Who's the Man

How good does the boy look?

Aston Hill, and a new member

Saturday afternoon involved a visit to Aston Hill - Garry, Duncan, myself and 'Dave' along with one of my neighbour's, Mark.

Unusually for the current weather, it didn't rain, but the ground was wet and slippy.

We split into two groups, Garry and Duncan went off for the XC, and we went for a 'play'. Mark hadn't ridden this year, so struggled a bit with fitness.

Only incident of note, was Duncan falling off 3 (or was it 4) times at exactly the same place on the top XC loop...

We spent the afternoon there, and enjoyed it.

Next weekend, its Coed y Brenin - yippee.

Aston Hill Re-visited - 26th May

Garry, "Dave", Bruce and I headed off to Aston Hill but with only 3 bikes loaded on the racks, yes it is still too early for Bruce to get back in the saddle. I was rather nervous about this outing, as although it was my second visit to Aston Hill, the first only lasted minutes due to the accident. This time, body armour was a must!

Garry and I headed off for the x-country course, 5 miles of what turned out to be very technical riding, whilst Bruce limped over to the "Bombholes" yes you have read that correctly, and the 4x with young "Dave".

The x-country course was tough and I came off a couple of times, due to a lack of confidence and a distinct lack of ability. Two sponsored Trek riders who went past twice, made it look all too easy. For some reason I was out of puff despite putting some decent training miles in during the week, and surprisingly even Garry was finding it tough going, but that was down to the 10 pints and a ruby murray he had the night before.

Garry decided to go for a second lap whilst I looked to get my second wind in the "Bombholes" section with young "Dave". After this and a bit of a mess around on the 4-x course and a circuit of the top loop of the x-country trail, we went back to the scene of Bruce's accident. After Bruce repeatedly stated "I can't see how I came off" we all agreed, as the jump is not really that bad, and to prove the fact "Dave", Garry and I had several goes progressing to actually taking off, well "Dave" and Garry actually, as you can see from the photo's.

After lunch and another hour or so messing around it was time to call it a day. Garry had managed to shed the calories gained from a Chicken Madras, "Dave" had managed to make jumping look far too easy and I overcame my fear of Aston Hill. As for Bruce, well it won't be long before he is back in the saddle, but riding this type of terrain.........who knows.