At Home In The Loam

Loam. Steep Loam. Finding the steepest loam we can normally plays a large part of local rides in the woods especially when we are still waiting for the singletrack to dry out.

Got to get switchback practise in for an Alpine summer. This was the fourth attempt at this particular bit of trail.

Fear and Loathing in The Peak District

I reckon three things are important for good mountain biking; Good trails, good friends and good weather. Normally when we head out we seem to get the two former. The type of rocky trails we prefer drain well, and even in the coldest, windiest, most vertical rain, we seem to maintain pretty good banter. With university commitments and the like, it is getting rarer that the four of us can head out so when a chance to get out in the Peaks came up we were all pretty keen.

Dave and Ste on Chapel Clough, probably the highlight of the day. With hindsight Peaks trails after rain, on a busy Sunday probably wasn't the greatest idea, but it was cool to be out. Guess we felt the trails just weren't living up to their billing.

The Planning Is The Best Bit

So we have some fairly awesome, if slightly ambitous plans for summer 2010 at Pretty Sweet. If there was a message behind Pretty Sweet I would like to think it is that there are some awesome trails out there, and next summer we hope to take this idea a bit further. The plan is a Bivi-ed/Camping adventure across the Swiss/Italian/Austrian Alps entirely self supported. There will be photos on this blog and there might even be a film (Pretty Sweet 2 anyone?) but it should be ace.

Thing is, we need to get some Bivi gear, and after some top notch recomendations, I forked out £25 whole pounds for one of these bad boys:

 Pretty badass, I think you'll agree. Pretty snug when twinned with a sleeping bag

This Is Not Spain

Exploring a new trail under a glorious early spring sunrise was the plan, however an unannounced closure of the A55 meant we spent a sizeable chunk of the morning on the B roads of the Wrexham area. After deliberating whether Llandegla might not be to bad, we persevered and rolled up in Capel Curig under slate grey skies.

Ste unloads in the cold. We travelled Arthur Dent stylee as always

Pretty Sweet Premier at LLAMFF 2010

S,o our folksy little bike film got its first outing at Llanberis Mountain Film Festival this weekend. We felt really honoured to have Pretty Sweet shown alongside some really amazing mountain films and be able to take part in what was a lovely weekend of mountain culture.

We got to look pro for two whole days

Dude, Is There A Film Premier Tomorrow?

Back in the school days Fridays were the night for riding, along with Tuesday and Thursday and pretty much any other day the sun was out.  Things have come a fair way since, and so Ste and I found ourselves out in the woods, on a grey old Friday, on the eve of Pretty Sweet being unleashed on the public.

Not needing lights felt nice as we headed out. Summer is a'coming