Insane!

Absolutely insane!

Last weekend, to round off our action packed holiday, we went camping in Wales with some of the Evans guys and gals (bike shop Matt worked in in London) for a mountain biking trip. We tried out our new two-man, tent and enjoyed the beautiful sunny weather; away from Manchester!

For Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday we basically just rode up and down a couple of crazy mountains; no 'along the flat' stuff. Just Up-and-Up and Dang-Down. Phew! Besides going skydiving, I don't think I have ever done anything so extreme. (Actually, thinking about it, I think this mountain biking was more extreme than skydiving. Yep, definitely).

The first hill we climbed at Machynlleth was steep and took about 1 1/2 hours to climb to the very top. And then...there's the down hill; single track, scary, and fast; my heart was certainly pumping. On Sunday, the ride was more advanced and I was constantly amazed at the technical skill of the boys riding, (especially Matt!) as well as their fitness; not to mention how fast they rode down the single tracks. Insane!

My riding skills have improved out-of-sight (which is good as this was only my second serious off-road ride) and I've started to enjoy it more each time, rather than just getting freaked out by it. I only had one stack this whole weekend and that was only because my legs were so fatigued that when my bike stopped at the bottom of a single track, I kept going - right into a waiting audience :-)

We had so much fun camping with the guys, cooking camp food - especially Dani's Couscous!, and drinking river-cooled cider and beer :-) Excellent way to finish the holiday, though now, I feel I need a holiday to get over our holiday.

Check out our photos of the weekend here.
Also worth checking out our good friend Dani's photos of the weekend for lots more riding shots (don't miss the Hardcore Riding photos of me!).

PS: Matt's just uploaded short video of the start of the one of the downhill sections from Sunday. Sorry, but the camera randomly cut out a short way into the ride :-(