
Going for an evening ride was considered and rejected - it was going to get dark soon; probably get far colder and we could conserve our energy for the next day. Besides, I wasn't entirely sure where the designated track was and given my current personal circumstances with small children back home, I wasn't going to pass on an opportunity to hit the pub.
4 pints later and we're back at the campsite. It's cold, but as it's a clear night, the night sky is amazing. Reports come in that Mark S has been pulled over by the police. Later on that night he arrives with Jenna in his bright, yellow van. "How fast were you going, then?", "65" moans Mark.
More is drunk. People mill around for a couple of hours looking at the various boards on display. Campfires are lit and the mood is good for a good ride in the morning.
Night-time. Frog-me*, its cold. (* - with a 2 year old in the house, self-censorship is almost automatic now. We have a lot of frogs, sheep and carp on a daily basis).
Next morning and everyone's up bright and early ready to roll! Perhaps everyone else was ready, I was cold and couldn't sleep. Also wondered why the free-roaming chickens seemed so interested in Eddie's tent?? This became evident much later during packing the tents when Eddie and his late night pavement pizza emerged as a result of dodgy food the night before. Unlucky one, Eddie :-(
After a fantastic slap-up breakfast cooked by Phill in the boot of my car (the flame kept going out when it was exposed), we were good to go and had the luxury of being able to follow the snake of cars heading up to the Whinlatter Visitor Centre. We headed out of the carpark and immediately turned left, exactly the opposite way to the way I would have guessed. Probably a good job I didn't try and find it the night before!
Was only a couple of miles or so to the Visitor Centre with it's £6.50 all day parking. I thought it might have been a bit cheaper up north... Hey ho, it's all supporting the local forestry commission and all that. Instructions come through: 10am we can start to register with riders meeting at 10.30.
From the visitor centre it was a nice, slightly downward slope into the woods so might as well get on and ride, approximately 300 metres. At this point, the track split in two with a path to the left going slightly uphill, and a path to the right going steeply down. Not wishing to climb back up if it's the wrong way, we all sit down and wait for further instructions. (not that we're lazy or anything....)
Registration took place with a slight hint of rain in the air and two biros. Everyone signs the disclaimer and promises not to sue anyone and we're given the choice of taking the van up to the top or walking the route. Having only watched the track on-line walking seemed like a good idea.
Heading up, the rain seemed to stop and the track looked the same as in the video, just a bit steeper. Walking with Travis, the only person nearby who had ridden the track previously, he kept repeating that the track was "much steeper" than he had remembered.
The track, a combination of firetrack, gravel path and soft woodland path of just over a mile in length turned out to be not closed off to the public as initially though, but was littered with warnings at every junction to keep the walkers and bikers over to the far side.
Further instructions were given at the top of the hill. Don't hit the walkers or the bikers, fastest time wins. Fair enough! Then it started snowing. Only at the top though, it was almost sunbathing weather at the bottom.
With everyone in one spot it was impressive to see the range of toys brought out to play with various options on what would be most effective. Boards included MBSs, noSnos, Trampas, rebranded MBSs, nompas. Brakes included MBS V5s, ABS, noSno and cable disk brakes, and of course crazy brakeless riders, and tyres included 8 inch, 9 inch, 10 inch and 12 inch as well as the odd large front, small rear wheel combos.
Following a practice run, general discussion seemed to concur that the track was pretty straight forward with not too much to worry about. In a nutshell, a long-ish straight, a reasonably tight left-hander followed by a reasonably sweeping right-hander followed by shorter straight section passing over another track before dropping sharply down a stoney gully. Through the woods with a tight left hander to finish with a large digger on the outside edge of the corner, just to focus the mind a bit.
3 more runs over the course of the day and that was me happy. With decent weather conditions, the track was running well and generally times were able to improve as the day went on. A quick riders meeting voted to chop off the last 10 metres of the track as it was quite boggy and a big advantage to those on larger tyres. This made a lot of sense and was implemented immediately.
The uplift worked well hauling all 30 riders plus boards plus marshals up in one go. This would have been perfect if a) I hadn't of felt travel sick after the first go and ended up walking each of the subsequent times and b) if Ben hadn't of ridden into the van during the practice run when the van had to stop suddenly. I'd forgotten just how travel sick I'd used to be when I used to be a passenger before I could drive and was fine until someone towards the back said 'imagine if someone was sick, and that caused everyone else to be sick'. Lets just say that my helmet came very close to becoming a little stinkier that day.
