Pictures of your latest ride

Mikefule · September 7, 2009, 11:27am

All those trials obstacles - especially that long pond with a wall at each side.

Mikefule · September 7, 2009, 12:30pm

Most amazing ride today. I went further into the forest than ever before, way beyond the bit where bikers go. Saw several jays, several green woodpeckers, possibly a spotted woodpecker, a fox, grouses, a buzzard (really close up), possibly a sparrow hawk, squirrels, rabbits and a shrew (or maybe a vole).

Also, fly agaric fungi (the red ones with white spots), two or three species of dragon fly, and all manner of other woodland things.

Followed deer tracks, but no luck finding the deer.

As I don’t have a Guni, I guess that a herd of deer would have run away faster than I could ride after them anyway. As the saying goes, “All the deer and no high gear.”

Absolutely drained of every last drop of energy, but what a ride.

Look for the rowan berries in the sixth picture. This was a beautiful spot.

munirocks · September 7, 2009, 12:32pm

I took my guni for a nice mixed style ride with some fast road sections, some fast xc in the woods and a little tech muni in the hills. It was fantastic weather all along.

This may have been my last ride with the 29" frame, as the KH26" frame is on it’s way here now.
I’m looking forward to get the brakes installed so I can go down steeper things and also use the high gear for fast downhills.

Into_the_blue · September 7, 2009, 12:59pm

That’s some UPD.

monocyclism · September 7, 2009, 12:59pm

Wow the weather broke out sunny here in Cymru! Hairpin bend at the head of the valley where I live. From here in on in it’s just up!

joemarshall · September 7, 2009, 2:35pm

Seems like quite a few people got in a cheeky weekday ride today.

I have two last rides, so two pictures.

Yesterday afternoon I headed out for a quick play on my local trails - I was out for an hour or so, and I think I basically rode a km to the trail, and then a 500m-ish trail, a bit of a loop round to the top, rode the trail again, and then poddled home. I spent about 45 minutes riding the 1km of proper trail, which is a little run that is called ‘bus stop’*, I think I have ridden every section of it except for three bits, the first is an annoying drop-in at the start, that is only about 8 inches, but somehow catches me out every time, secondly, there’s an inconveniently angled log to hop or roll over, I think I could roll it, but it is a bit slippy, and I never seem to get the angle right for the hop. The third impossible section is a horrible rock garden where there used to be a stone wall, followed by a steep corner heading down a set of decent sized root steps.

Tonight, I rode home from work on the bike, and discovered that the batteries for my new fancy night riding light (cost me £40 - 4 times as much as my last ones) had turned up. And it turned out that the light was stupidly bright, incredibly bright, with the ‘low’ setting being as bright as my old light, and the high setting being silly, silly bright in a huge beam of light in the sky kind of way. So I couldn’t resist strapping the light to my helmet, and going for a night ride. I rode bus stop again, but this time with a ton of dismounts. What a great trail for night riding - it has a bit of everything, steep twisty stuff, sharp little uphills, rocks, roots, bits you really need to hop through, bits where you just have to put the power down to blast through, wide rocky sections, narrow singletrack, a little skinnyish ride along the top of a wall to finish (plus a final 3 foot drop for those who like that sort of thing), and best of all, it’s only 10 minutes ride from my house. I’m hoping some people will bring night riding lights on the Peaks Muni Trip so we can go play on it. There are some easier bits too, for those who are less night ride crazy (or don’t have such fancy lights).

Joe

p.s. apologies for the phone camera picture quality

*because if you get to the bus stop, you’ve gone past for the (non-obvious) trail entrance

tomtrevor · September 7, 2009, 9:39pm

Me, Rockley & James…

turtle · September 7, 2009, 10:55pm

short muni and park session:

GILD · September 8, 2009, 2:13am

I’ve never understood why the speaker corner crowd doesn’t invest in a pair of Dura Stilts.
Those little stepladders just look so dinky.

rob.northcott · September 8, 2009, 2:35am

Groan! Be honest, you made that whole story up just to fit that joke in, didn’t you

Rob

semach.the.monkey · September 8, 2009, 6:02am

If the crowd all had Dura Stilts, no one would be able to see the speaker on his step ladder

STM

GILD · September 8, 2009, 6:15am

Indeed.

