Glentress, Scotland

A fun wall ride in the Glentress jump park

Wonderful friends, Little J and Big J, the sun, and amazing trails! :) :) :) :)

In one palindromic word, WoW!!! I've spent the past couple of days riding at Scotland's premier MTB riding center, Glentress. This place is amazing!! There are loads of really well built and well maintained trails for all ability levels as well as a fun jump park and skills course. To be fair, I have been a bit spoiled during my stay here with the nearly 20 hours of daylight that abounds being sunny blue bird days! I am so very lucky to be able to travel and ride my bikes in some amazing places as well as have brilliant friends who live in these places!! There's nothing better than coming "home", cooking an ace dinner, and sitting in the garden enjoying dinner and convo with Jaymie after a brilliant weekend of bike riding!

Fun table line in the jump park at Glentress

B Double O B Mountain Ride

Top of the B Double O B Mountain

So, there is a mountain between Innerleithen and Glentress that looks a bit like a boob. Jaymie had heard that if you followed the ridge line around form Glentress that it was a really cool descent back into Innerleithen. Needless to say, we made it our mission for the day. We set off to Glentress to do a bit of the trails there and then peeled off and started on the adventure that was following the stone wall for what seemed like forever. Let me just tell you that aside from the adventure of riding somewhere hardly anyone rides, and the view from the top, the whole adventure left a little, okay a lot, to be desired.

The views along the way were pretty cool!

This was at the end of the adventure and might have been the best part!!

We had fun because that's what we do, but in the end, we were more than a little bit disappointed. We spent a lot of time climbing and hiking our bikes in the hopes of an epic descent, and well, that just didn't happen. So, in the end, we got a lot of exercise, but the adventure will be one that we skip over again in the future!

Seriously, we climbed all the way up here for this?!?! Haha, at least we're out enjoying the sun!!

Adventures in Scotland

Mmmmm, haggis

I love old churches

In the sidewalk as you're walking down the Royal Mile

I hopped on the train in Birmingham on Wednesday early in the a.m. and arrived in Edinburgh about midday. Jaymie was there to pick me up and take me on a short tout of the town, including a proper haggis lunch! We walked around town for a bit to see the sites, and then we headed out to some little village that was having a 5k running race. Jaymie is a Sports Nutritionist for Lucozade so we handed out recovery bars and drinks to the racers and then headed home, to Innerleithen.

Jaymie's pimp Lucozade Mobile

Yesterday Jaymie had to work in the evening, so we knocked out about 2.5 hours of riding on some of the really amazing trails just out her back door! This place is really amazing with so much riding, literally just out the door! Today we're headed out for an epic day of riding, and the sun is out beckoning us out the door! :) :) :)

Looking down into Innerleithen from today's ride

Alien crop circles, not really, some sort of reveg project, but crazy looking nonetheless

Typical, Jay with a really smart face for the pic, haha

XC Riding in Wales

Wales from the XC track

I've been staying with my friend Fionn's parents in a little village called Ruyton XI Town, in the West Midlands. It's been really nice to just be able to relax a bit. They have bought a little cottage property not too far from their house in Landegla, Wales. I headed over with them to do a little riding at a bike park that is about 2 miles from their cottage.

I'm not bothered about riding by myself, but in the end, I met a really nice guy called Martin, from Birmingham by way of Aberdeen that I ended up riding with for most of the afternoon. The trails were a ton of fun, and we mostly avoided the rain! It's always more fun to have someone to ride with, and it never ceases to amaze me how many really nice people I've met whilst riding bikes all over the world!!

Random sculptures on just off of the track

The track went through some really dense forest at some points

4x National in England

Suzanne Lacey, Katy Curd, me

I headed up to the UK NPS 4x National just outside of Bridgnorth in the West Midlands with Berny and family. It was a beautiful sunny weekend with a lot of fun riding and racing to be had. They run their 4x races a little bit differently over her than we do at home, so it was refreshing to get a taste of something different. They run 3 transfer motos and then depending on how many points you get in those motos, they make up either quarter, semi, or finals brackets for racing. You don't get to choose your lane assignment until after the transfer motos, so it was interesting to have to really work for it from a bad gate during the transfer motos.

