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The last six months have been a bit old fashioned in mountain biking terms. Since the end of another Alpine summer at the end of August we have been doing a lot of riding. This year though, the overwhelming majority of rides have started straight out the door. Yep, it is like 2005 all over again. Sure there was one 5 day trip to the Lakes (more on that soon hopefully) but every other bike ride I have been on has been either down the woods, or a short blast down the A55 at the Marin trail. Weirdly though, despite a lack of semi-exotic locations I have done more riding this winter than ever before. Consecutive days out in the woods on  bicycles as it went from drifty loam, through slidy mud, and on to frozen goodness. Here are a few photos from the last 6 months spent on our local hills.

Cal at home in the woods during a 4 day riding holiday at home.

The Year That Was

Cal high above the Otztal Valley on another Alpine morning.

So, 2011, another year of mountains and bicycles. Whilst me may not have followed up last years blogging standards, the riding this year has excelled once again.

The main reason for fewer blog posts, was we had a bit of a race against time getting the 2nd film finished. We came into the year with a few nice segments and a fairly loose idea of what we wanted, however in late spring an invite to premier at this years Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival pinged into my inbox and was to good to turn down. This put the pressure one to get the film finished for late summer. We had the Torridon and Les Arcs sections completed from the previous year, and Ste and I managed to fashion a completed intro section during late May. Thanks to help from Swiss Alpine Adventure, Dave and I spent a glorious week trucking around Graubunden and shot an hours worth of Alpine footage to form the final section, however it was the Lakes section was causing us significant headaches.

I felt strongly that the riding on the Lakeland passes was an important element to the film, however two previous visits that year were thwarted by injury and terrible weather. We had a fairly 'fractured' part, lacking a decent amount of the real lakes gnar we wanted to show. Thankfully Rick and Matt of the ever excellent Twelve50 Bikes stepped in and helped out. The weather finally came onside and despite a terminal mech issue the much needed footage was found. Big thanks to Rick and Matt for trusting that a hike up Stake Pass' wall of grass was worth it, and for the endless patience that allowed us to get some quality shots in the bag.

So far we have had an overwhelmingly positive reception both at the premier, in front of an mostly rock climbing crowd, and online. We have a few more plans for screenings before we roll out the film for general internets release, but the HD two parter on Singletrackworld seemed to go down a treat. nearly 10,000 views and 200 likes on the facebooks was pleasing to see. No one seemed to mind that we said Gnarly this time.

The other pleasing news was Cal and I's Alpine Dirtbags story popping up in Singletrack's 10th Birthday Issue. I reckon it was a fitting piece on what was a sensational trip. Occasional trip based writing and photography is something that we can hopefully do a bit more of in the upcoming year.

Shit things about this year (really minor shit things it must be said, it was a good year) were no racing, and no Scotland. Hopefully both will be rectified, possibly at the same time.

So yeah, in short, 2011 was good, I'm hoping for more of the same in 2012