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Saturday 29th October 2005 - Not a normal ride day, but circumstances led Andy, Jason and Terry to take off about 08:45 for Glentress for maybe Andy's last jumpy outing on his Specialized FSR. No, he's not sick of us yet. The exact opposite is true! Andy is expecting imminent delivery of a Kona Stinky!!! He's also now fully equipped with the regulatory body armour and Full Face titfer so he's really looking forward to getting the Stinkys' wheels up. So are we. In fact, we're queuing up for a blast when it arrives. Dull but warm 

Today we grabbed the opportunity to visit The Shrine again with a lousy weather outlook for Sunday which may have spoilt things if we'd waited. This was one of my most enjoyable rides ever. Why? I had a walking buddy! Jason still hasn't shaken off his juvenile fascination for Al K Hol, and he was at his physical worst after a "great night" of blood-thinning and brain cell annihilation the night before. Still, that didn't stop him travelling fairly rapidly on the downward sloping bits, and he was letting the tail fly out on every take-off. See the vidz.       Andy tests Camphone Andy and Terry (?) enjoy the climb!

In fact, we enjoyed it so much (well, Andy and I did) that for the first  time ever we backtracked after the first video "shoot" down the Spooky Wood toboggan run and did it again. What a fantastic roller coaster this is, absolutely brillo. This is why Jay doesn't take many pictures!     The climb back to the start is pretty steep but it's soon over, even if you're still in a drunken stupor, and it is more than worth the effort. Only trouble is if you're almost a pensioner like me, two shots down this ultimate of adrenalin burners just zaps all your energy, and I ran out of steam trying to keep up with Andy half way down run number two. Still felt great at the bottom.    Jay struggles up     I come in peace!     How'd I get here first?

The tricky single-track of the next stage allowed some relief from the physical effort of the berms and jumps of Spooky, but no sooner had we started than Andy pulled in with a flat rear tyre. Vid: Jason continued to the bottom of the next two stages while we stuck a new tube in to save time, having to dodge MTB traffic as the trail was quite narrow here.  Quite funny seeing a couple of fellow riders almost coming to grief on a trail-edge tree stump when they took their eyes off the trail to see what Andy and I were doing! (repairing the puncture, moron).   Almost Home

The ride started badly when Jason, who was driving Terry's car, pulled in to the car park at the Hub. "What you stopping here for?" Golly screeched. "To do this great bit of Red Trail that you miss if you start at the Buzzard's Nest car park" came the simultaneous reply from Andy and Jason. What crackpots. This was a total waste of the first half hour, and plenty of wasted effort which neither Jason nor I could really spare. Definitely the last time I park down there. However, I soon got over my whinge and as we neared the end of the ride it was turned to our advantage as you finish up going down all the way to the Hub and not having to climb that awful bit of fire-road up to the Nest. We packed the bikes, got changed and went to the Hub cafe for a coffee and a bite, before doing a field study of the hire and repaired bikes outside to see what we fancied. Back home about 6:00pm and still 13 degrees C outside, another great ride and we were dead lucky with only a few spots of rain on the mountain.

Small Vidz (biggest 3MB)    vid1    vid2    vid3    vid4    vid5    vid6    (bigger ones coming later following Andy and Jason down the twisties) And here's why you don't see too many of Jason's super action vidz of Terry jumping: jayvid1    jayvid2     But sometimes he gets lucky! Terry1    Terry2

AND if we're lucky (?) some pix from the cameras of Jason and Andy, for a change.

email us - bailout@midaircrisis.org.uk.