Rhys Willemse with the super snap

The track that we raced on wasn't long, but it had some good features and turns that made it fun to ride and race. My friend Rhys Williamse from Oz killed the Junior category, often snapping people out of the gate like they were standing still!! I was definitely taking some notes on his gate start!! The Pink Panther and I had a great final day of racing and ended up on the podium in 3rd!

Bard Kerr, aka Black Bard the Pirate

Run What Ya Brung

Me, Tam, Bernard, and Rhys

Top of the World...Looking South towards the bottom of England

We headed out to do a little XC riding today not far from where I'm staying in Guildford, England. We were a sorry looking lot, that's for sure! Since we're a bunch of DHers none of us really have XC bikes, so we were on an assortment of 4x, dirt jump, and DH bikes, giving the XC a go. The riding was a lot of fun!! The trails were tight and steep in spots and lovely in the lush green ferns. Good times, good times. Time for some food!

75% of the Motley Crew

Sunny England, What?!?!

Yea, finally made it to the UK!

So, we made it back to England yesterday in time for an afternoon dirt jump sesh and then some great burgers for dinner. My birthday was pretty low key, but it was a nice day regardless. It's been super nice here the past couple of days. I've been loving it. I wasn't too psyched on potentially having many rainy days in a row, so needing to apply sunscreen to go out riding has been great!!

Jumping the Cub Moped (even with a little style thrown in), hilarious!

Rhys won the table comp

But Bernie's weren't damn bad

Today we headed out to Milford to a dirt jump area out there. The jumps there are pretty nice. The guys that I'm staying with were bitching and moaning that they weren't very nice, but it seems like they'd be the best jumps around if they were in Boulder! It was hilarious. My friend Bernard's brother, Boris, has this little moped "Cub" and Bernard had the bright idea to give it a go on a step up jump at the end of the line. It actually worked out pretty well! About 13 little kids (10-12 year olds maybe) showed up just as we were getting ready to leave. They were all pretty darn impressed with the moped jumping!

This bike has been great!! Race on it, DJ, XC, even some DHing! Love it!!!

All the little kiddies showed up to ride here after school! Cool!!

In Love With Mischief: Adventures in France

Lovely day on a beautiful French farm

Mischief the Kitty, loved him!

We left Andorra on the Monday after the weekend of racing, albeit not an early start off, but we headed out for our long journey through the whole of France. Paul and I dropped Jo Jo and Fee off in Toulouse so they could fly back for the US Open in New Jersey. After dropping them off, we carried on and headed up to Paul's parents farm, midway through France. It was a bit of a long journey, but once we finally got there, it was so nice. It was so calm and peaceful on the farm! It was really nice to just get to sleep in, relax, enjoy some home cooked meals, and play with all of the animals on the farm. I especially liked getting to spend the day with the kitties! :)

An old barn on the farm, circa 1800s

Speedy, also a cool cat

They've got 3 mischievous collies as well

I love being back on the farm, it reminds me of being a little kid again

We set out pretty late on Tuesday evening, ~9:00 and started the remaining 7 hour drive to Bologne, where we had a ferry booking at 10:45 the next day. We made it most of the way and pulled over to have a little nap at a rest stop along the way. Luckily, they didn't harass us too much at the border crossing, even though we were in Fee's van which is all logo'd up and whatnot.

An amazing French sunset

Leaving France, on our way to England across the Channel

Andorra World Cup

Andorra is breathtaking, period.

We rolled up to Andorra from beautiful Sitges, just south of Barcelona, to find not so warm temps and quite a bit of snow still on the mountain. I guess about 20 guys had worked really hard to remove the snow from the 4x track so it could dry out by the time that we showed up to race, and to be fair, they did a great job! I think there was some snow removal that took place on the DH track as well.

In true world cup racing fashion, the skies opened up and started raining on Wednesday and continued into Thursday. 4x practice was canceled, and we all walked the DH track in full rain gear and rubber boots if you had them! DH practice on Friday was a little bit rough for me being the first time that I was back on a DH bike on a proper DH track since I broke my ankle last October. It was a little bit daunting to have 200+ of the fastest guys and 40+ of the fastest girls in the world coming up behind me riding all tentatively! The track was super slippy with all of the rain, and I struggled, at best!

