Hi everyone. There weren't many people there on Saturday because I think lots of people were at the Richard Dunn Sports Centre in Bradford riding the National Circuit series. I don't know how people did, but I hope people had a good ride and Josh managed to stay on his bike for at least the first half of the race! I presume that Emma went down to the race so she can say how people got on. At Hetton on Saturday, Steve and Tony led the young and old sessions. I don't know what the other people did, but I was in Tony's group and we were using the hill on the far side of the circuit. We were practising riding in a group going up hills and round corners. My gears were jumping about all over the place so I was getting quite irritated because I could hardly put any pressure on the pedals. Going up the hill, my chain snapped and we tried to put it back together but it wouldn't go. I was disappointed that I couldn't do the rest of the session, but I thought a snapped chain would give me an excuse to get a BMX out and play on the track but no one had a key. On Sunday I got up early to go to Glentress with Dave and Alex. Alex and I had planned to ride all four routes while we were there, but we had loads of problems. As soon as we arrived, Dave discovered his brakes weren't working properly. He took his bike into the shop for an urgent repair, so Alex and I decided to ride the blue route while Dave was getting his bike fixed. We met up again in the car park to set off on the black route, but before we started that one I got a puncture. After standing around for a while fixing it, we set off. On the first descent, Alex's saddlebag snapped so he had to give me it because I had a backpack on. Then on the biggest climb, me and Alex had left Dave behind and were waiting for him at the top. He took longer than normal, so we rode nearly all the way back down to discover he'd snapped his chain 3 times! Luckily a passing rider lent Dave the part he needed and we were on our way. On one of the last descents on the black route, Dave got a puncture after steaming past me and Alex and then hitting a rock square on. We carried on without incident for quite a while after that until I went over the bars on a steep rocky descent. We hardly ever met people on the trails, but when we did meet them, they saw me crash. Typical. After that, we carried on but somehow my brake lever slipped round the bars and stoppen me from changing gear, so we had to stop and fix that. Then, we finished the black route and went down to the car park for tea. With all the problems, we had been out for 6 hours, but had only been riding for 3 of them. After a tasty tuna and cheese toasty, I went back out with Alex to do the red route. In keeping with the rest of the day, the problems started again. I had mild cramp in my right leg, but an energy gel soon fixed that. Then, at the top of the route, the gear cables froze so we were stuck in tiny gears for the downhills. Anyway, we carried on and they had nearly thawed out when my forks stopped working. When they compressed, they came back up very slowly, so I might as well have not had any suspension. Meanwhile, Dave had been kicked out of the car park becasue it was dark when we got back, so we had to meet him somewhere else. We didn't fulfill our goal of four routes in one day, but we still managed three. We'll have to go back in the summer with a bit more daylight and (hopefully) fewer problems! See you later, Joe.