Mountain biking is...

... exciting! ( photo: Paul Byrne)

... fast! (photo: SSWC 2011)

... fun!

... the best way to get to nice places!

... good way to get tired!

... "good for your skin" :) !

... very muddy sometimes!

... rewarding!

Leadmines // Threerock - Timed lap on the Epic course

This morning the weather got a bit better compare to the terrible conditions over the last couple of days, so needless to say how happy I was to get out on the bike without the risk of hailstones. :)

Today's spin - Leadmines & Threerock

My plan was to get out to the Leadmines and see what I can do on the Epic club course. I haven't been there for a good while now and I was prepared to get some proper slippery time around the well known club course. So after the fast tarmac climb I was feeling good and excited about the whole plan. "This is gonna be great!" I thought when I started my timed lap on the muddy trails. I gave everything I had I guess and when I got the lap done with my personal best of 14 minutes and 35 seconds I was feeling sooo good about myself...until I got back home and uploaded the data to Strava. My lap time was enough to be the 24th best registered time on the club course. Not bad, but I honestly thought I was going a bit faster than that. :) 

After I finished at the Leadmines I turned back towards Threerock and did a little bit of mountain biking there too. I finished just in time before the usual Saturday madness kicked in! Happy days! :) 

On my way home

In the last couple of weeks I've been quiet busy to get ready for the arrival of our Little Baby (painting the room, putting baby furnitures together and going to antenatal classes), so I've been doing spins only once a week. Funny enough, since I spend less time up in the mountains I appreciate my time on the bike lot more. Everytime I get out it feels like just the perfect spin and it wasn't any different this time either. 

I had great time on the bike, I did 2 hours and 20 minutes and covered the distance of 44 km this morning. It was fun ride on the super muddy trails. Conclusion of today's spin: next time I need to calm down after a timed lap 'cause it's not always as good as it seems! :)

It's time to refresh my blog's design!

It's been nearly one and a half year since I write about my bike related adventures and since I've started my blog the design hasn't been changed. I wanted to refresh things here on this page for a while now but I just never got around things to do it. Up until now! 

The page has been refreshed a little bit with this new look and I hope everybody who reads the blog likes the change! :)

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! :)

Singletrack to the nowhere...

I think fog is an amazing thing in the nature, there is always something mysterious about it. I like to ride my bike in pretty much every weather condition but fog is definitely one of my favourite one of all! It is a bit different opinion I know, but I can't help it: I just simply love mountain biking in thick fog! :)

Here I have some nice photos from Threerock, they really show what's the mountain like at 7 am in a cold and damp morning! :)