Black Canon Collective

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  • April BCC Weekender – Dig Day

    April saw our usual “second full weekend of the month” format challenged by the Easter break, so in the interest of camping trips, family visits and general brownie point winning we postponed our monthly event to the following week.

    Saturday’s Dig Day had the following list of things to do…

    1. Basic trail maintenance (all tracks). – We worked on every trail, but is always ongoing
    2. Continue work on the bottom of 143 (as per last dig days agreed plans) – Tabletop done, massive tree moved, but quite a bit still to do
    3. Begin work on the existing and alternative top section of 143 (as per last dig days agreed plans) – Still to do
    4. Prepare BBMS for this months TickerTape mix-up.– Special Thanks to Juliet, queen of the leaf rake!
    5. Collect rocks, stack wood and undo unused trail features to clean up the hill. – Always ongoing
    6. Erect noticeboard at seating area. – Still to do

    It was a great day; Juliet Amor deserves a very special mention for making BBMS prettier than ever before! And Mark and Gordon also, all three have put a great deal of effort into building stuff they don’t even ride at the mo, we’re really lucky to have such generous members! Cheers guys! 

    (The next project will be a blue grade XC style downhill section so I’m sure we can all return the favour!)

    13 people made it out at various stages, all chipping in and working hard to make sure that BBMS was ready for the TickerTape and the rest of the trails got the love needed to keep them in great shape for the summer.

    The mini double on Spoons has been tweaked and is now a lot safer but should ride even nicer too, winner!

    The new table top on 143 is lush, it’s got a two stage landing, and is real floaty. It flows straight into a great naturally banked corner which fires you off towards a step up (yet to be built).

    Tom X-Up

    We also built a stepped push up to the seating area from the main fire road (bottom of all the trails) that avoids pushing up the back of that berm on 143.

    And finally we routed a new line on BBMS into that real flat rooty corner which although easier root wise will still be hard to do real fast, makes the whole section flow better on a Sunday afternoon.

    Cheers to all those who got stuck in, it was a great day!

  • New Track Record! (….and quite a bit of blood)

    BBMS : 36.13 : Chris Smith : Big Crash : Bloody face : RUH Bath : Minter!

    He should be fine; he’s proclaimed himself to be “a frickin’ hero!” so we think the adrenalin has prob kicked in nicely. He’s got his own seat in the waiting room, one they keep warm for him, so is happy as larry.

    I personally think it was all a cunning attempt to sabotage an otherwise rubbish run.

    We’ll keep you updated on his condition and how many vending machines we manage to empty while Chris gets his flirt on with the nurses….

  • Exclusive BCC offer!

    http://www.live2ride.co.uk/

  • Join us…

    Click Here...

    The Black Canon Collective is delighted to announce its membership packages for 2009-10, available for all new and renewing members. We hope you’ll join our rapidly growing club (50+ members in our first year!) and join us in building and riding some great trails.

    Good news – no need for any trips to the post office, writing out cheques or finding a Passport photo; our new online membership application process takes care of everything!

    Click the image above for full details…

  • Kind Donation

    We are exceptionally lucky to know Marion Liquorice and Neil Carpenter. Both have been instrumental in securing  donations for the club and have been very helpful offering fund raising advice and guidance.

    Yesterday I came home to a short hand written note from Marion explaining how she’d held a Food Safety Course and raised a little more money than expected so was donating half the proceeds to the BCC and half to their local playing field.

    Thank you Marion for being so thoughtful and generous, we promise to use the money wisely.

  • Night Rider

    Tuesday’s Night Rider was ace! The weather was great, the trails were dry and there was more light than we had remembered was possible. 

    15 of us made it out and enjoyed every minute of it, well apart from newbie Jim who suffered a mechanical 1/4 of the way around. Still waiting for us in a pub couldn’t have been all bad.

    Fancy joining us next Tuesday? 

    Remember even if you’re not a member you can do up to two times before committing to the ‘not so significant’ 49p a week that membership works out as.

    Splash

  • March TickerTape

    This month “Spoons” was treated to it’s first proper thrashing at the hands of a TickerTape mix-up.

    With a specially routed top section boasting a new loose and very fast ‘S’ bend then the usual mix of rocks,  steep rooty tech, off camber and the deceivingly tight last few corners the course favoured no-one and tested all.

    At well under a minute mistakes were costly yet the the urge to set a good time remained infectious with banter picking up as the day went on and people did or didn’t live up to all that pre run talk.

    Times & Prizes

    Entertainment came in the form of big bird who was suffering the effects of 10 hrs of manual labour the day before (that’s right some of us started digging at half seven!) though he wasn’t the only one with others finding new ways to use their bikes, most of which looked like they were attempting something from the karma sutra!

    Ben Irons had a lot to live up to with his renowned hardtail skill and new found head weight advantage (due to not having any hair – see post below), but simply failed to deliver.  Was the pressure of all that expectation too much? How do you sustain the success brought about by the underdog when you become the big dog? Either way Ben will be back, he’s got it in him, and if the duct tape holds so does his bike.

    Neil Cousins had made no bones about the fact that he intended on taking the crown, and to be honest did a bloody good job of making that happen with his smooth calculated style. Neils got a real race head and now no doubt a slightly bigger one.

