On Thursday evening a crack litter picking team was sent to longleat forest by the BCC Committee for litter dropping crimes they didn’t commit. These men (and a woman) promptly went about picking litter all over the Longleat estate whilst riding bikes and doing skids. Today, still trying to work out why so many people left bags of poo all over the place, they survive as riders of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire… The BCC Litter Picking Team-crew-gang.
Al, who had spent most of the evening wearing an unnecessary amount of jewellery and talking street, was keen to comment that “I ain’t gettin’ on no plane!” though we, like you, have no idea what the hell he was going on about.
Chas Thursfield, who organised the pick declined to comment on Al’s oddness but was heard saying “I love it when a plan comes together” on a number of occasions.
Say, are we a groovy, happenin’ bunch o’ guys, or what?
Another great turnout for a Tuesday Nightride. 23 riders met in the East Woodlands church carpark, and after the first Byway, divided into 11 riders in the Social group and 12 in the… erm…. ‘Anti-social’ group.
On leaving the carpark, Ryan’s crank promptly fell off. The first of many mishaps for the evening.
Aboard his Charge Cooker 29er prototype, Neil took charge of the Anti-social group and led a superb ride. There were two new faces in the ASG this week in a ‘try-before-you-buy’ capacity; a work colleague of Chas’, and a young tri-athlete prodigy, Matt from Trowbridge, who pretty-much set the pace for the group. After half-an-hour it was all a bit of a shock for Chas’ workmate who sadly had to bale-out after ‘hitting the wall’ on just the second climb.
A regroup at the water feature and then a sprint down NCN24 to Centre Parcs. While negotiating ‘Doodles’ another crank-arm fell off. This time Sean was the victim (as his Singlespeed became a Halfspeed) and had to drop from the group. Kev nobly sprinted back to East Woodlands to retrieve his car to save Sean the long walk home. I think someone’s chain snapped at this point, too…
A bit further on and we were soon sampling the unique delights of the undergrowth singletrack around Cannimore and Buckler’s Wood. Our rapidly-decreasing group of nine undertook the newly-found (and as yet unnamed) stretch of trail that wriggles its way through dense, small trees with low branches and stumps to negotiate through its entirety. A challenge in dexterity rather than speed, this trail takes a full five or six minutes of shoulder-dropping and track-standing to complete, hopefully without dabbing. All riders emerged intact at its end, with just a torn armwarmer and a ripped t-shirt for our troubles. Just then, by a staggering coincidence, Geraint who was just returning from London in a hired van, drove past as we were dusting ourselves down and hailed us over for a chat.
Then a quick sprint back along the singletrack and over to the outskirts of Crockerton to ride a firm favourite, The Badger Run, down to Shear Water. A few sharp climbs back out of the forest up to the road and we followed the path back around Centre Parcs, through the toll booths to the top of The Allotment and rode the Dinner til Dusk descent before retracing our steps and heading homewards. En route to East Woodlands another Anti-social rider wended their own way home leaving just eight to return, dusty and happy, back to the pub and cars.
All trails were superbly dry and dusty making for some very interesting cornering in places, but providing masses of traction on the climbs. Even the perma-puddles were developing dry lines through them which is always an encouraging sight. Dust was certainly the main feature of the evening, and youthful exuberance and enthusiasm often boiled over in the form of skidz enshrouding all who followed them in pyroclastic flows. Skidz ARE for kidz, people.
All in all a superb evening’s ride for the Anti-socials who were all surprisingly very social despite losing 33% of our number during the course of the evening.
I’m afraid I can’t comment on the Social group’s ride as I didn’t hang around at the pub, but I’ll bet they had a great ride too ;O)
Oh, and Al “26-till-I-die” Mackinlay was later seen test-riding a 29er in the pub car park and was heard to comment “It rides like a bike”. You’ll all be riding them soon, I tells ya…
Why not join the Dirt Fantasy League game here: http://dirtfantasyleague.com it’s your chance to become a fantasy downhill world cup mountainbike team manager and select your pick of the worlds best riders in the hope of becoming 2011 Fantasy League Champion.
We’ve created a BCC League so that club members can pitch their team management skills against each other.
