I should apologize now for the length of this, but i just love to talk!!

To say i had been waiting a long time for Maribor to come around would be an understatement. My mind had been at maribor for over a year, always there in the back of my head, ticking over, tickling my fancy, wondering.

On the tuesday before Maribor, gee, myself and ben reid were up the crazy wobbler by our house riding DH, with frith driving uplifts the darling! having raced fort william at the weekend and ridden dirt jumps all monday, i was pretty tired and knew deep down i should take the day off, but the wobbler is so fun and i love it so much off we went.

First run and right near the bottom there a real steep tight turn that you sort of have to hop and turn into, committed like, anyway, for some reason this time i punched my hand on a tree on the outside of the turn as i hopped in and squashed my little finger, i thought, ‘’shit that was close i nearly went over the bars” i rode on a bit then thought, something feels weird, my hand was so numb and the finger a really funny shape but i could bend it around ok so didn’t think it was too bad, then it started hurting bad and i felt sick so i was pretty worried then.

At home i iced the thing up, tiger balmed her, and watched lord of the rings with affy, but it was still hurting so much so i went to get an xray, turns out the little finger bone was shattered and splintered a treat. when i saw the xray, and saw how swollen and blue the thing had gone, well it felt like my heart actually just cracked in half.
Pain and fear and tiredness always makes things seem worse than they are and so i was picturing missing the first world cup and not being able to ride for a while, i was gutted, it seemed so unfair that the whole winter could pass without injury and the day before we leave for the first big race, boom, the gods strike.

When i got home the boys were brilliant,whilst i was wallowing in self pity and tears, wondering weather i had the nerve to face the amount of pain that i was certain riding with my finger would bring, after so much pain through the year, i just didn’t know if i could face it.
gee said that id have no trouble toughing up and getting the job done, affy said that he didn’t think id be able to ride, and so with these usual and so different opinions came the grit that i needed to toughen up whilst being sensible…

We got to stanstead airport and just about to get on the plane when darren, our coach called and said the hand specialist could see me that afternoon, thinking i might need to get a little re-wiring done after maribor i hot footed it out the airport, upto manchester, saw the doc, then flew out the next day.

Arriving in Maribor i soon realised that the rain and mist was set in for the weekend, which for the first time ever i wasn’t too stoked about! I had thought for a nice dry track, easy to roll down and learn with no crashes on the pinkie, but in the wet i knew it to be slippery and sketchy and crash heavy!
Our new team pits this year are so dope, i love them, theres plenty of space inside for everyone to breathe and chill out, and the feelings floating around are happy and easy, stevie and andy the mechanics are doing a dead on job and browny is taking his work to the next level, i could not manage without him, in the words of King Lenoardos himself: ”You are only as strong as the warrior next to you”

After walking the track which looked so DOPE, and trying to avoid every single world cup racer walking it too! (because all the chit chat is too much for me!) but walked the last bit with Al bond and Ems davies, my welsh companions (and Emyr owner of the send r tidy shoes!) i was so gutted thinking that i wasn’t going to be able to attack it and smash all the sections up cos of my finger, it looked so much fun, all muddy and sliding around and wild, practise came around and i spent a good hour making up ways of strapping pinkie, trying foam on the grips, everything, in the end i settled for just a regular bit of tape around my 2 fingers once my glove was on and a good chunk of foam on the grip so that pinkie could stick out and rest on it without getting wobbled around too much.

The ride down to the track, which is either down a fun little berm track or flat down the piste, that first time, was gnarly! i got such bad hand pump holding on with 2 fingers and braking like crazy, i didn’t think id be able to ride the real track at all, but then i got to thinking about the film 300, which i watched on the aeroplane, and i got to realising what real hardship is, what real pain can be, how gnarly some people are, that there is no room for weakness, and only the hard and strong become spartan warriors! I rode down saying to myself, SPARTANS NEVER RETREAT, SPARTANS NEVER SURRENDER, AND BY SPARTAN LAW, WE WILL STAND AND FIGHT, AND DIE. It made me grit my teeth and get on with it.

