Queens of the mountain

Lately us ladies have been getting rather excited about having Strava. Stava is a mobile phone app which tracks where you've been on your bike, how far, how fast and if you have any achievements. Rides have been divided into sections so you can compare your times on the leader board to other peoples. The fastest man is king of the mountain and fastest lady is queen of the mountain. So far myself, Anne and Emma all have our own queen of the mounain achievements. We've been out pedalling hard to smash our times and get up that leader board. Not been some bad times compared to some of the mens. Certainly stirs up some competitive spirit.

http://app.strava.com/athletes/270264

Wow she's so cool!

This girl is so awesome, she goes all out and has great style!

girls go jumping!

We had an awesome weekend of riding with most lush weather for march, I think spring is the new summer! We began at forest of Dean to work some serious downhill action. My friend Laura (in the top picture) rode her new bike for the first time. Big news as this is lauras first ever proper mountain bike. So far she has been riding her boyfreinds Haro which is a jump bike, like proper jump bike, sketchy ass tyres, heavy forks and single speed, to be fair she rinsed the trail centres with bad ass enthusiasm. as Laura herself would put it "ignorance is bliss!"

Her new bike is a trek 4500 in gorgeous green and black.

Forest of dean was amazing Laura rode all trails on her hardtail whilst me and Sara rode our full susses. Sara was putting her new rockshox revelations through some serious testing and feeling the love of devastatingly gorgeous air forks as opposed to her old rockshox Toras, even with the wsd spring we still weren't heavy enough to make them work for us ladies.

It was so warm the trails were perfect n fast rolling. All the downhill trails offered big roots, steps and drops. In particular we were loving the jumps and berms ending the sheep skull run, or as I kept calling it "sheep skin", it just doesn't sound as hardcore! Sheep skull had a completely different end to our visit last year and the berms are amazing, they are the highest fastest berms I've ridden away from the Alps, in fact there was a lot of room for high speed which reminded me of Alp d'huez. That is compared to Tighter technical English trails which we are used to ridding.

Laura did so well to ride all of the trails and we were most impressed with her riding the ski run with its rocks and roots, she rode everything with a huge smile at the end.

I rode in my new helmet, an awesome looking bright white 661 comp, with my pink oakley goggles, kids size of course. And believe it or not my new helmet attacked me! I thought safety equipment was supposed to protect you! It seemed the combination of white and pink attracted not only me but the wasps too and got stung on my face by a wasp inside my helmet! Bad times, but funny and ironic.

The drive home left us with the feeling of blissfulness after a hard days riding and contented souls having spent the day in the sun doing what we love most.

Sunday was a few runs of Stockwoods jump/ bmx track in Bristol. Everyones jumping was getting better and better and looks like rookie Laura actually jumped higher than the rest of us! Following that was a lap around Leighwoods and Ashton court. Back to devil pedals for me but Emma has decided to take a break from them after the Woodbury race. Ashton was fun as usual with its countless rock steps and swooping flowing sections and we all even survived the slow climb towards the beginning.

An amazing weekend of riding with the first two BBQ's of the summer achieved.

As Laura and Sara would put it WIN!

First race!!!!

Fully sussed Southwest MTB series 2012

Woodbury common

So this was mine and my friend Emmas first ever race and boy did we pick a good one! I believe its what's known as "a character building experience".


When we booked it the weather reports were glorious sunshine but as the week went on it got worse and and worse and unfortunately for once the weather forecast was right! It rained all night and when we arrived it was still raining. We were undeterred though and still excited but nervous. 


We registered and decided what we were going to wear and use before doing a practice lap. Both me and Emma are new to SPDs or "devil pedals" as we call them. So full of hope of being super fast in our new SPDs decided to wear them for the race.  Bad times!


Heading off on our practice lap in the rain we soon realised it was super muddy and our devil pedals weren't such a good idea. The race was 3.19 miles in length so thought 40 mins would be enough for a practice, we soon found ourselves sliding around in churned up mud laughing but realised the race started soon so hurried back. Terrified at the prospect of riding in our devil pedals we frantically phoned our other half's in the hope of a change but couldn't get though. 


At the start line we found the boys! Realising we had no time to change pedals and no time for Emma to get her knees on we began.... already exhausted from our practice lap with cold feet and cleats so full of mud we couldn't clip in. So we soon got taken over and slipped and skidded and skated our way round the course. Honestly I think I fell off about 5 times every lap and with 4 laps to complete that's a lot of falling off ahead of us. By the end of the first lap me and Emma were about level pegging. The lactic acid build up was horrible and my feet were so cold and after almost obliterating myself with my own bike in front of my husband and mum I wanted to cry having realised the idea of a good race position was over.


There was hope......! In the form of glorious flats pedals and trainers, The boys were ready for us at the side to have a pit stop so we quickly threw off our shoes n got ready to head off again. It felt so good to know where my feet were, and so warm in my glorious 6.0's. Spirits back up I realised just finishing would be good enough so started to relax and enjoy myself again. Other people looked just as challenged so began encouraging them along and camaraderie between all of us stragglers spurred me on. And one or 2 energy gels. 


Luckily everybody took so long that they reduced a lap off every category. I had hope we were going to make it :D 


We came 7th and 8th in women's non elite. 
Laura Griffiths 2:11:05
Emma Braithwaite 2:12:34


A very respectable time and position considering the circumstances. Our bikes were trashed and we were battered but elated to finish. With big smiles on our faces we returned to the car just in time before the hail began!