Night Riding

I've just got in from Light Test photo shoot number two and it was so fun. Until yesterday I'd never ridden offroad at night before and I can see it's appeal. Even in the pouring rain or snow it's a right laugh.

And more importantly Will got some amazing photos for the magazine. Check them out below and more here.

Bike Testing

Most the time when you tell someone you've got to test some bikes they think you're just going to spend the day riding and messing about on them. And they'd be right; that's pretty much all you have to do, aside from maybe get a few photos and video footage.

Here's the test videos filmed at Aston Hill of the Giant Glory and Cube Hanzz SL.

Ok, so it isn't all fun and games. It is pretty tough getting the right shot, and there's nothing worse than hearing the words: "That was great, but any chance you can do it again..."

A Year of Tweets

The other day I realised I've been using twitter for a year now. At first I didn't think that much of it but now I love it. It's a great way to stalk pro riders, get all the latest news and shamelessly plug the magazine and forum.

There's a box with my tweets on the side of the blog and if you want to you can also follow me here if you want to. Don't expect it all to be about bikes, there's plenty of random mutterings on there too.

IMB Issue 8 Out Now

The latest issue of IMB went live this afternoon and it looks amazing. There's a new designer and a great new look for the mag. This issue I came down to the office to help out and get more involved.

It was a pretty mad few days. We went out for a ride on Monday for the trail guide and on Tuesday the write up was finished complete with a video. By this afternoon the magazine was out and we were heading out for a ride.

Cycle Show

In case you missed it, or missed us, IMB had a stand at the Cycle Show in London. We turned up on Wednesday evening and started setting up our stand just as everyone else was finishing off theirs.

I was only there for the trade day, and I kind of threw up on my lunch break, but it was really fun promoting the magazine and talking to people about everything bike related. By the end of the show the rest of the team had managed to get over a thousand new subscribers and generate a lot of interest in the magazine.

When he wasn't handing out stickers or playing with the office iPad, Rou managed to get some photos of what everyone else was showing off so check out the Industry News section of the Forum.

Blag and Swag

Somehow I've ended up with this beautiful Giant Glory 1 to test for the next issue of IMB. Today was the first time I've been able to ride it and even in the grim conditions up at Aston Hill it was so fun to ride.

Also in for testing are the sinner knee pads from O'Neal with Sas-tec padding, some more knee pads from Fox and a ton of winter riding kit from them. It's going to be a warm winter!

Packing Fail

Laptop's are seriously handy pieces of kit. But only if you remember to pack their charger. Without it you're left with a glorified paperweight. I spent the start of the week at Pete's new flat and even after previously blogging about how important chargers are, I forgot mine. Again.

I was planning to kill some time at his playing about with some video editing and a bit of research for the shows I was going to, but instead just had to sit around watching daytime TV and 'wakeboarding' on the Wii. Lesson learnt? Hopefully.

Two's The Magic Number

Two downhill spots, two countries, two days. Also two broken rear mechs but more on that later. After numerous trips to Aston Hill and knackering myself out pushing up I booked myself and Pete onto uplift days at the Forest of Dean and Cwmcarn. It was such a good weekend.

I couldn't believe it only took an hour and a half to get to F.O.D. And that was in Ruby, my 14 year old Fiesta, so it's not as if I was ragging it to get there. I remember it taking ages to get home last time I rode there, but then I was pretty out of it on morphine. Definitely going to visit again soon now I know how close it is.

Even when we unpacked in the car park Pete thought the uplift was just going to be a tractor and trailer like at old races. He was pretty surprised when he saw the Fly Up Downhill van and trailer. The tracks at F.O.D are so fun. Nothing massively technical but lots of chutes, roots, berms and high speed sections.

Somehow I smashed a rear mech and hanger but the guys at PedalaBikeAway were able to sort me out with a new hanger and X7 and bent my chain back into place. Thanks guys for keeping me riding. Sorry I broke it all 24 hours later.

Cwmcarn was a bit of a shock to the system the next morning but by the second run everything clicked into place and we were grinning the whole way down. The track is pretty punishing on both your body and bike and on the 3rd run I smashed another mech hanger and bent my shiny new X7 rear mech.

I missed out on 2 uplifts getting a new mech hanger from PS Cycles but was just happy to still be able to ride. Even without any gears Cwmcarn is good fun. Which is handy because I really can't afford a new mech right now.

Over the last 18 months I've spent over £300 replacing five of them!

That's the same as:

142 pints of Strongbow at the student union

90 pints at the pub now I'm not a student...

252 Frijj milkshakes

152 packets of biltong

263 litres of petrol to get to riding spots (about 3,000 miles in Ruby)

12 uplift days

It's only the lower cages of the mechs that have snapped or bent so I might do a bit of research and see if SRAM sell replacements. Worth a shot. Don't really fancy taking that total to £365 just yet...

World Champs 2010

Yeah, this video from the Santa Cruz Syndicate pretty much sums up what the UCI are doing to Downhill. Cheers guys...

IMB Issue 7 out now

Issue 7 of IMB went live early this morning. Way before I was out of bed. IMB's been going for a year now and already has over 10 million page flicks. That's pretty insane. Only two articles from me in this issue, but hopefully it's a case of quality over quantity! I'll let you guys be the judge.

Check out the latest issue here. Links to my work are below. Enjoy. Hopefully.

"Cube Your Life"

"Park Life - Winterberg"