A New Riding Location

Hello Again,

Now that I am going to be spending most of my time in Aberystywth I need to go and explore in order to find new riding. There are three main locations which the bike club regularly use. Clarach is the nearest, it's a small forest which has lots of downhill trails and a few tamer cross country style ones. I can get away with riding most of this on my Giant Reign.

Capel Dewi has another forest which is a little bigger than Clarach although it is less developed. It has one or two full trails with one including a pretty big road gap which I am determined to do one day. There are many trails which are still being built but they look like they will turn out sick when they are finished.

Nant Yr Arian is the nearest trail centre which caters for XC. It's not very well known considering it has a few good red routes. It's about a 10 mile ride there but it's all quiet roads so you can just chill out. There's also a few natural trails on the outskirts such as White Fridge or Secrets. It's not like other trail centres in that the trail surface feels natural, it's rocky rather than this gravelly stuff which they are using to dumb down other trail centres. Don't get me wrong, the trails are not technically demanding it's just that the surface is a little closer to how things would be on a natural trail.

On Saturday while my friends back home were inside watching the snow and rain fall, I was out filming on the Mark of Zorro section of trail at Nant Yr Arian. Enjoy and ride safe!



Nant Yr Arian - Mark of Zorro from Jack Reeve on Vimeo

Holiday in Fort William

Back again,

I can't believe I forgot to do a post on this! This year was no different to any other year. We would leave it until the last minute to book a holiday. This is mainly because my parents can never agree where to go. My mum always wants to go to a hotel in a warm country to relax and take in the culture whereas my dad would rather go somewhere cold (he burns in the sun) where he can sit by the side of a lake and fish. He also doesn't like having to travel on planes to go on holiday. He usually gets his own way. This year I jokingly suggested that we go to Fort William after a biking trip there with some friends was cancelled. My dad took this seriously and found a nice log cabin about a mile away from the Nevis Range.

So this was a dream come true for me. I had access to the gondola assisted red route and world famous downhill track as well as Ben Nevis and many other natural trails. A week later my dad had persuaded my mum and had booked the place.

A few weeks before we were due to set of, I had saved up enough money for a GoPro HD Hero2 and Chest Mount which would allow me to film my riding. As I had just passed my driving test my mum thought it would be a good idea for me to do some of the driving to Fort William and while we were on holiday. This would be the first time I had driven with a bike rack, we use one which overhangs off the boot but we decided to take the wheels off just to be on the safe side. As I had only just passed and the the roads can be pretty narrow in the highlands I was glad we had taken that precaution.

On the first couple of days there, I decided to do a few evening rides just to try and find some natural trails. I didn't find much but then again I didn't venture too far because I didn't want to get lost on my own! On one of these evening rides I did manage to find a few natural trails though which were very steep and loose but so much fun.

My first visit to the Nevis Range was with my dad and brother to ride the 10 Under The Ben trail which I was fairly disappointing with. There was lots of fire road climbing with not much of a reward. In one particular instance we climbed for quite a while only to descend on a dead straight piece of single track with no features. Considering this route was graded as a red, it could have been a bit more technically demanding.

The next time we visited we rode the Witch's XC trail which was also graded as a red. This had much more fun single track and was a pretty fun loop. It was not very physically demanding but I would have been more than happy to do a couple of laps of it to fully appreciate the sections of single track.

A friend had planned to be in Fort William at the same time as me as he was heading to the Isle of Mull for a holiday. He took a slight detour and stayed in a bed and breakfast for a few days in order for us to get some quality riding in. We had planned to ride Ben Nevis on of the days but due to bad  weather we changed our plans and ended up going round the Witch's trail again. It was quite amazing to see what a difference trail conditions make to your speed. On the day where I rode with my dad and brother it was bone dry. I was using a 2.35 High Roller 60a on the rear and a 2.35 Minion 60a on the front and my wheels were just washing out all the time. It felt as though I couldn't maintain any speed due to loosing grip. When I rode the trail with a friend the day after it was slightly damp, not soaking with lots of puddles but just enough to make the trail surface 'stick' a little better. I was using the same tyre combination with the same pressures and it just felt like I could hammer the bike into corners with confidence. This allowed me to maintain much more speed on twisty sections. You could say that it was because the second time I knew what was coming up but it genuinely felt as though my tyres were sticking much better.

The day after, me, my dad and a friend set off to ride Ben Nevis. My dad was walking with us mainly to keep my mum happy but also for the self achievement. We rode up the main bridleway which was pretty rocky early on then seemed to flatten out in the middle section before becoming much more rough and jagged near the top. I would say we rode about 40% of the way up and pushed the other 60%. My dad got to the top about half an hour before me and my friend mainly due to how awkward the terrain was for carrying bikes. When we got to the top we got the obligatory bike above head photo's and had lunch.

Bit foggy, I'm the one on the right!

Unfortunately I've been extremely lazy and haven't processed the footage I got from the GoPro yet but what I can say is that the descent was amazing. there was a bit of everything really from fast smooth bridleway to rocky steps to loose jagged scree. It was good fun stopping at the really difficult sections and having several goes at getting down them trialsy style. Some of the walkers were not too pleased with us due to the fact that we would overtake them, then get a snake bite or a mechanical, then they would walk past us, then we would overtake again. That went on most of the way down the mountain but we couldn't help it! On the top section I decided to pin it and see just how fast and loose things would get. Bad idea. Turns out my derailleur got pretty loose and managed to tuck itself nicely into the spokes to that was our first mechanical. I managed to bend it back using brute force. I decided to keep it far into the cassette for the rest of the descent.