Following on from Sunday’s Dig Day, I can report that The Allotment is absolutely devoid of litter. Not a trace. Not so much as a Werther’s wrapper or an EPO syringe. Rien. Nada. Zip. Zilch.
Sadly, however, the same cannot be said of the rest of Longleat forest, and this has become something of a bugbear of mine over recent weeks. For me, a ride is partially spoiled when I’m nipping gazelle-like [don’t laugh] through some sinewy singletrack deep in the undergrowth only to find a discarded carrierbag with an empty six-pack of “Monster” cans nearby.
I’m certain that BCC members are not responsible. But there’s an awful lot of litter around the trails we use. A Mule-bar wrapper here, a Powerade bottle there. Everybody drops litter. Sometimes accidentally. Even I’ve been known to stuff a wrapper in my pocket only to find it’s not there by the end of the ride. I had to punish myself quite severely for that one.
So, it’s a big forest, but if we approach it methodically, I reckon we can put a substantial dent in the litter levels out there. I suggest a Bike Ride/Litter Patrol one evening, which will combine a leisurely ride with litter collection along the way. It should only take an hour or two if there’s enough of us. We’ll set off for a section of the forest in pairs, each with an empty rucksack, lined with a bin-liner. One rider fills the others person’s rucksack so he/she doesn’t have to keep taking it off or putting it on. Simple as.
I realise collecting other people’s litter is an unpleasant chore, but as well as giving you that inner glow of being really useful, there will be the added incentive of free drinks/cakes for all do-gooders supplied from Mr Denham’s van. I have also hidden a £50 note in an empty Quavers packet somewhere in the forest. And if nothing else it’s a gesture of goodwill to the Longleat estate, proving that we genuinely care about the forest we ride in.
A show of hands, first, please, to see who’s willing to help out. So as not to intrude on the Tuesday Nightrides, I suggest a Thursday evening and maybe starting earlier than 7pm? Possibly even THIS Thursday (21st Apr) to make the most of the good weather?
Ok, we know that the 5 day deadline may have been a bit short for some, so in the interest of everyone getting a jersey at the low price of £30 (and so that you get it in time for the summer) we’ve decided to offer each member a two week IOU option, where they can order one jersey and have up to the 16th April to pay for it in FULL.
We would still need the orders to be in by this Sat night at midnight, and would issue you with an invoice that you would have 2 weeks to clear.
Hopefully this will help some of you.
If you’d like to take us up on this offer please email me details of which jersey you would like
It’s taken a while but we’ve finally got there and we are now taking orders through the on-line shop. Thank you for being patient! The Jersey printers have put our design into their template and have given the OK for the 5 different colour options so long as we order at least 6 of each colour. Therefore, when you place your order you will be asked to choose a second choice colour just in case we have to reduce the number of options.
There are 4 different styles of jersey:
Freeride short sleeve (loose fit)
Freeride long sleeve (loose fit)
Road (XC) short sleeve (tight fit)
Road (XC) long sleeve (tight fit)
Below are the jersey sizes when the jersey is laid flat. Compare these sizes against your favourite jersey then choose the closest one so that you know it will fit. Unfortunately we have not been given the sleeve length for the long sleeve road jersey but I imagine that the sleeve lengths will be similar to that of the freeride jersey.
Small (Chest 34-36”)
Medium (Chest 36-38”)
Large (Chest 38-40”)
XL (Chest 40-42”)
XXL (Chest 42-44”)
All jerseys will be printed to order and the order will be placed on the 4/4/2011. Therefore all orders must be placed before midnight on Saturday 2/4/2011. We need this order to be as large as possible so that we get the cheapest price possible, if we get an order of 40+ jerseys then £5 will be refunded to members for every jersey purchase, making them only £30 each, AND we’re going to refund all postage costs. Can’t say fairer than that ey?!
Any future orders will only be placed when there is an accumulation of 15 jersey orders, so if you want one or three get your order in NOW!
Once the order is placed we expect the printing process to take 4-6 weeks so fingers crossed we should have them ready for the Erlestoke 12.
