Mountain Board Diary

Do I need to continue to preface these blogs with “this post comes way late”. I mean it must be about 50% of posts now. This time though I have a reason, I was going to do it last night (Thurs) but me and Marty went for a jam session, and earlier in the week I was ill. So anyway Sunday 14th February 2010 me and Martyn headed back out to the old favourite in the North East, Jesmond, for some fun times. Something was different…

We met up with James, a fellow boarder who funnily enough rides pretty much the exact same area as us as far as his local terrain goes, but he uses self-made bindings – me and Martyn had tried to create some earlier in the morning but our stretchy rope thing (duuuuh?) snapped for me on first use. James is a great guy and I think we’ll be riding with him from now on, his style is slightly different from ours which just makes me think I can learn a few things off him.

One thing I’ll not try to learn is the guts to try to go down a 45deg incline over …tenderous… terrain. So we’re bombing around Jesmond doing our usual thing and enjoying and one of the other new facts was I got an HDpro camera, these are water/shock proof action cameras perfect for this sort of thing. It has no screen but the wide angle lens captures everything you point it at. I used it for board cam and helmet cam (aka – Chebcam) and some of the stuff that came out of it looks brill.

Sadly the camera ran out of space (note for future, use more than an 8gb card when recording in HD). So we we’re hitting some downhill grass paths and pulling backside slide turns, which is a new trick for me. Martyn pulled it of first and was generally ruling the day so I had to follow suit, luckily I did and my pride remains. After this we found some wooden beams to try and grind, we were all very nervous at first because we have no knowledge in this area, but we got over our fears and had a few tries. Sadly we and the wood broke before anyone was successful but I feel we’re all pretty close to grinding.

We were out for around 4 hours on Sunday, it was the best time in the week until Thursday…

TBC

So between a harsh winter and going on holiday for two and bit weeks I haven’t had a good chance to go out. Yesterday (07/02/2010) me and Martyn went round our local area. There is this and the nearby/connected Heaton Park which we think of as our default riding zone. We’ve ridden round here loads, but not since starting this blog except the semi-fail winter edition. We half had hopes to meet another local rider who’d contacted us via the site but it was not to be.

We started of bombing a couple of large hills, from the top first try, it’s the only way to do it. Having a lot of speed on the way down but my usual haunt the weather, making the ground not just wet but really soggy so by the time you were at the bottom you would stop in a few metres.

Heading through the Dene park I was beginning to realise something had changed in both of our riding styles, there’s a touch of flair now. We don’t just ride the hill or path; we carve, do little jumps, ride the angled sides if available, pop up curbs. All part of getting more and more confidence on the board.

This most definitely would be described as a freeride day, with that in mind a description of Jesmond Dene will give you the best idea of the riding that took place, it’s basically a steep downhill at two sides with a stream running through the middle. It’s about 50 metres higher at the sides that the center and around 200 metres wide at the furthest. So steep banks and not much space is mainly the order of the day. There’s a few long downhill sections that run down and parallel to the Dene, but there isn’t much space to carve or control your speed effectively. Otherwise the best runs your likely to find are short gimmicks, fast, fun and based more on gonzales and reactions than skill.

I took a few basic pictures and videos on my phone because the camera I took out was out of battery, so hopefully I’ll get them up tonight, tomorrow or wednesday (or just up at all).

All in all there wasn’t much really cool stuff to be done because of the wetness and having not found that perfect spot there yet. The experience however was excellent, having not been out for so long makes you appreciate it that much more!

Finally, I hope to go out next weekend, having gotten a taste I don’t want to give it up, Jesmond Dene has so much to explore in small place and it’s almost right outside my house, it’s a place I and this blog will be revisiting time and again. Hopefully we can meet up with the other rider I mentioned.