Im not gunna say it hurt like mad because it wasn’t pain like i know pain can be, it hurt, i had to deal with it, the worst parts were once you get up to speed a bit, trying to hold on in the 2nd half was hard work,my hand and arm kept wanting to just give up and let go, then id smash a big braking rut so hard and then it would be real pain like i know it can be!
I stopped that first day a few times and cried in my goggles, but my spartan king kept me going, i swear i wouldn’t have gotten very far without that film, i watched bits of it aft every practise run, the fight scenes when they just lock themselves down with their shields and take whatever comes at them, the way that they are unfalteringly and perfectly accurate with their weapons, the way they joke around with each other as the wield and kill people, and their grim determination, i mean, they pretty much know they are going to die, but that is the honour, the glory, ”SPARTANS, PREPARE FOR GLORY”, there are some gold dust quotes in that film, and see me through a tough race they did!

I think i might be being a little dramatic about the whole thing, but it felt dramatic to me!!
It was a weird race right from the start really, id been thinking and waiting for it for so long, then all of a sudden the sensus shifted and at the start i was going into the weekend looking for a top 3 at best, if you please sir. When something big is happening and it takes the focus off the winning of the race itself and onto the more pressing matter of whatever it may be, i think it works wonders. I felt so relaxed and unbothered all weekend, instead of worrying about lines or who was going where or whatever, i just knew that i had to find my own line down the track, one that was lovely and smooth and right for me, and then just ride it, doing whatever was best for my finger, giving me the best chance at getting down in a good time and safely.
It was also weird because the format had changed since i last raced, mainly being that now you have a full day friday to practise, then a little practise saturday with qualifying saturday afternoon, more practise sunday then racing.
Normally im used to 2 ful days of practise, so i spend most of the first day dribbling around going slowly and wondering where to go, then 2nd day a little faster, then race day BOOOM, but not its like, a few runs and you feel you should be at full tilt because qualifying is TOMORROW!! I wasn’t allowed to do top 20 womens practise either, being number 30, so that was 2 hours less which freaked me out until i realised that walking the track and watching the top 80 men practising in the dry was better because it was going to PISS down later anyway! hahahaha

The rain, as it turned out, as normal, became my friend.
She reared her long neck and flicked her eyelashes apart, showering us all weekend with her tears of heartbreak and anguish, her pain whipping the winds into a frenzy, and her torment becoming all too clear to us down below, i felt sorry for her, the rain queen, up there all alone, bearing this huge unthinkable pain, tears spilling down her cheeks and whilst watching us all trying to hide from them, moaning about the wet and mud, covering ourselves in jackets and tear offs, blocking out her cry for help, so i tried to do the best thing i could, i tried to get out there and show her that it was ok, that it was fun, that she had made it better for us, not worse, that her pain was not unnoticed and that we could feel it too, the mud and water a constant reminder to us that she was up there and hurting, no one ignored it for long and soon everyone was just accepting it and trying to help her along.

Woah, sorry, got a bit carried away there, i just cant explain how the rain makes me feel, it makes things more predictable under wheel, and it gives me a sort of safety blanket to hide in, me and my bike splashing through the rain happy as larry whilst everyone shelters and squeals!heehee
Saying that, the rain does make for interestingly difficult riding, practising pulling my tear offs became a major task during the weekend, and the fact that a slippery wet wriggling root could sneak across the track in front of me and flick me onto my poorly finger made me quite fearful and rather slow on my bike. I didn’t do the first jump until just before qualifying when i followed Baltic Reid in, oh boy did the landing hurt! Then i did the last jump at the bottom same run, made it fine. I gave up on this step down thing in the top woods into the worlds slidiest corner because it looked to me that the hole you were to land in was honestly Slovenias biggest hole they have ever produced and i didn’t think my finger would let me hold on hard enough.