The sun came out and dried up the 4x track for practice and qualies later that afternoon. I was feeling pretty good on the track, but would have been appreciative of Thursday's practice session, as the track is really big, fast, and long with a lot of stuff to think about on each run! I didn't end up having a great qualifier and qualified 21st.

By Saturday the DH track had dried up significantly, and I was having a much better time on the track hitting all of the sections fairly well...just not all in the same run! I crashed quite a bit in practice in the morning with the ultimate crash coming on my last practice run before qualies. For no real good reason, on something that was not technical in the least bit, I stacked it really hard straight to the top of my head. I haven't hit that hard in a long time, and it left me sitting a bit dazed and confused on the side of the track for about 10 minutes. Needless to say, at that point, I decided that I didn't think I was quite ready to do my first world cup DH, and I made the call to sit it out and get sorted for 4x finals that evening.

I didn't have a great qualifier for 4x coming in in 21st. In the first round, I had Anita Molcik and Caroline Buchanan in my first heat. I got a good gate, but Caroline had a great one, and Anita was on the inside after qualifying 5th. I settled in just behind Anita down the first straight and I guess Caroline grabbed a bunch of brake going into the flat turn after the first straight, and Anita's only landing option after the step up was running into Caroline's wheel which caused her to go down. I avoided the mayhem, narrowly and cruised down to advance to the quarter finals. I had last lane choice and didn't get a good gate in the next round, so that was the end of my racing for the evening. I was pleased to have moved up to 16th, though, after a not so great qualifier. My friend Fee, who I am traveling with, got the win for the night, so it was awesome to see her on top of the podium again...it's been way too long. Well, I didn't actually get to see the podium, as I got picked (so did Jo Jo) for doping control and was sat waiting to pee in a cup whilst the racing concluded and the podium presentation took place!

Booo! Peeing with an audience is never fun!

Me and Jo Jo waiting for our turn at Anti-Doping

Sorry for the lack of pics...was a little preoccupied with riding to get many taken!

Made It to España Without a Hitch!

The view from the couch in Melissa's Aunt's apartment...not bad!!

After a day of packing and Katie's graduation party, Chris deposited me and all of my nearly 100 kg of stuff (2 bags and 2 bikes!!) at the airport. I had a 10 hour flight to London (all three seats to myself, sweet!) and then flew onto Barcelona. I think the direct flight to Europe from Denver, without having to stop on the East Coast is the way to go! I felt great when I got to London and have had horrible jet lag at all really! :) Oh, and all of my stuff showed up in Barcelona, so...that was a nice added bonus!!

Melissa was at the airport to pick me up about 10 minutes after I collected my luggage and then we headed down to her Aunt's house in Sitges. It's a cute little touristy town on the coast just south of Barcelona. We've been here for the past couple of days just chilling out and enjoying ourselves.

In Sitges

Randall showing off his skills with the Sitges coastline behind him

Our Aussie friends Sarsha and Randall took the train down to come hang out last night so we all went to a lovely dinner and then caught up till way too late! They're heading to Andorra today as well, albeit with a much larger adventure than us...they've been traveling all around Europe on trains and buses, which wouldn't normally be so surprising, but they have their bikes and all of their race gear!

Dinner with Sarsh and Randall

Well, I'll post some Andorra updates once we get there...hopefully the snow has miraculously melted in the past week, otherwise, Wet Screams it'll be!

Chris Can Drink Again

A common site for the evening

$1 Kamakaze shots with a $10 minimum credit card purchase!

Legally that is! :) Chris' 21st bday was on Saturday so we made the most of it with a night out on the town after he kicked butt and won his XC race earlier in the day! We had a BBQ for his birthday with a bunch of friends on Friday night that was fueled by Pimms and culminated with pink glitter all over Chris, Abby, Chris Peterson, and our floor! Good times!

I have many pictures of this face from Chris!! :)

Same picture...different bar! haha

Saturday, we headed out to the bars to make the most of the 21st birthday Boulder experience for Chris. I think we did a pretty good job, hitting up quite a few places, The Rio, Pearl Street Pub, Catacombs, and Round Midnight for a nightcap of dancing!

Chris was getting LOOSE on the dancefloor and a little overheated too, apparently :)

Chris enjoying and late night Gyro and everyone else enjoying the rain :)