WW // Tibradden - Nice & relaxed mountain bike spin

Another Saturday means another XC spin, so we wasted no time: got on our bikes and turned up towards the Dublin muntains to have fun on the bike on this great, sunny morning. This time I went out with my friend Csaba and since we haven't been out on the bike together for like a million years we decided to have a cool and chilled out spin with lots of talk and a very civilized pace. :)

The plan was to show him the new trails that I started to use lately and the fastest way to get there was to climb up to Threerock and from there we hit the super rocky and technical Wicklow Way to reach our destination.

Rocks after rocks, puddles after puddles...it was so much fun to ride on that upper, flat sector of the Wicklow Way and rise to the challenge to manage a good pace without loosing control of the bike on the aggressive surface. It was cool! :)

That's not smooth indeed :)

After the short sector of the Wicklow Way we turned right and started to roll along of the trails of Tibradden. The real fun started when we got on the Legend trail which was extremely muddy this time...I mean the whole place was super slippery! The best part was the switch in between the opened parts of the trail (they were real challenging 'cause of the mud) and the forest sectors (they were extremely quick and dry enough). To go from easy and fast to difficult and slowish, and to repeat this soooo many times was pretty cool! :) 

At some points it was a real challenge even just to stay upright on the bike. The most sketchy bit was the right turn after the big, flat rock that lies in that left turn drop. It was savage to ride that thing in that mud! :) 

The biggest & deepest puddle that I've encountered for a long time!!! :)

We had good fun while we tried to ride accross that thing but it was soo deep and the bottom of it was full of rocks and branches it was impossible to ride through in the middle. The water was as deep as the axles and the BB! The only way to get through was to pick a nice line on the right hand side. Here is a short video of the crossing: 

After we finished messing around the muddy trails we got back on the road and started to head back home. By the time I got back to my place I got 30 km in under a little longer than 2 hours.

Here is our route this morning

Havin' such an easy and fun filled mountain bike spin on a bright and sunny Saturday morning is just great. I loved to be out on the bike and mess around in the mud! It was short, it wasn't fast or difficult spin but hey! It was brilliant and for today it was more than perfectly enough! :)

Training for the 12 hours XC race - only few days left

Even the rocks are happy lately up in the mountains :)

This little photo shows the mood of my trainigs in the last 2 weeks. Everything goes the way I planned: did get some good training done before we get to the Bull Raid 12 hours XC this Saturday. The rest of the planning is going good also but there is still plenty of things to do indeed. 

I did get lot of training done up on Threerock as I usually do but also got to ride some of the other favourite trails also such as the Dublin Mountains Way and the Wicklow Way. 

Sweet rocky bit along the Dublin Mountains Way

Another wet and cold morning spin out in the Wicklow

The weather hasn't been good to me lately, I did get rain nearly every time I went out on the bike. Of course after I got back home the sun came out and the rest of the day was lovely and sunny. It would be lovely to have it the other way around once in a while, wouldn't it? :)

As the last stage of my prep I will have a nice and intense road spin tomorrow morning and just a short and easy mountain bike spin on Thursday morning just to get the legs moving. Then get a massage and I'm ready. Last thing is to get the bike ready and have all the gear sorted out as well. This will take a good bit of a time 'cause the amount of stuff I will need is incredible! :) 

Quick morning spin - Dublin Mountain Way

This morning was great on the bike! I went up to the mountains, my destination was the Dublin Mountain Way this time. This trail is nice and fast with queit technical drops and tricky downhill sections at the end. It is lovely to ride up there!

I got up there from the Marlay Park side and cycled along the first section of the Wicklow Way. But unfortunately I got a puncture. I put my spare tube in but that was all I had with me today. So I have decided to head back towards home on the tarmac road, in case I get another puncture. It would have been a long walk home! :)

The map of today's ride

So, because of that this morning's spin got a little bit shorter than it was planned but it's ok 'cause I really did enjoy to be up there. I have cycled 32 km this morning with nearly 600 m elevation on the way. This took me 1 hour and 35 minutes. This pace not the fastest but kind of all right with the many tough off-road sections.

The conclusion of todays spin is: I have to look around for new set of tyres I think or maybe try out the tubeless set up. I keep getting punctures since I have the Bontrager XR1 tyres on, so the issue needs to be sorted in deed!