Qualifying was quite literally a big surprise, i guess as soon as its a real start and a real timed world cup run, i put the best run of the weekend down so far which really isn’t saying much because i had practised SO SLOW!
The weekend was turning out to be one of those times when you are riding along, even at the fastest you have gone so far, and you are just whistling and chugging along, thinking how slow you are going, its so weird when races are like that, when you are riding and you know you are going slow slow slow, you can see the trees and bushes real clearly, but you cant go any faster because you know that if you do you’ll get too tired for later on so you have to go a bit slow and save energy!! whew!
anyway, actually knowing that when all’s said and done i could just put the old finger troubles on the back boiler and try my best, it gave me some confidence for race morning practise! Oh yes, the last jump…in qualifying i tried to jump it as i had done earlier that day, my lack of race experience (!) not letting me know that hours of rain plus hundreds of riders would make it way slower and harder, i sent the old girl and realised once i got up there i was not going to make it, i thought an even bigger pencil than normal might help so the front wheel was way up there, i hung up so bad and flicked over the bars realllllll hard, straight onto my head and shoulders, the old pinkie took a good bashing, as did everything else, my shoe came off and i had a right headache, and mud EVERYWHERE! even up my nose, once i realised that i was really ok just a bit dazed, i looked around for my bike which was wandering away so i wobbled over to it and looked up to see Browny, eyes HUGE yelling CROSS THE LINE! i had forgotten that i wasn’t top 20 and so wasn’t ”protected”, i was sure i wasn’t going to qualify and i was so upset, my body hurt a lot, but my heart hurt worse, no racing tomorrow, i couldn’t believe it.

Stood out the back of the truck on the grass, head to toe in mud, the muddiest i have ever been, with browny and martin the masseur tugging my gloves off me cos my hand hurt too much, jet washing me down, i had to laugh, it was pretty funny really, it was just so MUDDY! it was funny, but there was a strangled sob in there too, until browny got news that i had managed to qualify 15th, so all was not lost, then i was ok and just happy to not be worse off.

I just read this all back and it sounds terribly Rachel oriented, i would like to talk about how much fun it was riding with everyone, the boys from back home, gee and dan, but in actual fact i kept pretty much to myself all weekend, which is a bit weird in itself, normally distractions are welcomed!

Don’t get me wrong, it felt fanTAStic to be back with my bros, its such a long time since we all raced a world cup, and the first gondola to the top we took together, we said just that, how weird it was being at a world cup again, ready to ride, and i did know then how lucky i was to have them both, until they left me for dust in the first turn! hahaha the devils didn’t wait for me! im too slow!

so thats the first 2 days of the first world cup, im going to leave it here and post the next one separately, and ill test you on them both, so ill know if you’ve read it all!

cheerio then..

that is the word of the weekend. Fantastic track, fantastic weather, fantastic people, Fantastic!

Lllangollen hosted the welsh championships this weekend and boy was it good! Drive up over the valley from my house, past my mums house and there is the race, it was so rad driving over the valleys through all the local farms to get to an event that i was so excited to do!
I love doing local races so much, almost more than any other races, i dont know what it is, weather its driving in Affys beat up pickup with my DH bike in the back, or the flask of coffee for lunchtime, or knowing that ill be spending the weekend with my boys, (as i now refer to Gaz, Al and Joe) doing Big low down thumbs up, or the fact that everyone is just so happy, or that its always muddy and i love mud, i dont know what it is but i flippin LOVE IT!!

The track at Llangollen is capital A. Awesome. Saturdays practise saw the most perfect conditions ever, little muddy but grip as good as can be. The track flew along a straight at the top a few hundred yards long, little bustops and flicks and wheelies and then S.T.E.E.P as you like to the bottom.
Its all out in the open bracken, and turn, steeeeep straight, turn, steeep straight all the way, then a few gap jumps and done.
it was unreal how fun it was, you could just point and shoot and control your fall to the bottom, you had to pick your line pretty good to start with, getting the insides so you missed all the huGE ruts, good exit speeds and stuff, but mainly the better your line the faster you could go in as straight a line as possible so it more fun!
I would get to the bottom of every run and just fizzle away, jumping up and down on the spot and going zzzzzzeeeeeee because it was so BRILLIANT,i couldnt contain the excitement at all and at the end of the day my face was aching so much from smiling and laughing all day!

Riding down behind folk was so funny, everyone was face first or legs at funny angles trying to stay on, you would have to swish past people on inside or outside lines you didnt know were there, if you decided you wanted to stop on the steepest bit you just couldnt so you had to just hold on and muscle your way down untill you hit a turn nice and slowed up.

The top section was so good because you could high line then drop in to the miiint berm, smash the next inside, hop over the rut to the inside of the corner then hope again into the rut then BOOOM hit the turn and stop, look back up and watch the lads coming down, flying left right and center, Gazzy B’s arms were halfway down the hill before his feet had even come off the pedals!