The rest of the mechanicals were all snake bites from hammering our wheels over the rocks. I think we racked up about six flats between us, but it was well worth it for such a sick ride.

The next day we got a gondola day pass and did several runs down the Downhill Track and gondola accessed red route. I first followed my friend down the red as he had ridden it before. The wooden northshore on the top half of the trail was so grippy. I couldn't help thinking even with the chicken wire it would be a different story in the wet. That thought of what could happen if you run wide remains in the back of your mind when riding northshore like that. I had a couple of brown pant moments where I would jump and land awkwardly or shoot offline coming out of a banked corner but overall you can carry lots of speed if you are precise with your cornering.

The next last half was fairly rocky. It almost felt like a mountain bridleway rather than a purpose build bike trail but I like that. the thing which gave it away was the fact that there was reliable drainage to keep the water away.

Here is a GoPro video of the red run, sorry the quality is a little poor. I had to compress the file to allow it to upload.



Nevis Range Red Trail from Jack Reeve on Vimeo

Next I rode the downhill track. It took a little bit of persuasion to get my friend to ride it. In the end I said "You won't get this opportunity very often and you'll regret not riding it in the future." He did one run and I was happy for him that he had given it a go.

The track start off being quite smooth with a few gravelly turn before it turns into full on carnage in the middle section, you are hammering through rock gardens leading into gravelly berms. Your hands are already pummeled by this point (mine were anyway). You don't get to experience the full track which world cup riders smash, instead you miss out the road gap and hit a rocky track which takes you down to the start of the motorway section. This has some double decker sized tabletops which take allot of speed to clear. I was getting about 3/4 of the way along them at best. You are pedaling flat out along this section before you are shot down a few steep section and into the finish area. By this point you can barely release your hands from the bars due to the arm pump.

Here is another GoPro video, enjoy!:



Fort William DH Track from Jack Reeve on Vimeo

We got five runs each on that day. I rode the Red three times whereas my friend rode it four times. I rode the downhill track twice and my friend rode it once. At the end of the runs my suspension was pissing oil. On one run it had dribbled down the fork leg and got dangerously close to the disc rotor. Both of these tracks take it out of you and your bike but they are well worth doing. Plus you get 15 minutes in the gondola after each run to rest your broken hands before sending it down the mountain again. Bonus!

My dad, brother and I also rode a Kinlochleven ride which we dug out from MBR. It had won some award for the best natural trail so it sounded very promising. My dad enjoyed that day even though the sun was scorching and the midges were helping themselves to our flesh. My brother, not so. He's more used to riding well maintained flowy bits of single track so he ended up pushing lots of sections. I was surprised how well my dad coped on that ride. He had bought himself a Giant Anthem X5 just before booking the holiday. before that he didn't ride off road very often. He had a 90's Specialized Hardrock which he used for commuting. The ride took the format of a long rocky fire road climb up to a dam before descending very varied single track all the way back. I think it deserved that MBR award.

See the rider on the left of the photo?

Cadair Idris

Hi All,

After going through the laborious process of attending university open days, writing a personal statement and applying to universities, I find myself in student accommodation at Aberystwyth University. I am studying Internet Computing with Systems Administration. The reason why I chose Aberystwyth was because it seemed to have a friendly atmosphere and it isn't in a big city. I don't think I could live in that type of environment. The Computing department seems up to date and well facilitated. The less important factor (at least, that's what my parents think) was the landscape and ultimately, would it cater for my style of riding? That is why I chose Aberystwyth.

The AberMTB Mountain Biking Club are great. They seem to follow a very chilled out approach to organising rides which suits me. On my third weekend at uni, a suggested ride was posted. The plan was to catch the train from Aberystwyth to Machynlleth then ride up Cadair Idris. I was up for this. I love these big mountain rides even if they do involve a bit of pushing.

We set out early on a chilly Sunday morning. I started the day as usual, hopped out of bed and into the shower, sat down at the table and tucked into my supermarket own brand fruit and fibre (I am a student). The ride down Penglais hill made things even colder. I freewheeled almost all the way from my flat to the train station where I would meet two fellow riders.

At the other end in Machynlleth I knew we had lots of road riding to do. It was not so bad for the other riders who were pedaling hardtails, but it was a different story for me on my Reign. The roads were fairly hilly which made things worse. We eventually got to the bridleway which we were going to take which marked the end of riding on tarmac. I was pleased by this. Early on, while riding up the shale double track I suffered a pretty horrific puncture. A dagger shaped piece of shale had pierced my worn out High Roller. I wasn't surprised really. The tyre had pretty much reached the end of it's life.

Dagger shaped shale

The rest of the climb up was fairly steady and rideable with no real technical terrain apart from the last section to the top which had some loose scree and rock gardens. There was also a very technical line near the top which I wasn't to sure about riding.

At the summit!

On the way down I had a few goes at the technical section as described above. On the first couple of goes I couldn't keep balance in the tight groove and so my front wheel kept on slipping but on the third go I nailed it and felt proud. I led the way down the rest of the top section, drifting on the scree and getting loose across the rock gardens.

I have to be honest, having ridden Snowdon and Helvellyn, this wasn't as much of a fun descent. The top section was fun and very challenging but the rest just felt like we were loosing all of our altitude on double track which is not the kind of riding I find fun. The thing is, sometimes it's not all about the ridding. It can be about the self achievement of riding a mountain like that. And even though the majority of the descent was double track, it was still worth the ride up to have a stab at that technical top section.