Aston Hill Easter opening times

The guys at Aston Hill have announced that they will be open 9.00am till 4.30am every day from April 4th to the 12th. 

Being just minutes away from the A41 Aston Hill is one of the top downhill tracks in the South of England. 

For more information about the park, check out their website.

Still Sunny!

The good weather's come back up here but for a number of reasons I haven't got a bike with me at the moment. So here's a very short clip of me doing a timed lap of Lyme Valley BMX track from when it was last sunny. 

Shimano AM40 Shoes

In a change from the usual diary style entries I've written a product review. I've been using my AM40's for a few months now. At £59.99 they cost about the same as a pair of skate shoes, but come with a lot more features.

The 'Vibran' sole provides plenty of grip when riding but it's when you're off the bike and pushing back up that you really notice it, making them great for UK trails where uplifts are a rarity.

Shimano provides you with different sole inserts so you can adjust the stiffness of the shoes but I found the standard inserts to be fine. The shoes certainly feel more secure on your feet than regular shoes.

The lace shield set the AM40's apart from other flat pedal shoes, until 5-10 launched the Chris Kovarik signature shoes. The shield stops the laces from getting snagged on the pedals, thorns, and any other sharp objects waiting for you when out on the trails.

The styling definitely gets a mixed reaction. Some people have laughed at me for wearing them and others have been too polite to. Personally I think they look great and are better than any skate shoes out there.

BUCS cross country, Sun 22nd March

To be honest I don't think I slept at all last night. Somehow it was warmer outside the tent than it was inside. At first I was planning to just wake up, pack up, and leave; but after chatting to some of the Bournemouth boys I decided to hang around.

And I'm glad I did. I helped get the Bournemouth guys water and got to shout 'support' to all the other teams; which was great till it came to packing up and I realised I was surrounded by everyone I'd been shouting at. Never mind.

I got home at about half seven and the lack of sleep caught up with me. I was so tired I struggled to walk up the stairs. It felt great to finally sleep in a warm bed again.

BUCS race day, Sat 21st March

I'm not really sure if I slept for more than an hour last night. Every time I closed my eyes I woke up shivering or with my tent mate lying on top of me. Camping on a hill will never be a good idea.

Once I got out the tent I soon warmed up and got my riding gear together and headed out for some more practice runs with the guys from Bournemouth university. Before setting off I let some air out my tyres and immediately had more grip.

My first race run wasn't till six past two so I got to watch some other guy's runs before suiting up. I thought that my first run went really well. I went flat out through the top section and nailed the corner I'd crashed on the previous day.

My front wheel did slip off on one corner but I lifted it back on and got on with the rest of my run, sprinting to the finish line.

On my second run I managed to stay on the track but I slipped a pedal sprinting at the start, and I had to dab my foot halfway down the track. I knew I hadn't done as well but was still pretty confident with my first run.

I found out my time later in the evening and was not impressed: 1.56.12.

I could make up lots of shitty excuses as to why my time was so bad but the bottom line is I rode badly. Twice. Overall I finished 176th out of nearly 300 which is no where near the top 100 result I was aiming for.

After embarrassing myself in the downhill I withdrew my entry for the four-cross race. Instead of racing I brought a takeaway, grabbed some cans of Strongbow and watched the 100 metre sprint that was the 'floodlit four-cross'.

BUCS Practice day, Fri 20th March

Today was the practice day for the downhill championship race. The organisers chose the 'Devils Dyke' track, which starts with a drop then a road gap landing on the rock garden. After a dodgy landing on my first run, and after chatting with other riders I decided to just roll the gap instead and get a better line through the rock garden.

The rest of the course is made up of off-camber straights and tight, steep, rooty corners. In fact the track is pretty much the polar opposite of the tracks I excel on. The track ends with some switch backs that have you pedaling uphill.

I had a few good runs and a few not so good runs. A lot of the time a wheel would slip off the track or I'd have to put a foot down to stop me going over the bars.

Quite early on I had a crash which was strangely relieving. I tried to slam my bike into one of the final berms but just ended up slamming myself onto the ground. After lunch I had another crash after messing up my line into a corner and riding straight into a tree. Neither me nor the bike broke so I wasn't too fussed.

The guys at UK Bike Park were running an excellent uplift service with their old army trucks and trailers so a huge thanks goes out to them.

When the uplift finished the sun went down and the temperature dropped. It was incredibly cold but that didn't affect the festival atmosphere of the weekend, with various students getting up to mischief.

Club Jerseys

The Staffordshire University Cycling Club jersey's have finally arrived. Like a number of club members I paid for mine way back in October, so it's fair to say I've been waiting a while. With the BUCS MTB races this weekend it's a bit of a relief to finally have them.

Also I found at that my race number is 467 and one of my friends from another university is number 469 which is great news as it means we'll be able to wind each other up on the uplift and shout abuse at the other as they cross the after. Apologies to Alex in advance.

Sunny Stoke?

