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.

A Good Times Sign

So I think anyone who knows a thing or two about mountain bike films will understand why this picture made us smile:

No, for once it is not the £4.00 bacon and sausage bap. Mahoosive thanks to all the guys involved with the Dyfi, especially for putting on our little bike film up there with the pros. From the sounds of things the whole thing was an amazing event. I'll have to be quick with the entry form next year.

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

Return of the Dust (released April 2010)

No, it's not another film by Pretty Sweet; it's better than that: Summer seems to be on the way and dust has returned to the trails.

Today was one of those rare occasions when Wharncliffe is bone dry and you don't have to fear slippery roots or mud-layered rocks. Blasting down 'fast track', the riders up ahead were kicking up a plume of dust and for once i didn't care about the pain of dust in the eyes or not being able to see; it just felt great to be riding such good conditions.

And such good trails now i come to think of it. I'm not a massive fan of what i'll call 'pure downhilling' but what ever your riding style after a few runs your speed really picks up; massive adrenaline buzz, massive fun. Definitely nice to see some XC guys on hard tails trashing the posers on their Iron Horse Sundays.

No pictures unfortunately, i was having too much fun for that! However you should check out the Wharncliffe Collective's webby - it's well worth the trip on a nice day.

Scottish Roadtrip Goes Badly Wrong!

So we had plans for a bit of a lap of the Scottish Highlands over Easter. Problem was we never got there. 5 awesome days in the Lake District later and I for one am not complaining. More soon.

Shoes smell so bad after 5 days on the road

Pretty Sweet @ howies Dyfi Enduro, Machynlleth

So the awesome guys at Summit Cycles have agreed to put our lo-tech bicycle film on at the Dyfi Enduro. Great news. Should be really cool for a whole load of mountain bikers to have a gander at the film what we made. Thing is, along with a most excellent ride round the Dyfi Forests finest trails, one of the first European showings of Follow Me will be taking place. We are all pretty amazed that Pretty Sweet is in such amazing company. The Collective films were certainly what inspired us to film, and probably ride mountain bikes. Hopefully we can hold a tiny little candle to Anthill's finest.

So yeah, the Dyfi Enduro is one of the best not-quite-a-race mountain bike events there is, and Follow Me looks amazing. If anyone remembers our little film we will be stoked.

Follow Me - the Teaser from Anthill Films on Vimeo.

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

Cutting It

Llanberis Mountain Film Festival is next weekend. Will we cut the mustard? Who knows, we are so pleassed that our little bike film is up their with the likes of Kranked Revolve and super gnarly climbing films like The Asgard Project. Anyway, they have a trailer with some super awesome footage up:

Should be an awesome weekend. If you fancy a chat we'll be the out of our depth looking guys.

Sorry for the non riding picture btw. When I get a new camera I will take pictures of anything.

Fresh Powder in the Valleys

So this whole snow thing is dragging on a bit now. Dry, dusty trails seem like another world at the minute. Regardless, an offer to go and ride with good mates from Imperial Bike Club was to good to turn down, so I fired up das auto and headed for Dolgellau.

So Dolgellau had got snowed on pretty good. Some days i really think all I need is a helicopter and a snowboard to keep me happy. Is that really to much to ask? Anyway, a non going up Cadair Idris plan was hatched over bacon sarnies.

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?

Pretty Sweet Trailer

So amidst the excitement of the Llanberis news, we thought we had better throw togethor a bit of a teaser. It is fairly short, but they say a picture tells a thousand words, so at 30 fps this is a 1.35 million word bad boy. Anyway, hope you like it:

Pretty Sweet Teaser from David Martin on Vimeo.

Pretty Sweet is not the kind of mountain bike film that features the latest slopestyle tricks, the fastest downhill action or the biggest freeride hucks. Pretty Sweet is a film about pointing your bicycle at the mountains, and seeing what you find. It is a film that sets out to show just how much grabbing a map and heading into the mountains by bike can offer. Without any past experience, a broken tripod, an ancient camcorder and some ‘decent talent’ we are really proud of what we have managed to put together, stoked by the trails we found and we hope our low-fi bike film might inspire a few other riders to head for the hills.

Many thanks to the super awesome Brad Sucks for the song Borderline. He is pretty much the coolest man in music, check him out

Pretty Sweet @ Llanberis Mountain Film Festival

So some glorious news arrived at Pretty Sweet HQ today. As you may have noticed from that ginourmous banner, our low-fi bike film has been selected for the Llanberis Mountain Film Festival. To say we are excited by this is probably a bit of an understatement. I am stoked of my face to be honest with you. As the mighty banner points out, there will be two showings, and we should be there for both of them, fingers crossed a few other people will aswell.

Pretty Sweet will be on between 'The Liminal Place' and 'Welsh Connections' on the saturday, and after a talk from the super gnarly Steve McClure and before the presentations on the sunday, so if you fancy sticking around that would be ace. Kranked Revolve is also on at the festival for mountain bike fans aswell as a load of other awesome stuff. Full film listings and details are on the LLAMFF website

Looks like it should be a most excellent weekend. We may even find time for a quick jaunt up Snowdon

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.

This Is Pretty Much Summer Right?

So Ste and I have probably pushed the limits of how many times we can go out in the dark around our home trails, the novelty really has worn off by now. The winter was starting to drag and the urge to get out into the hills was to much. Plans were hatched, and after some terrifying motorway escapades we rolled up in the Lakes.

Dunnerdale is the kind of place that only works when bone dry or frozen solid. Seems we got pretty lucky with the weather. Ste on the opening singletrack.