My apologies, my use of ‘crowd’ to refer to the speakers was moderately ill advised.

But you have given me a fun idea for a flashmob tho.

Get 50 or so stilt-walkers to suddenly decend on speakers corner and look down on all the speakers.

Mikefule · September 8, 2009, 9:41am

It took some doing.

But really, there were deer tracks.

Mikefule · September 9, 2009, 11:56am

It was a beautiful sunset through the trees, but the camera in my phone was struggling…

hugo · September 9, 2009, 1:14pm

You can use that as a wallpaper for your desktop

MuniSano · September 9, 2009, 1:45pm

Can you spot the UPD in this picture…

Continuing the blurry, psychedelic photo theme…

Mikefule · September 9, 2009, 1:49pm

Do I win £5?

joemarshall · September 9, 2009, 3:24pm

Out for another quick test ride of my lights. Apologies for picture quality. Next week I’ll get our proper camera back, and be able to take decent night pictures (my wife has gone away with it), this is once again off my phone. There is one paragraph per picture.

First I rode up the hill and took a quick snap of my town, in the valley below (first pic). Even at this point, it was strangely quiet, the street lights all looking funny and yellow, a slight mist in the air, and my breath steaming in the autumn chill. Suddenly a motorbike goes past, and just as suddenly I’m completely alone again, above the silent valley, and I remount and head towards the start of the trail.

Into the woods, on a tiny trail, surrounded by nettles. I manage only one invigorating sting as I ride this, hit the boundary of the woods proper and promptly fall off. The woods are dark and spooky, outside the beam of my light it is completely pitch black. Every so often I disturb some small creature and a sudden flurry of rustling breaks out.

I fall off, and decide to take a picture of my new light. I painstakingly wedge my mobile phone against some rocks, set it to self-timer, mount, and pause on the spot, keeping an eye on the camera to see that it is taking a picture. Too close an eye it turns out, as I manage to completely saturate the camera with my light beam.

Another try, this time I ride at an angle from the camera. This time I manage an atmospheric shot of my light and a little bit of tree that it is lighting up. Which is better than nothing. It looks a bit like I’m carrying around my own personal moon. I get bored of this picture taking lark, and ride down the trail, enjoying the joy that is root drops that you don’t quite see in time, rocks that you power over before you notice them, and the not quite so joyous thing that is roots that you crash on and unexpected rocks that throw your unicycle down the hill.

I get to the bottom of the hill, and ride up an easy trail, ready to ride the hillside trail, a narrow singletrack that countours round. I stop at the bottom of this to take a picture, in a narrow, holly lined trail, in pitch darkness. It is silent and more misty now. The noise of leaves and stuff on the ground as I move echoes, making it sound as if someone is following me. Over the wall is a cemetery, I’m literally 30m from a load of dead bodies, in pitch darkness. I stop to take a picture. As I’m taking the picture, a flock of crows suddenly takes off from the tree above, cawing loudly, and making me jump and create a mikefule special blur-o-vision picture.

I decide that it’s time to ride home, down a singletrack on the open hillside, along the road to where the pub is, then down the steepest road in the world, only pausing to freak out a couple of drivers with my very bright light, that I’ve forgotten to turn off high-beam, and I’m ready for a nice cup of tea and have yet another tale to tell.

Joe

semach.the.monkey · September 9, 2009, 4:21pm

I’m no expert on ultrasound images, but I can tell it’s going to be a boy, and he’s going to be good at unicycling!

STM

Into_the_blue · September 9, 2009, 4:35pm

Blair Witch unicycle project.