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There were three of us available to ride on Sunday 2nd April. We had the option of another Northumbrian cross-country slog with the Reivers or a leisurely drive to Glentress for a deserved reward after a few drab weekends. Tough call. We left John's at Cramlington around 8.25 pointed North towards Warkworth where the Reivers were meeting up but turned left just in time for Ponteland. We arrived at Glentress around 10.45 getting underway about 11.15ish. Once again Jason insisted we leave the car at the Hub car park because he loves to see me slog up the hill to the start of the Red Route. I must admit although I hate that first little climb with a vengeance, it is slightly more rewarding to be able to ride DOWN all the way back to the car at the end of the ride.

John and the Gollum managed to stave off Jay's requests to "do the Black" and we headed up the hill to the start of the fun bits on the wonderful Red. All three of us on Kona Coilers of some description, and we intended to try out Jason's new bike-mounted video camera to save me carrying a ton of lead on my head. You'll have to pop back here later this week to see the results after I've collected the files Monday or Tuesday.

We sort-of joined 3 or 4 bunches of bikers headed in our direction, and kept meeting up at the section ends. Almost all of them blew us off (ladies included) on the climbs, but today was about getting some enjoyment back and exercising some shock springs. Having said that, no-one was going to pass us on the downies today as it was three glued together Coilers all the way down. Just hope the camera worked OK! Of course, with Jason carrying it you'll see some new subject matter this time as he had to follow us most of the way to get action stuff.

After singletrack section 1 we paused for a good break at the Picnic Table. Still a trace or two of big snow on the distant mountain tops - the Coiler Club takes its first rest - Then it was up, up, up to Caresman Hill and the start of the Spooky Wood singletrack, the main reason we love this place so much. Somehow I managed to walk up the hill faster than John and Jason could ride it. Here they are struggling to catch me and the ReCoil and eventually making it On we ploughed up the hairpins, stopping for lunch on the edge of the tree line. It was here that the fog started to shroud the top of the hill, and it cooled everyone down rapidly so we pressed on up to Paradise. This is what was creeping through the trees, trying to hide everything in sight - Sorry if that bike keeps getting in the way but I need plenty of pictorial evidence for my local Gendarmes if this beauty ever gets borrowed by person or persons unknown like my Bear did. KILL A BIKE THIEF TODAY.

Anyway, at 12.30pm the three of us were perched at the head of Spooky, poised to dive down it's glorious contours as soon as Jay had the camera rolling - time for "footage" - his word, not mine. Jason and I have had some fantastic wheel-to-wheel tussles on this thing, pretty memorable rides using what we have left of our Cycle Speedway tactics and enjoyment of physical contact (on the bikes, stupid!). Today, however, we surpassed those. Because with John mounted on the same animal as we were, a bike much more able than his sad Saracen, all three of us stayed largely within a bikes length most of the way down, and we got down a good bit quicker than previous runs. Fast, close and  fairly dangerous, but a laugh a minute as we hurtled towards the foot of the trail. At the half way point we were all totally stuffed as we'd spent so much effort, and John slowed just a little allowing me to take the front. With two maniacs on my tail having many famous close encounters between them on shale ovals I was scared sh**less (that's shoeless) and the bottom part was just a frenzied blur as I tried to keep the pedals turning and stay rubber-side up. All I could do at the bottom was fall off the bike and lie still, gasping for breath like a fish out of water - maybe I was? The chuckles and grins from the other groups assembled at the rest hut all sent out the same message - this is a fantastic place to bring a mountain bike, and even the odd bod with a commuter frame came away smiling broadly.

Two sections gone, 4 or 5 to go. We dropped into the next stage, Jason again behind. As we bombed through the trees all I could here was brakes being applied about an inch behind me, so I put my head down again in an effort to give them a bit of space. A few short minutes later I grabbed a glance behind and they'd vanished! So I slowed and waited for them and when we got to the foot of this bit I discovered Jason had had to stop as the camera had turned itself off AND HE'D HIT A TREE. Yeah, that serious. One or two fellow travellers had noticed our antics and commented on our state of mind. We can confirm that our minds are indeed in a state.

We covered the other sections just as quickly but the thing about this ride is that we also spent a good while off the bikes, so it wasn't just blast and grind all the way. In fact, to sum this one up I'd say it was easily one of the best rides I've ever been on, maybe even Number One. Here's Jason waiting to lead into the second last singletrack -

Here's a nice snap of John in the car on the way home, dreaming of wife Angela giving him something - and here he is when he realises it's a Kona Coiler! - And on the subject of Kona Coilers, I must just say that I'm absolutely delighted with my new one. Kona did a cracking job anyway over the last few years developing this model which began life as my old Bear but has evolved using the Stinky's Klump frame and better parts as each year passes. Mine's a 2005 job, but the 2006 series are yet again better bikes. Fortunately I've been able to stick some extra parts on it and managed to create a top notch rig, and a bit lighter than a standard bike. I'm mentioning this here because on this ride I had my first chance to try it out properly as my Avid Juicy Seven brakes are now run-in. And it just feels right enough to allow an ancient bod like me to travel reasonably quickly over the bumpy stuff without too much fear of injury to body or bike. Except, maybe, that the Juicy's are more than capable of launching you in front of your bike if you're not careful. However, a single finger touch is enough to stop surely from any speed and there's plenty of modulation feedback.

