This Sunday is the first Dig Day of 2010, and we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

The winter hasn’t been kind to the ground and has tested our drainage to it’s limits, but thanks to some great work last year the damage is minimal. This Sunday we’ll be giving all the tracks a once over, some TLC. They’re almost weather resistant, but need some tweaking here and there.

We’ll also start building the next big feature on ‘Puppets’ a large berm-fly-off at the bottom of the ‘Battery Hill’ section.

We’ll bring the lot sof tools, tea, coffee and cakes, you just need to bring some elbow grease (and a rake)…

See you there (@ the Allotment, 10:00)

Fancy racing riding around the allotment, and surrounding area, on a mini BCC enduro pre Set 2 Rise ?

Ian Crook came up with the idea as a kind of XC enduro TickerTape equivalent; basically it’s a low-fi, members only, mini enduro race event with apple strudel Mule Bars to give away. At this stage that’s all we’ve got, but it sounds good to me…

Check out the suggestion box thread on the forum here: http://www.southerndownhill.com/forum/index.php/topic,164215.120.html to get involved, or make your own suggestions.

About a year ago when we were really struggling to find  a logo that we were happy to represent the club, and appear on the t-shirts, website, membership cards etc, I approached Miles – a friend of my sister -  who I knew was studying Graphic Design (and had done work experience with Howies) to help. Fortunately for us he agreed, and we were all saved from my logo ideas that mainly just looked like cucumbers. Below is a short (e-mail generated) interview with him.

Name: Miles Gould

School / Course: BA (Hons) Graphic Design at Brighton University

Website: www.milesgould.com

Favourite Colour: Green

Favourite Typeface: At the moment, Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk condensed or Meta.

Favourite Logo / Brand? My favourite logo would have to be that of Penguin books. Designed by the studio junior Edward Young (1935), and inspired by the penguins at London Zoo. The design is coherent, timeless and fun. I will always stay loyal to howies as a brand. I respect their honesty, high quality products made with care and love, good product performance, functionality and they are conscious about the world we live in.

Favourite Advert? The adverts for Sony BRAVIA. The colours were rich, ideas fresh and looked great fun to be apart of. Particularly the Sony Cyber-shot advert entitled ‘Foam city’ which involved flooding downtown Miama into a giant bubblebath achieved using the worlds largest foam machine. The project was then documented by asking the local residents of Miami to photograph the event. Brilliant.

When and Why did you choose to pursue Graphic Design as a career? I was massively inspired by a placement I underwent at Radio design in Bath when I was 15. Pete Whitehead who was the company Director, had a lot of energy and passion for design which was really inspiring. I suppose he opened my mind to the potential of design and the endless possibilities that come with it. Ever-since I have been obsessed with function, form and play.

What are your career aspirations? My current aspirations are to continue learning and gaining as much experience as possible whilst at University from everyone around me and work placements. After I graduate I will look to work in the industry for a year and then complete an MA at the Royal College of Art.  After that, maybe run my own studio or work for a company who inspires me. I also want to travel as much as possible. The Northern Lights are at the top of my list at the moment.

Who are your heroes? I have too many heroes to name, a few who are involved in the arts world include Chris Cunningham, Charlie Kaufman, Why not associates, Josef Müller-Brockmann, and of course Alan Fletcher.

Hobbies? I skateboard not as frequently as I would like mainly due to the recent weather but it is something I really enjoy doing. My main hobby I’m most passionate about is drumming.

What was the inspiration behind the Black Canon Collective logo? My intention with the BCC logo, was to refine and simplify whilst still capturing momentum and creating impact. The chosen font ‘Variable’ is a sans-serif typeface family that can be used in a variety of typographic environments. The font was designed by Matt Desmond in 2004 and published by MADtype. The font echos the angles of a bike frame and its curved lines convey a friendliness, which I think is essential when designing an identity.

How do you go about developing an idea once you have one? My working process varies from various projects. With the logo I went through various stages of refining and simplifying until I get to the stage where i believed the design is describable, effective in black and white as well as in colour, scalable to fit all needs, works well in print as well as web and most importantly is memorable and appropriate. I work using both the computer and hand drawing. I always like to submerse myself in a project by doing as much research and development work (play) as possible.