(anyone who has bought a voucher can redeem it by sending an email to committee@blackcanoncollective.co.uk with details of what jersey they would like (cut | sleeve-length | colour | size) thank you)
So we have our candidates ready for you to vote for at Sunday’s AGM – 17:00 Sunday at the Allotment (remember the clocks go forward on Saturday night) – remember you can always vote for RON (Re Open Nominations) but we hope you’ll not want to!
Sunday’s race was a bit special, firstly it was themed a Retro Race, and secondly it was the last in the winter series, meaning that final standings and pride were at stake. The track was different from anything else we’ve raced so far, although it shared about 40meters of BBMS the two couldn’t be further appart in terms of flow or feel. Based on MCC (the Dinner ’til Dusk descent) the track was marked wide to encourage line choice, and drawn out to make pedalling a necessity. With no real features to speak of we were pleased to be able to allow riders with open face helmets meaning that the event was accessible to many who otherwise wouldn’t have take part. A featureless track may sound a bit tedious, especially one with no bermed corners on a track that consisted of a wide loamy channel, but I can honestly say that it generated some of the most fun riding and close racing we’ve had all series.
Now, as for the theme and dress code, well, lets just say that some people got more than a bit scared of lycra, peakless helmets and generally not looking super cool. It’s funny but this race also showed just how many riders we have who consider a non carbon v10 to be retro and their oldest kit is newer than any of mine!
Thankfully the vast majority got into the spirit of things and took off their peaks and donned the funkiest looking riding gear they could find. Worthy of a special mention are Chris smith who was sporting the saggiest lycra bibs I think I’ve ever seen, (if he’d have worn his Rock Shox beanie I would have wee’d a bit) Dan Irons who looked like a pro GT rider from the 90’s thanks in no small part to the best looking bullet helmet ever made, the giro madmax, and Garry Newton who managed to make us laugh even more than normal by riding in both retro lycra and on a pair or Red Ritchy Zmax tyres that made him look like he was riding in different (far wetter) conditions to the rest of us. Hero.
Now for the racing.
Sam Chedgy managed to put in an good early time that meant he was fastest for the first quarter of an hour, but it wasn’t long before some more riders started penning up their times and the board started to fill up… Curtis Saunders struggled to get to grips with the idea of non-bermed corners as he managed to come off his bike on almost every run due to his kamikaze like corner commitment. Ben Irons suffered a mechanical right at the start meaning that he was reliant upon the generosity all day so had his work cut out. Chris Smith put in some fast times right from the start, but then decided to play cat and mouse rather than over exert himself, something he may now be regretting. Liam Arkell was, as has come to be expected, flying up the leader board with his Pocket Rocket style and ability to chip away every run. I was off the pace except for one flying run, only to find out that the watch hadn’t recorded a time, gutted, Steve Corner impressed on his first ever TickerTape, looking to improve and learning fast. Andrew Armstrong also managed to put in a great performance in his first TickerTape taking 15 seconds off his time and giving his son a run for his money too. Chris Marsland put in some fast runs and looked suitably retro (as always) before racing Simon Truelove in a pump race in tribute to Chris’ home from home, Bath BMX . Ric Mclaughlin chickened out of wearing the MBUK skin suit but seemed to be having a great time racing his test Moerwood. Ric’s done two TickerTape special events now (Triple Crown and Retro) so he was familiar with the set-up and soon managed to take over 7 seconds off of his time. With over 30 riders competing the board managed to fill up pretty quick and has become an almost unreadable mess (hence the lack of results spreadsheet from me so far), thankfully Calum’s groupies didn’t want to race or else we would have needed to use the blackboard too.
As for the results, well…
Chris Smith was pipped to the win by Curtis who has owned every race he entered this series and Liam wasn’t far behind in 3rd. Steve Corner was awarded the King of the Hill T shirt for an awesome first attempt, and Curtis was awarded the Rose Bikes RAD award for his all out committed style over the day.
As for best dressed, well I awarded that to myself for being more french that almost anyone could deal with.
Thanks to everyone who helped set up and pack away, to Shimano for the race tape and Rose Bikes for the prizes.
The Series round up and overall results will be published shortly…
Check out the ace photos taken by Dan Irons of Facade Photography there’s also an awesome video by Liam Arkell showing the track in full, and some footage of lycra clad messing about taken after the race.
