Back Covers Are The New Front Covers

Never has a truer word been said.

Good new arrived through the online post last week in the form of the 17th Occasional Wideopen Magazine. Even if the guys at Wideopen got a bit sloppy with their timekeeping this year, the magazine they put out is always a pleasure to read. A mountain bikers' mountain bike mag. Highlights have got to be the Enduro Des Nations report (Must do that one day) and the feature on Les Gets locals. Even if you are not into DH, get it downloaded.

The most excellent news of all was news that Matt and I's 8 attempts at getting a good autumnal drifty shot were not wasted, and ended up on the closing page of the magazine. Ok,ok, it is not the cover, but it is the first time a photo of mine has seen print 'just because', so pretty chuffed with that. Getting roosted by twigs and leaves over and over seems worth it now. Hopefully a few more shots will see the printed light of day this year.

So there you have it. Go and read Wideopen 17 here

And while you are at it, why not check out Matt's excellent bike shop Twelve50 Bikes Tell them we sent you.

Not Racing

If you ask Dirt Mag what two of the most important things in mountain bicycling are at the moment, I give you any money Mates Racing and Enduro feature highly. With The Woods being a bang on trend sort of place we knew this already. A such Dave W and I headed out into the dark dark woods to represent Pretty Sweet in a bit of Nightime Mates Enduro(TM).  Read on to find just how good it was...

Home

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.

Cubes In The Woods

So earlier this week I headed out into the woods to help Matt off of the ever excellent Twelve50 Bikes make a bit short film about his new bicycle:

Not Dead

So this blog has been a little quiet over the last few months. Not to say there has not been any riding done, just with exams and all that there hasn't been much time to write about it. With summer stretching away in front of me, and Cal, Dave and Ste still busy I got the summer started with a bit of classic highpostin' XC around Grizedale with Dad and Wilf. It was boss. I think I have neglected Grizedale over the years, instead heading for the techy trails higher up on the fells, but the tracks in the woods are such a perfect mix of techy and flowy it is hard not to have a good time.

Dad on slab. Not bad for an old dude. Note Saddle still sky high, this man takes highpost pride seriously.

One decent in particular I wish I had not neglected, as whilst it didn't have the same Height drop as an actual mountain, if you where prepared to pedal it rewarded you with flow by the bucket load. That one is earmarked for a bit of filming in the not to distant future.

Filming huh? Well, plans are slowly coming together and, say it quietly, a film is starting to take shape. The first round of soundtrack requests were sent of yesterday (One is back allready, bless you Message To Bears). This time I think we have more of an idea of the film we want to make, and it is more of a case of shooting to fit the plan, as opposed to just putting all the footage together in coherent order. This puts a bit of pressure on to get footage, but it seems to be going well so far.

Ste in cold, cold North Wales

We got all the winter footage required during a cold day at the Marin trail. That place is a godsend when the mountains are covered in snow and the woods mud is knee deep. Just glorious, lonely, eroded flow in the hills for 25 km.

The now 3 year old tradition of the Lakes Easter roadtrip took place under steely grey skies for the most part. 3 days amongst laybyes and high passes of the northern fells. 4 passes remains a classic as ever, bookended by two days of exploration.

Its all downhill. Slate grey Lakes.

A few good shots where had but I think we all agree a return is needed to stock up the footage, and just to get out on these trails again.

SUMMER

And then the first dry spell of the year came to the woods, right on top the the busiest part of the year for us all. Mother nature can be a dick sometimes. Anyway, many fine nights where had in the loam and dust (now sadly departed) and Ste and I got a few shots in. Hopefully the glorious weather will return and we can get a few more in before the bracken covers every trail.

As for the future, flights, hire cars, mountain lodges and everything else that goes with bicycle adventure is slowly being booked. Switzerland, Austria, more Lakes and a return to Scotland are all hopefully part of the future. I also am pretty keen to try and explore some more of the big mountain potential of Snowdonia, despite previous experience on Carnedd Llewelyn (Just too gnarly). Geograph and the OS seem to show a few 500 meter plus descents lurking in them hills. Hopefully we'll fit a race in as well. Got to hold on to the hard won Tour De Nevis crown. All in all, it should be a good one.

As ever, if you want to get involved with the Pretty Sweet project in any way, feel free to get in touch.

Off Season

We don't really get an off season for mountain bikes in our part of the woods. Sure, we have a 'going up big mountains is not so feasible' season, but bikes are still involved whatever the weather. Here are a few pics from off season so far.

I Heart The Woods

I have been out riding in the woods a lot recently. It has been good. After we got back from the lakes (stay tuned...) trips involving getting  in the car and spending a whole day on the trails have been put on hold whilst work/exam/other commitments have been filled. As a consequence the quick two hour ride around the woods has become my main riding fill, and I have been loving it.

Ste riding the woodland moon.

8am Flow

A brand new (2nd hand actually, but still exciting) HD camera arrived at Pretty Sweet HQ the other day. As is the way with these things Ste and I got excited and gave it a test drive without reading the instructions. Here is what we made:


8am Flow from David Martin on Vimeo.

So stoked on the number of pixels this thing shoots. It just looks better with four times as many. Not sure of the ideal rendering settings yet as the footage looks so ace when it comes out the camera and above doesn't quite do it justice, but vimeo seems to like these ones so they can do for now. So stoked to start putting together some of our short film plans for this summer

Golden Shred

As Dave W points out so well below, the dust has returned. The first proper summer dry spell after a long winter is one of my favourite times to ride. Hard baked local trails emerge dry and dusty. The Golden evening shred is on.

4:30 - Leave work - Go Home - Get Bicycle - Woods - Sunset - Tea

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.

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

Celebratin' and Ridin'

So when we found out we got into Llanberis, the obvious decision seemed to be to head out for a ride. So we headed out with camera see if we could get a few decent shots in.

Everyone loves twinkley lights and a distant sunset right?

Uncool Guys Don't Ride at Night

Ste and I may be getting a bit bored with the woods nightriding thing, but it is a scientific fact that heading out with remote flashes adds a new light to any activity (Gags!). So it proved, as we headed out to check out our new toy. Needs work, but it wasn;t to bad for a first go I think:

Ste gets blinded by the light. Need to work on focusing I think.

Ice Ice Baby...

Freeriding can mean so many things. One of those things is riding your bike over sheet ice.

This May Be The Greatest

May Rules. As does that sweet pun in the title. Our home trails are pretty much perfect at this time of year. Dry and dusty, but not yet overgrown. It is trail nirvana just outside the front door. After a few evening rides, Ste and I headed out to get some shots on the loamiest, most flowy trail around these parts. It was a great evening, and we got a few sweet shots and had an awesome ride. One of those where you don;t actually want to go home. Plus you can just shove your bike away without washing it. Sweet.

Once Dave got a look at the footy, he was keen to get out, so the next day we loaded up the cable cam and set out to get a super cool segment togethor. Ste and I rode the trail over and over and dave got shot after shot. It came out pretty cool. Once into the woods, we decided to gt out the cable cam and get some shots of Ste flowing through the braken. A total misjudgement led to a high speed cable cam crash, which lauched the camera into oblivion. All was well though, despite our best attempts to smash the camera.

We got some pretty nice shots in the end though, despite repeated setbacks. I really need to find somewhere that has a may climate all year round...