Something isn't quite right at the moment. For the past few days up here the suns been out and it's been warm enough to step outside in just jeans and a t-shirt. No hat, no gloves. Very strange but something I could definitely get used to.

I made the most of this by heading over to the BMX track at Lyme Valley. Although the track only takes about 17 seconds to complete it's great fun to ride and provides really good practice for pumping jumps and sprinting.

Singletrack magazine, day five, 13th March

My final day at Singletrack was probably my most productive. Just like every other morning there was a delivery of free bits for the team to test out. Once the guys had decided what was worth reviewing Sim took some photo's and I got to write the captions for them.

Once they were uploaded I sat with Ben and gave some input to a review and press release that he was re-writing. Before I left I was given some kit to test out including a Specialized jacket, a Polaris 3/4 jersey and a handlebar, stem and grip combo from Outland.

To see my captions click here. The rest of their website's also worth a look.

Singletrack magazine, day four 12th March

Today was the day of a photo shoot and interview with Rowan Sorrell at Lee Quarry. Rowan is a World Cup level rider notorious for turning up at various events across the UK and blitzing the competition. Rowan is also the man responsible for the fantastic downhill track at Cwmcarn, Wales.

Rowan showed us around the trails he was working on and explained how they decide what to build, where to build, and how to build. Quite a few times Rowan pointed at huge piles of rocks and tried to explain the plans he had.

It was quite hard to envision his ideas but after seeing some of the work he's done at the Quarry already I'm sure he'll have no trouble turning his plans into a reality.

After showing us around the trail we stopped off at the skill zone where Rowan proceeded to smash the handle of a sledge hammer trying to sink a wooden post. Pretty impressive.

I was meant to be helping with a photo shoot once we'd seen what was on offer but it was decided that it was too dark and windy so that idea was scrapped. But I still got to ride an Orange ST4 on the bottom half of the trail.

This bike rode amazingly and the colour coded rims definitely help to make it stand out from the crowd. I'm currently trying to decide whether to save up nearly £2,000 for the orange or spend about a tenner spraying the rims on my Kona the same colour as the frame.

Singletrack magazine, day three 11th March

I didn't really get up to a lot today. I helped Ben choose a load of tyres for an upcoming test and that's about it. After work I went back to Sim's house. He showed me all the perks of working for a magazine and then cooked me a great curry.

Afterwards we watched the biking DVD 'Wide Open', which does a great job of documenting World Cup Downhill racing. Similar DVD's can get a bit repetitive but Wide Open uses clever camera angles and has a very varied soundtrack full of good songs. I planned on posting a photo of the front cover but googling 'wide open' didn't really come up with what I was looking for.

Singletrack magazine, day two 10th March

Today I got a chance to get out and ride some of the local trails on one of the budget bikes in for testing; a Diamondback Response. Normally when I think about cross country riding I imagine people riding on flat smooth trails at a leisurely pace.

I quickly found out that that isn't how people ride cross country in Yorkshire. The ride was made up off long uphill slugs followed by steep technical descents littered with huge rocks. On downhill bike this would have been fine but with very little and very unresponsive travel I really had to pick my lines.

I now have a huge amount of respect for cross country riders. Especially ones from up North. The Diamondbike wasn't the best bike for the trails but to be fair it wasn't really designed for this type of riding. And neither am I.

Singletrack magazine, day one 9th March

One of my modules this year is to spend some time on work placement. I was lucky to be accepted by the biking magazine Singletrack to spend a week working for them. Things are going to get a bit like a diary as I share what I got up to. When I arrived Mark showed me around the building and told me everything from how the magazine got started to what the plans are from the future.

When Chipps (editor) arrived he gave me the job of building two £500 'budget bikes' and a £2,000 titanium bike from the Netherlands. The budget bikes were the first bikes ever tested by Singletrack that cost less than a thousand pounds. They went together fine. The Van Nicholas also went together fine but took a chunk out of one of my fingers when I fitted the wheel. It took me a while to notice by which time I'd bled all over the cranks. Not exactly a great start.

Woburn Sands, 7th March

I was back home for the weekend; insured on my car and everything on my bike was working perfectly. The obvious thing to do was to pack up and ride. I headed over to Woburn Sands and spent the day riding with a few friends.

This was the first time riding jumps trails and gaps for six months and it was great. There were no nerves or fears. Everything just clicked and I had a great days riding.

Videos from the Alps

I've finally got round to editing some helmet cam footage from my trip to the Alps last year. The video quality isn't great and the editing is a little bit basic. I've also posted a video from the same trip of riding in the Chatel Bike Park. Hope you like them.

Lyme Valley BMX track

This morning I had a physio appointment for my hand and I had no idea where the hospital was. So I went on Google Maps and had a look for it. I found the hospital but more importantly I found what looked like a BMX track in the park next to it. 

Once my appointment was over I went to investigate and found what could be a pretty fun track. It's a bit waterlogged at the moment from all of yesterday's rain, but once it's dried up I'll definitely head over for a ride. I just wish I'd used Google Maps to find a nearby bus stop as well.