Hi everyone.

Thanks to Nigel, Tony and Alex for taking the session on Saturday. It was the first time I’d been training at Hetton for ages and I enjoyed it. I was taking my road bike out of the garage to put it in the car and discovered the freewheel had seized up, so it was like riding a fixed wheel! I had to do the session on my ‘cross bike instead but I forgot to take my mtb shoes, so I had to do the first part of the session in trainers which wasn’t very comfy. My dad brought my shoes through for me later, though, so the second part of the session was OK. We had a handicapped race where we all split up into teams and had to chase each other down for four laps. I was with Alex and Tony who did all the work for me on the first lap, but then Alex started to suffer so he dropped back. I hung onto Tony’s wheel for the rest of the race and was very tired by the end of it.

I went on the BMX track with the Rowlands after the session. I enjoyed it but it is extremely tiring if you don’t have rests between laps. I was pleased with myself because I stayed upright the whole time. Ali and James are really good on it, so they were teaching me a bit. After that, I rode home slowly with Alex for a warm down.

On Sunday, I got a lift with Alex and we went to Hamsterley. We were supposedly meeting Dave there, but after waiting for about 15 minutes he still wasn’t there so we started to ride. We couldn’t have had better weather - it was boiling hot and the sky was cloud - free. Because the weather was nice we decided to ride through the ford instead of going over the bridge. It used to be covered in concrete which made it quite shallow, but that had been washed away. I went up to it with quite a bit of speed, but I’d misjudged how deep it was and I was soaked when I got to the other side.

From there, we rode “The Wall” which is a very steep climb with lots of tree roots which make it difficult to ride. Dave found us at the bottom of this climb and we had a chat for a while. The ground was really dry, though, which made it grippy and all three of us made it to the top without putting a foot down. After that, we rode the rest of the black route and met up with the Rowlands back in the car park after a spot of lunch.

We all went out on a ride and when we hit the first climb, my chain started playing up. It managed to trap itself on one of the chainrings, so I couldn’t turn the pedals. It didn’t take long to fix and we were on our way again. The first decent was a good one which snaked through tight gaps in the trees and had loads of tight turns. It didn’t take long before I was on the floor - my front wheel dug in going round a corner and threw me to the side. After that, we crossed another stream and started to climb again. My chain snapped on this climb and luckily Martin had a chain tool and a spare link so he was able to fix it. We rode the wall again, but this time I didn’t make it all the way up.

A couple more descents, two big climbs and one puncture later, we were running out of drink so we were heading back. At the top of the hill, we had a freewheeling race but there was a lot of illegal pedalling involved! Dave started miles behind us and still easily caught us up, so I think he won. On the next descent, I crashed and rolled into a bush which was stinging my arm while I was on the ground. I couldn’t get up because my feet were stuck in my pedals so I had to wait for Ali to pick my bike off me. We all rode the next descent without falling off but it wasn’t a very technical one. The descent after that is one of my favourites and I was really enjoying it. The last part of it wasn’t very good because it was overgrown. Plants at the sides of the track blocked the view of the track a bit. Needless to say I managed to find a hole with my front wheel. It flicked me over the bars and I did a little spin and ended up on the ground on my back facing back up the track. I was lucky because I was a just a couple of inches away from some very smelly mud. I was stuck to my bike yet again and had to wait for Ali to pull my feet out of the pedals before I got up. I don’t know why, but nearly every time I fall I get stuck and someone has to help. I hope that doesn’t happen in any races!!

Speaking of races, The third round of the NPS is on at Grizedale, but I’m not going. Ali, Joe and Dave are riding though.

See you Saturday,
Joe.