Loads of people crashed on this one turn and their bikes went Miles down the hill, no joke, we pushed up the first day, first run, and this one bike came right to the bottom, so on race day they stationed a bloke there,middle of the hill, i assume he was there to catch people and bikes alike!

On my 2nd race run i got to the steepest straight middle bit and just started laughing because it was ruined! the mud was so deep and sticky with devilish slabs and shale underneath so you couldnt slow at all, the turns had just gone,the tape having long since been abandoned, so now it was a literal straight line, steep as foook, the track had been replaced by ruts, holes, rocks and slabs, piles of bumps and devastation! it was literally just hold on and smash through, everyone was in the same boat, same track, same fantastic smiles and the spectators loved it, shouting advice and encouragement and ooohhh no’s when someone flicked over the bars.

Binoculars were the top equipment tip of the day, watching the top fellas coming down was like watching a different sport to us, the guys just floated down, tapping a turn here and there, not even fussed, i was very excited!

The guys driving the uplifts had their work cut out so thumbs up to them very much, they were all rad local boys, real interested, nice to meet!
Everyone worked super hard on the even, mike marsden did good, the marshals did good with so many crashes and victims carted off, red flags galore!
The Farmer, Chief, did good, marking the track out and digging in the blown out turns, we walked it after first day and he was at the very first turn and it was pouring rain, getting dark and he was loving it! good man. sign up to the all new llangollen bike club, facebook has all you need to know!

I left the race very very happy, BIG low down thumbs up. 32nd place overall and Welsh Champ, im welsh at heart and on paper now! So stoked. The girls did good today too, the track was real physical and most of them made it down good! A few black eyes, broken noses and things, nothing they cant fix! AND the boys on the welsh podium too, after Brendan took the official win, Joe Smith is Welsh Champ, Al Bond 2nd after some mega crashes and Gaz Brewin 3rd on board his commencal. Tidy.

its brilliant because Jack fell in love with the biking as much as we had, he loves watching it, driving his tractor full of riders up to the top of the hill, towing cars out of the mud, then he even took it a step further and starred in his own video…look it up on you tube ”farmer jack and athertons” or something.
ANYWAY…so Easter weekend saw everyone, from all the corners of the UK, pulling up into Jacks field at Moelfre, ready for a fun few days. I arrived Saturday morning and what followed was THE BEST 2 days ive had for AGES!

After getting completely sideways in the mud in Affys truck which i borrowed, i slid to a stop next to Gary Brewin, Joe Smith, Al Bond and the Belks, all of whom had also just got their drifts on in the field. We knew it was going to be a good day!
i wont bore you with details of who went where, what did what, which went which etc, but i will list all the things that made it such a TOP 3 WEEKEND EVER!

* The Muddy, Dirty, Muddy, Stinking ground.
so much fun to ride and slide around in.

* The Welsh. All The Lads from around Here!
being away so long in winter means i miss the hanging out with the lads so much, we have so much fun, i feel like a kid again, its a top feeling.

* Rolling Gazzy Bs (gareth brewin) wheel down the hill
it missing every tent and van and going all the way miles down the hill.

* Driving slideways in Gaz’s landrover to pick his wheel up.

*Jack Pant Glas
or Farmer Jack, always so interested in everything, big smile and big tractor.

*Al Bonds face when presented with my flask of coffee!
and Matt Simmonds face when presented with said flask, swapped a cup of it for a chip. good deal!

* Driving slideways across the field in Als truck with us all in so he could do a pee on the fence.

*Trying to follow Joe Smith down the switchbacks and realizing i can NOT!

* Watching the guys put away an unfortunate amount of chocolate bars in the day!

*Doing the wheelbarrow in the field. (where someone holds your feet and you walk on your hands)

*Talking non stop chit chat on the uplifts to people.

* the Tractors getting VERY slideways in the mud!

*Driving the truck out of the muddy field at the end of the first day, WAYHEYYY

*Ralph Jones’ hair, so long and luscious!

*Missing my first race run to go to the woods over the hill and do 5 runs with the brothers, then going back to race last run. top days riding.

*Tudor Jones cycling from his house to the race, 3 hours. 100 %!

*The LOWEST thumbs up on the way home following gaz-
Low thumbs up- when you hang your arm down as low to the ground as possible, or out the window when driving, its a welsh thing, youll love it.