    Rob Lewis, who has in the past been more renowned for taking his own straight line down the hill was the only person who looked likely to challenge Neil at the top. Despite riding with the massive (and completely unfair) advantage of marshmallow tyres he didn’t quite manage that perfect run though looked mighty quick through the roots and bottom turns.

    I was third but then who cares about the second loser?!?!

    Simon Bartlett showed everyone what the day was all about with his committed and progressive style and so was rewarded with the first choice of the two prizes (A Bottle of Hope Sh#t Shifter and 3focus DVD) for “giving it plenty of beans” and Stacey Dunstan won the “Lucky Bastard” award on account of being picked out of a hat (well actually banana guard). It should be mentioned that Stacey was also a contender for the beans award even though he only turned up with an hour to go – with his race face and 60000psi he managed to get to know the ground conditions pretty quickly (with his face) but then made some real progress once down to a more rideable 40psi and were it not for the 3pm cut off would have made the biggest time improvement of anyone.

    Tom was taking photos of the day as part of our new fund raising venture BCC Photography, check out his unedited low res snaps here (the pic of rob above is one of his post edit) all of which are availible for purchase (see forum for details) with all proceeds going to fund our trail building activities.

    A great day with plenty more goings on and many more riders than I can mention (and than in the photo)…. roll on next time! 

    ignore my finger

  • A day of Inspiration near Milton Keynes

    As my bleary eyes cleared and my ears became accustom to ignoring the Garmin Lady’s voice, Andrew, Ian and myself rolled into the sleepy market town of Leighton Buzzard to meet Ian Warby. Ian is the Senior Off-Road Development Officer at CTC (since 2006) and is working to develop the mountain biking scene nationally in partnership with leading experts in the field, or more likely in the woods. He is also developing the CTC’s mountain bike skills training and a National Standard for off-road skills training. We were here to visit some of the projects he was working on, have a guided tour of some projects similar to the BCC allotment and generally get inspiration for our own trail system.

    Leighton Buzzard must be the luckiest town in the country. Due to money from the lottery/Olympic future thingy, the town has £30 per person for a population about the same as Frome to develop a range of cycling venues around the town. We visited the future site of some dirt jumps, a pikey jump spot made good, a pump track in the initial build stages, and a mini north shore style trail also in the initial build stages. All with the aim of making kids so tired they “can’t be arsed to smash the s#*t out of a bus stop”

    For lunch we grabbed some pies and headed for a Dirt Jump picnic. The jumps had been built on landfill capped with clay so drainage was proving to be a bit of an issue, but they had built 4 sets of jumps varying from beginner table tops all the way up to large advanced gap lines and a cheeky pump track at the bottom. Ian described the problems involved in the build, emphasising the need for a digger driver that understood what was trying to be created and the priceless knowledge of a local trail boss to really help shape things up.

    Next stop was Woburn. Many of you will have seen the legendary Woburn dirt jumps on video but seeing the trails is something else! This place is incredible, the shear size of the jumps and the variety of possible lines boggles the mind. Coupled with a maze of random downhill trails we were running around like kids in a candy shop when the shop master had popped out back to restock the sherbert dib dabs. The dirt is very sandy which makes building fast and drainage of no consequence. It turns out that Woburn’s maze of downhill tracks are both a blessing and a burden. Unlike many “bike parks” (for want of a better word) Woburn has no club pushing the area in a specific direction, instead this area is allowed to exist and has evolved with people building new lines all the time creating a bewildering lattice of trails rather than a selection of fully resolved trails. The trails looked like good fun to ride but we jumped back into cars and set of for Chicksands. 

    Chicksands is  is primarily managed by the Forestry Commission and run by Beds Fat Trax. 

    Links
    http://www.ctc.org.uk/

  • March dig day

    March’s dig day was one of the best yet, we did absolutely everything we’d hoped to and were utterly exhausted as a result.

    1. Basic trail maintenance (all tracks)
    2. Undo the work carried out by the derelict building to protect the Scarlet Elf cups.
    3. Undo “work” carried out on the top spoons stepdown.
    4. Redevelop the bottom of 143 (as per last dig days agreed plans) upto tabletop.
    5. Prepare spoons for this months tickertape mix-up.

    red nose cookie

    Loads of people made it out  and were treated to hot tea, biscuits, home made cakes and cookies, slapstick comedy (haven’t forgotten your trip Neil), and even a barber shop master class from Marjory (yes, Ben decided to shave his head for comic relief – at the seating area).

    what hair?

    143 is gonna be pretty impressive so  I’m pretty sure that I and everybody else who worked on it likely fell asleep dreaming of riding it…..

    Based upon recent progress I’ve estimated it’ll take at least 3 more dig days to complete 143 to the final step-up feature (it will continue down to the middle fire road eventually but this will need another planning phase). That means it’ll be ready mid June.

    Fancy completing it sooner? Then lets see if we can get even half the current members to a dig day, we had 15 and did so so much, but with 29, with 29 we could maybe even get it all finished in 1 dig day!

    Weekends are precious and often heavily restricted but its amazing to see what can be achieved after just one day of well planned and organised trail building.

    Aprils dig day will be held on the 18th/o4/09 so that it doesn’t clash with Easter weekend….

    hopefully see you there!


    Black Canon Collective – March ’09 Dig and Ride from simon truelove

  • Benchmark

    A full dig day of digging, and a TickerTape winning 32.08 on spoons left Neil struggling to stand up. Full write up of this weekends BCC weekender real soon…