After a very satisfying days riding, it was a much faster drive back down to the Midlands in little under 3 1/2 hours. What a difference not driving through Manchester on a Friday rush hour makes!
So, big cheers to Roger for all the organising for making all of this a reality and for going smoothly on the day, to the marshals for keeping the bikers and walkers out of the way, to the timekeepers who provided us with regular updates on our progress and to everyone else who made it a great weekend!
With great efficiency, the full results were published a day or so later and can be found in full here:
http://atbauk.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/downhill-series-round-1-results/
Congratulations to JC on an astonishingly quick time on 9" tyres and no brakes.
More media can be found below with an excellent write up from Freeride NW here:
http://freeridenw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/atba-downhill-series-1-write-up.html
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
Mountainboard Derby: Freeride Session Review - 2nd April 2012
Further to my previous post here, and after a lot of discussion on facebook, the first of the Mountainboard Derby Monday Night Sessions took place!
Kicking off early in Darley Park, I got to the party late with Karl and Kirsty, Matt and family having been down since the afternoon. Phill got there approximately 10 minutes before I did but with the benefit of British Summer Time, I was able to get in a decent couple of hours boarding before it got really, really dark.
The mini ramp as supplied by Jay Langdell mixed things up a bit and as the sun set, relaxed riding interspersed with much chat meant that the evening flew by. For future use, Mat's supplying some football markers so that we have something to aim for rather than just the usual trees etc.
In the scheme of things, Darley Park seems like a good starting point and so far, people seem keen to do something on a regular basis. Maybe it wont always be Darley, and maybe people will prefer another night, but let's see how things go. All in all, it's shaping up to be a great summer!
PS, I've set-up a quick and dirty blog page so that people can see the general plan of action. Read all about it here: http://mountainboard-derby.blogspot.co.uk/
PPS, it was only when it got dark that I thought about taking some photos. Oh well, next time Gadget!
Kicking off early in Darley Park, I got to the party late with Karl and Kirsty, Matt and family having been down since the afternoon. Phill got there approximately 10 minutes before I did but with the benefit of British Summer Time, I was able to get in a decent couple of hours boarding before it got really, really dark.
The mini ramp as supplied by Jay Langdell mixed things up a bit and as the sun set, relaxed riding interspersed with much chat meant that the evening flew by. For future use, Mat's supplying some football markers so that we have something to aim for rather than just the usual trees etc.
In the scheme of things, Darley Park seems like a good starting point and so far, people seem keen to do something on a regular basis. Maybe it wont always be Darley, and maybe people will prefer another night, but let's see how things go. All in all, it's shaping up to be a great summer!
PS, I've set-up a quick and dirty blog page so that people can see the general plan of action. Read all about it here: http://mountainboard-derby.blogspot.co.uk/
PPS, it was only when it got dark that I thought about taking some photos. Oh well, next time Gadget!
Monday, 12 March 2012
Spring Time Tinkering
Christmas break was a great time to make a few changes and tinker a bit with stuff. Unfortunately, work load in the new year then went mental so whilst stuff has been taking place, having the time to document has been low. Anyhow, a summary of what I've been up to is below.
T3 Tyres
On recommendation from Mark S, these bad boys from ATBShop (with 10% off with ATBA membership) provide a flatter contact area with the ground with additional noggins round the edges. Upshot of this is supposedly better lateral grip with slightly slower acceleration. Having ridden in them most of this year, I can confirm that although they will still slide out when it's really, really muddy, they still provide control in poor conditions. I've been told that they lose their effectiveness if over inflated - this makes sense in that the more you pump, the less square edged they become as they try to match the doughnut shaped inner tube. How much to pump then I suppose depends on how many pies you've had recently. So, in summary, less fun on the golf course, but great fun kicking up leaves in the woods.
Burton Ratchets
..both look the business and (so far) work great! The big problem that I've had in the past with MBS, Trampa and the ones on noSno is either the ratchets failing to hold position, either though broken teeth, or worn ladder straps, or ratchets failing to disengage at the end of a run. So far, I'm very happy with these, with only slight bodging necessary to fit into place. All that was required was a new hole in the plastic binding for the notch on the ratchet to fit into. Added bonus that these seem very easy to remove, even with big gloves on.
