What day is it?! It's mountain bike Saturday!!

After a quiet busy week at work and even more busy weekend at home I managed to get on the mountain bike and do my usual Saturday XC spin that I've been missing for a while. The day was 100% the best for it after all the bad weather during the week. Warm and sunny day, no wind, just perfect! Exactly the one I was hoping for! :)

Ready to hit the road

After last week's Orwell Randonnée and that some repair on on my bike understandable enough how much I was looking forward to some muddy cycling action up in the mountains! I knew it was gonna be a good spin and it turned out I made no mistake. It was brilliant! :)

Lovely view on the way up to Threerock

Enjoying the climb on the fancy, new road surface. :)

Since I haven't been on the MTB for about 2 weeks now, I just wanted to get out and ride wherever the bike takes me. No planned route, just take whatever comes. After I got up to Threerock I got to the bottom of the Boneshaker and started to climb on the technical trail up towards the top. With all the rain previously the bastard was even more difficult than it nornally is! :) 

After a quick ride on the Upper Metro trail I started to do some very mucky natural trails on the other side of the hill. 

Beautiful view of the Dublin Bay from the end of the Upper Metro

 

Mud, rocks, roots, more mud, roots, bigger roots, even deeper mud...I could go on all day about the conditions up on some forest trails. Was excellent to trying to stay upright and grab the last bit of traction on some steep technical climbs! I loved it! :)

Ouch...very challenging conditions!

Once I got the job done around my favourite trails on Threerock I cut accross the mountain and got on the Wicklow Way to ride back towards the lower carpark on Ticknock. 

Checking out the Wicklow Mountains

After I had a fuper fast descent on the Wicklow Way I got a little more climb done on the fire road and some more natural trail riding around the back one more time before I turned back towards home. 

Taking my time up on the mountains, was just too nice to get back home :)

The way home is always extremely short and fast, it's practically downhill all the way to my place. So it took me no time to arrive home and realize how much mud I've been taken home on the bike. It will take a while before I can ride the bike again (I'll be working at the Irish Cycling Show with next weekend at the RDS), so I decided to clean the bike straight after the spin. I just couldn't leave it the way it was.

Washing bike in the sun can't go wrong, can it?

This afternoon's spin was just simply great: 2 hours and 15 minutes of speed, fun and mud. I can't tell how greatful I am about the weather today after all the depressive weather in the last couple of weeks. This spin got me charged until I can get out again. Great stuff! :)

It started just like any other day...

I went out for a nice morning off-road spin yesterday. The weather was great, I was feeling good on the bike and I thought it'll be just like any other day out in the mountains... I had to realize it wasn't th case.

Lovely view during puncture repair, isn't it? :)

First I got a rear puncture on the Wicklow Way just before I reached the bottom of Two Rock. Well, it is part of the game so put in a new tube quickly and I was on my way again.

Pumping away in the autumn sunshine :)

I decided to no to any further on the Wicklow Way 'cause I used my spare tube and if I get puncture once again I can't get back to work on time. So I climbed up to the top of Two Rock and started to fly down on the technical rocky trail towards Threerock.

Then I hit the bottom section of the new trails from the top and started a quiet intense downhill towards the lower carpark. Turn after turn and jump after jump...I loved it until... all of a sudden there was a massive group of people right in the middle of the trail in front of me! I guess they were students (about 30 of them) with one teacher on some sort of school trip up in the mountains. So I was going on the dedicated MTB trail and nearly got involved in a proper accident because of them... They got pretty scared so did I but I passed them carefully and kept going.

But the adventures are not over yet, the best part was still ahead of me. I was climbing on the fire road (not walking trail) when I seen a walker coming in front of me with three dogs. I was nicely on one side of the road while he was on the other as he walked towards me. As we got closer to each other he immediately crossed the road and walked directly against me with his dogs. I pulled the bike out of his way and passed him but then:

- Don't you have your own f...cking trail?

- Yes we do. 

- Then next time f...cking stick to it!!!

There was absolutelly no need for this at all I think but I don't even want to get started on this now 'cause I might write something that I will regret in the future. Especially in the light of my previous experience with the student group. But for some reason I did not asked them the same question like your man did, especially not in that tone like he was using. I guess we are not the same. Luckily! :)

"Wintery" morning in July

I've had a rough time on the bike this morning indeed. The plan was to get as much training done as I can before the 12 hours XC race, so I went for my early morning spin at 7am. Quick breakfast, nice morning coffee and I was ready. Looking out the window it seemed just another wet summer morning so I didn't worried too much about it. 

Climbing the "river"... :)

By the time I started to climb up towards the top of  Two Rock the rain got very heavy and as I got to higher altitiude the temperature has dropped as well. At the top where isn't any shelter the wind blown through my soaked gear so I decided to head back towards the Wicklow Way. 

Savage conditions on a quiet morning in July

Wet and cold up on the top of Two Rock

The downhill was brilliant from the top: very muddy and wet. Streams were running down in every possible direction and the thick fog made everything even better. Great! :)

But...I started to have difficulties with the temperature on the way down on the Kilmashogue lane. I was so wet and cold I just wanted to get home and have a hot shower. Honestly I wanted to have longer spin this morning but I really started to feel cold and the last thing I want is to get sick 1 week before my upcoming race. So I have decided to cut the spin short and got home. 

I got only 1 hour and 30 minutes done today which is far behind what was planned but I think it was good decision to come home early.