Quick post to say a massive thanks to Dan, Juliet, Mark and Pete for their work all day (on the 25m of East 17 singletrack we completed), and everyone who came across for the last hour  to chop and move wood for marking – given the conditions it was brilliant to see 13 people out for the dig day.

The Met office have issued an advisory warning for Sunday’s weather:

“There is a moderate risk of severe weather affecting parts of the south of the UK on Sunday morning. There is a risk of widespread ice on untreated surfaces following a band of rain, sleet and snow which is expected to clear south overnight.”

With this in mind we’d like to ask that everyone checks the front page of this website on Sunday morning to see if the Dig Day is still going ahead. It is currently, but this may have to change.

The ground is likely to be very hard so could people please bring rakes so that we can clear all of the trails ready for the next TickerTape, and help with the XC project.

Also, please remember to wear breathable layers, warm socks and a hat – that’s right, for the duration of this post I’m behaving like your mum.

Fingers crossed the weather is better than expected.

Sam and Jack Wells (who many of you will have read about here: http://www.blackcanoncollective.co.uk/2009/11/19/brothers-wells/) have begun their trail building project for us at the Allotment.

With the type of lifestyle that many of us can only dream of both are able to build trails and go riding all day almost every day. The brothers approached us recently, asking if they could get involved with the club and build some trails with us. Given the quality of the other trails that they’ve built and their pretty awesome riding ability we jumped at the opportunity.

The trail that they’re building (to be named) will be a fast open freeride trail with big features in it. It’ll run down the east side of the Allotment, starting at the top plateau and will finish just short of the skills area. They scoped out the trail route for us, and explained the placement of all the features too before we agreed and gave them the go ahead.

They’ll be building the trail over the next few months, mostly during the week, but will also be working on it at some dig days and weekends. If you’d like to help out please get in contact, they’d be glad of the extra man power.

As with all our trails it’ll be built with the weather in mind, so drainage, side cambers, and raking back to the soil will be key. We’ve got the rest of the winter and most of the spring to get this trail up and running, so there’s no rush – it’s all about getting it right.

Sam will be updating the website frequently with news of progress and pictures too, so check back to see how they’re getting on.

Sunday’s Dig Day saw a fantastic turn out; 20 people showed up and they worked flipping hard.

Puppets has been transformed, with two separate start sections  ’Punch’ and ‘Judy’ each offering a slightly different flavour: Punch will be the hardest taking its inspiration from Schaldming, tight rooty with steep drops, and Judy will be fast and swoopy but still include ‘battery hill’ the steep stepped chute that many will remember. You’ll notice that a few got carried away sculpting what can only be described as a tobogan run, but it looks awesome and should be ace to ride. We’ve yet to build any of the berms or drops but will tackle these over the next few dig days. It won’t be long before Puppets is up and running at this rate so lets hope we get a similar turn out at the next Dig Day (20/12/2009) when we’ll also be holding an XC Dig Day to work on ‘East-17′.

We also did a hell of a lot of drainage work which should help keep all the trails open through out the winter

Cheers to everyone for showing up and working so hard, it’s pretty clear what’s been achieved….

At the moment I think about raking on the train.

I plan how some artful mattock use will provide the perfect drainage solution while on the toilet.

I spend my lunch hour calculating how many trees I will have to saw to finish the marking.

I use my headphone cables to illustrate my trail ideas to work colleagues.

But I haven’t had the time to actually work on the new singletrack (“East 17”).

(Please keep an eye on the forum for the next singletrack dig day).

I have heard it said that the reason downhill is such a great sport is because it’s social and friendly – you’re only racing against the clock. This cannot be said of today’s Tickertape:

Firstly we were all battling against the rain, sloppy mud, and mechanicals. Bird was against Jim, Neil against Denham, Denham against a tree, Dave against himself, our shoes against traction, Sam (Wells) refusing to compete against anyone.

Sam and James were competing – to be muddier or crash better than the other while Will & Ben Batt were against full runs, preferring not to not finish each run rather than go any less than 168%.

Highlights of the day included very vocal support (or abuse), shouts of “PEDAL” to those with no chain, Ben’s MC Hammer trousers, everybody going on everyone else’s bikes, Will “sending” the biggest of the Spork drops and finally the Cobble Wobble King surprising himself by enjoying the wet – and snatching the fastest time of the day right at the death.