Head Torch
Night riding has gone down very well this winter with riding once or twice a week most weeks with both Phill and brother Rob coming along for the ride. LED torches seem to be cheaper than ever and I picked up three '9-LED' torches for a fiver with batteries included. At this sort of price, they are almost disposable. Industrial strength Velcro from Homebase was relatively expensive at around a tenner for half a metres worth, but then you only need a little bit at a time. Bonus of doing this is the ability to replace one torch with another, should one fail, and the ability to change position slightly. This comes into effect quite regularly as a torch in the wrong position only manages to illuminate the inside of my helmet, leaving me blind to the outside world. As mentioned quite regularly on here, it's worth giving night riding a go if only because it means you can ride more. Don't worry if not though - British Summer Time is almost amongst us!
Bindings
My Rage noSno bindings are in reasonable condition, but the padding on the underside of the bindings were in a reasonably poor state. My biggest concern then was the metal parts of the underside catching on my snowboard boots and ripping them up a little. Maybe unfounded, but I do like my boots and would prefer not to have to replace them for a while, particularly as my feet should have stopped growing! Solution this time was to remove all traces of the foam underside and replace with a leather section of similar shape; glue into place (one with Evostick Impact, one with Araldite, see which works best long term), and leave to dry. In the morning, chop off the excess leather and away we go. So far, both seem to be doing reasonably well so my additional step of restitching round the edge I haven't bothered with, but we'll see on this - could be more effort than it's worth. No definitive difference so far between the glues.
So, where is this all leading? There are a whole load of ATBA events happing over the summer including Boarder X, Freestyle and Downhill. Added to this, hopefully the Mountainboard Derby Summertime sessions will become a reality, or at least an opportunity to ride on a regular basis in a more relaxed way. Add to this all the usual events and stuff that happens around the country that hopefully we'll be finding out a bit more about soon.
T3 Tyres
On recommendation from Mark S, these bad boys from ATBShop (with 10% off with ATBA membership) provide a flatter contact area with the ground with additional noggins round the edges. Upshot of this is supposedly better lateral grip with slightly slower acceleration. Having ridden in them most of this year, I can confirm that although they will still slide out when it's really, really muddy, they still provide control in poor conditions. I've been told that they lose their effectiveness if over inflated - this makes sense in that the more you pump, the less square edged they become as they try to match the doughnut shaped inner tube. How much to pump then I suppose depends on how many pies you've had recently. So, in summary, less fun on the golf course, but great fun kicking up leaves in the woods.
Burton Ratchets
..both look the business and (so far) work great! The big problem that I've had in the past with MBS, Trampa and the ones on noSno is either the ratchets failing to hold position, either though broken teeth, or worn ladder straps, or ratchets failing to disengage at the end of a run. So far, I'm very happy with these, with only slight bodging necessary to fit into place. All that was required was a new hole in the plastic binding for the notch on the ratchet to fit into. Added bonus that these seem very easy to remove, even with big gloves on.
Head Torch
My Rage noSno bindings are in reasonable condition, but the padding on the underside of the bindings were in a reasonably poor state. My biggest concern then was the metal parts of the underside catching on my snowboard boots and ripping them up a little. Maybe unfounded, but I do like my boots and would prefer not to have to replace them for a while, particularly as my feet should have stopped growing! Solution this time was to remove all traces of the foam underside and replace with a leather section of similar shape; glue into place (one with Evostick Impact, one with Araldite, see which works best long term), and leave to dry. In the morning, chop off the excess leather and away we go. So far, both seem to be doing reasonably well so my additional step of restitching round the edge I haven't bothered with, but we'll see on this - could be more effort than it's worth. No definitive difference so far between the glues.
So, where is this all leading? There are a whole load of ATBA events happing over the summer including Boarder X, Freestyle and Downhill. Added to this, hopefully the Mountainboard Derby Summertime sessions will become a reality, or at least an opportunity to ride on a regular basis in a more relaxed way. Add to this all the usual events and stuff that happens around the country that hopefully we'll be finding out a bit more about soon.
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