There was one downside of this day out which didn't expose itself until Monday night. That was when I went to Jay's to collect his video files. I was telling him how I'd had the trots all through Sunday night with little sleep and awful pains in the gut which continued through Monday at work. Lo and Behold if Jason hadn't suffered exactly the same! I rang John on Tuesday night but he'd been OK. There was only ONE common link between Jason and I on Sunday, and that was the cup of coffee we had at the Hub Cafe at Glentress. Now I'm not trying to point the finger here, but it is a busy little enterprise with the staff often rushed off their feet. That's all. Except to say I'm never ill and haven't had a day off work in 18 years, so this was V-E-R-Y unusual for me to suffer like this. And Jason hadn't sat through a Saturday night alky session this weekend.

Video: as you  can see from some of the existing vidz on this site, they don't all make riveting viewing. Here's a small sample from Jason's new American dildo-cam. On that subject, be warned that although it was a reasonable price from a US supplier via eBay, US Customs wouldn't release it to him until he'd paid nearly half it's cost in import tax!

1. Jay plays "catch the Gollum" subtitled "Spielberg's first one must have been this bad" 942KB

2. John and Jason under attack from a Gollum 419KB

3. Jason pushes Golly to the front 486KB

There are a few things worth mentioning here about MTB video, and principally aimed at the use of digital camcorders as opposed to TV stream-type devices (tape recording). Firstly, experiment with the positioning of your digicam. For this session Jason had the 4 inch long tubular device (I did warn you) mounted on his handlebar stem and roughly parallel with the ground when sitting on the Coiler. This is a reasonable starting point but there are some points to consider:

        a) Do you have decent suspension?

        b) Is the trail smooth or rough?

        c) Will the action be fast?

        d) Is the camera's Frame Rate reasonable?

        e) Can the camera react quickly to changes in light level?

        f) Is the microphone prone to wind noise?

        g) Can you steal a better video off the Internet?

The first two may seem daft but if you can answer "yes" and "smooth" to these, then the odds are less stacked against you for a decent output. If answer (c) is "yes" you are going to have problems with (d) as anything less than 25 fps (frames per second) is going to lose the image in the turns and blur any sideways panning. It will also cause jittery vertical picture distortion unless you're riding straight ahead and smooth. If (e) is "no", and that will apply to anything bought for less than a few hundred notes, then dipping in and out of tree cover will cause the image to be lost. And perhaps the least troublesome is (f) as you can obviously make silent movies as well now as they could in the 19th century, but a good bit of background audio can make a crummy video at least laughable, and sometimes the accompanying language can become the highlight of the event! (IF you can understand it - non-Geordies beware!!!).

Obviously, if you find some of the above problems holding back your creative juices, go for option (g) as most MTB bikers' bods and/or faces are unrecognisable on amateur video anyway. The majority of videos on this site were done by me with a little Mustek DV3000 mounted on top of my full face helmet. This gives the huge advantage of "Body Damping" and "See Where You're Going" (swig) technologies (Registered Trade Marks of ) but you absolutely MUST remember to DUCK UNDER LOW TREES! You also have the slight drawback that you look and feel a total arsehole wearing these things. Unless of course, like me, you ARE it and don't care.

        What can you do?

Well, although most diddy solid state (memory card) digicams or digital still cameras can run to 640 x 480 (VGA) resolution, they normally do it at only 15 frames per second. This is fine if your subject is moving at the same speed as the sun in the sky. However, if your subject has a beating heart and is moving slightly quicker than this (maybe a slow Gollum on a bike) then it won't catch much of the action unless it's head-on or butt-tracking. Your only solution is to wind down the resolution to 320 x 240 or even less. This should pump up the frame rate to something like 25 or 30 fps and give you a bit less detail but recognisable subjects in your viewfinder, and something to laugh at later down the pub. If you want real advice instead of a madman's ravings look somewhere else, like www.internet.com. OR you can carry a tape camcorder in your Camelbak with a bullet cam on your helmet. If you go this route, make sure your camcorder has an AV input socket otherwise you'll need a BBC outside broadcast team following you around, and the batteries for those are really heavy.

Another thing to consider if your a racer like Jay, and that is if you're pushing hard you may have a tendency to flap the bike from side to side. This certainly works for Jason, as it used to for him on a cycle speedway track, (and Lance Armstrong does it!) but it gives a frame-mounted camera yet another mountain to climb, as if there weren't enough of those things. So maybe a helmet or at least body-mounted gizmo is where you need to be looking. One advantage of this style of riding is that the breeze generated by the saddle flying back and forth between your inner thighs can keep you cool in the gonad department. Or feverishly massage you privately. Now is that why Jay is always grinning on the trail?