Mountain Board Diary

As I’m writing this I’m on Martyn’s netbook heading home through some beautiful mountains in the lake district, hold on a sec while I take in the view…better on the way to the site. Well anyway, that makes this a very on time blog.

We set off for Surf the Turf at 10 o’clock, arriving at 12.30 just as the site was opening, perfect! We got our gear in order and were greeted at the site by the super cool Markus and co-host Roo (sorry for mispronouncing your name all day). First impressions of the site were that it was a well run place, not to put anything against Another World but that’s a place you go to when you want no hassle hit the hill and go.

An example of this well managed style is that Markus wanted to see us power slide for speed before letting us on the runs. Now, we’ve done these before but didn’t have any technique so they were a bit hit and miss. He spotted this straight away and asked us to partake in the start of the mountain board lessons. Within 30 minutes I’d had toe side and heelside powerslides dialled and also a few essential tips that I’d both picked up as bad habits on by making them up by myself.

So we hit the hills ourselves, starting with a few rollers [getting a feel for border-x again!] and of course getting some major slides to stop with our new skills. After a couple tries here we went right to the bottom where there’s the awesome -HUGE- quater pipe. I hit this with a bit of speed which scared me but luckily the old skate skills kicked in and it was rather easy (and got easier and more stylish as the day moved on).

Then was time to hit some grinds, 50-50, the style of them were friendly to newbies and a first time land was rather nice. Kicking off the need to start a bit higher up and hitting the kickers. So we hit these obstacles for a bit before having lunch.

After that we tried to hit the full border-x from various points. It’s a large burmed course and I’m sure it’s sweet…in summer, the winter and lack of time to dry out made it a sludgy slow ride, not really worth it today. Until I have more confidence I’m a bit apprehensive about it, it’s quite a stony run which makes control harder and I assume falls more painful.

Towards the end of the day Martyn pointed out we hadn’t cleared a gap, sulking I said “Yesh mashter” and tried this nice step up a few times. We both cleared this clipping the top of the landing ramp having to hold into the bindings as much as possible to stay on the dirtboard. We also both managed to go down quite hard on this which left us wary of hitting this further. Lessons from this, you need balls for the speed and you need balls to try and stick the landing as much as possible.

Coming to the end of the day we had to try the rainbow grind rail – 50-50 again. The plan was to ride up it slowly and come back down to get confident with it. First try however I had more speed than I though and went over it first try which I was well proud with, this apparatus was actually easier than the other grinds because it’s so smooth, of course, it looks more hairy though. Lesson here, a well made rail is easy, just hit it perfectly straight, knees bent and body weight centre. I learned this from the couple fails and moreso from watching Martyn’s fails – cheers buddy! Just for reference he did make it over

Nom, nom, nom. Just dropped into the service station there for a rest and stretch. It’s freezing and pushing open doors hurts!

Back to the coolness. The end of the day was coming and we decided to go from top to bottom through the tricks and jumps. Carving the hill, powersliding were necessary we… didn’t make it top to bottom in one go. I know I have the skill but luck, fatigue or something else just kept it from happening, I fell twice but made up for it by handling the quarter pipe very stylish.

So this post has been very chronological so have I missed something out? Yeah. There’s a little chill out zone with a selection of smaller things to play on; balance boards, tight rope, creative(!) skate mini ramp, comfy indoor seats and trampoline. Speaking of which, there was a mountainboard with no trucks on so you could practice air time, or more specifically, 360′s – much easier without 7.5 kg board! Laid back atmosphere with easy to get along with hosts. Friendly locals – bikers and boarders. Good price. Excellent weather, I’m calling it the start of spring, the day was mildly warm, windless and cloudless which made for some nice vistas at the top of the slope. Lastly was the fact that they have a small selection of vehicles that are used to tow people to the top, sadly these were nonoperational when I was there but I was assured it was super fun and makes it easier to ride all day long.

If you can’t tell this has been a most excellent day. I’m feeling the boarding buzz and can’t wait till next weekend. You can’t get a better recommendation than that!