I think the general pattern is that its been a long time since i did a race, let alone a nice local race surrounded by good friends and fine welsh sun.

i hate to swear but i cant seem to not, it was FUCKING brilliant!

I loved every second of it, hanging with the lads, the little lads, pitting out of Affys truck, being so muddy, the sunshine, the chatter, the laughing, just the very back to normalness of it all, exactly why i started racing in the first place, because it was SO MUCH FUN!

the race went smoothly, everything was dead on and so thank you michael marsden and borderline events for putting these races on, i love them so much!

Keep ‘er Tidy.

The track was rad fun, fast with loads of things to hop and gaps to play about on, my bike felt fantastic, with some changes from last year its never been better at going downhills at a generous pace!
I’ve raced this race at the start of the year for AGES so its nice to know the track and know what to expect.
Then the rain came and it was wet as an otters pocket, there was a huge dirty bog at the top which became unreal as the days went on, and ended up a pure sprint pushing so hard thru’ it, just to make it out the other side to the rest of the wet,muddy top section. Holy Bajaysus, loads of people ran thru’ it, how I wish the YZ was between my legs!

Anyway, after that the track was so sick, amazing dirt, just the right amount of mud, hard work, fast, loved it so much. Everyone was cheerful and loud and it was a wicked race to come back and win, relaxed and happy. Gee won too and we planted some trees after which is lovely as we’ll be able to see them grow year after year! Cheers and High Fives to Team Commencal of Portugal for letting us pit with them, they are a bunch of pinners and mighty fun!

My top ten moment of the weekend was when Gee realised late the night before the race that he had just spent an hour in warm soapy water cleaning MY extra small helmet, not his own medium one!! ohhhh how i laughed as he swore and dispared!
i eventually took pity and cleaned his for him, but it was so funny!
We slept in the hottest hotel room ever in the world ever EVER, all the heaters on to try and dry out our riding kit that we had invented some brilliant hanging devices for! (see the pic of our Signature Shimano Shoes..they DOPE!)
The corridor outside smelt like a cheese shop as the smell from DIRT Norcos room (stanny, baltic and Ali) leaked out, wow, what a smell! they didn’t know what it was so i sniffed my way around their room, not Stannys body armour or Baltics helmet pads, but UGGHHH, definitely Alis socks! they were rotten i swear it, they had dried out and were stuck out dead straight from the shelf, rotting cheesy smelly boy socks. YUCK! so anyway, a really wonderful start to a hopefully wonderful year.

Back to Finale Ligure, Italy now for some more DH, the unveiling of our new team kit and bikes, some tough ass gym sessions then the return to The Nog, north wales for some serious action in the hills.

When Dan, Gee and I were young, all our parents would paly us was folk music and stuff like this, they loved it, we loved it. We totally grew up on the SawDoctors, the Dubliners, Pogues, Honest John, that kind of stuff. It so Rad, true music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtAxF3BQFRg&feature=PlayList&p=BB892262F6DD7C8C&index=0&playnext=1

One memory that stands out for me is driving home from a BMX race when i was about 8 with dad and the bro’s, I had gotten 2nd place to this girl who i was battling all year, and was not that happy about it! This song came on and i just sang so loud to it ”To win just once would be enough…” that song has stuck with me all these years and although winning is not everything, it is quite wonderful and i always sing it at races at some point or other.

Me and my mum went to see them last year, it was my first time but Mum and Dad have seen them so so much, they used to go out with their friends and see them at pubs and gigs whilst all the kids stayed in one house messing around, theyd come home all merry singing the songs, one day mum brought home a signed Cassette tape by the whole band, it was fantastic!
When mum and I saw them last year, i have never had such a brilliant night EVER, perhaps only topped by AC/DC, but im not sure at all. It was AMAZING having them right there in front of me, in liverpool on the docks, pretty small venue, they just blew the place apart, SO enthusiastic, you would not have thought that they had been doing it for years and years, the passion, the interaction with the crowd, they were right there and present for every person.
Mum and I were going nuts crazy dancing singing waving cheering it was amazing!
Everyone was the same and i was struck by how the youngsters were just as into it as the older folks!

Woweee what a fantastic band, there music strikes a note with every feeling you can ever feel, it brings me back time and time again to memories of my childhood and what Fucking brilliant memories they were! I remember one time, Mum had gone to Ireland for an irish dancing weekend and gee and I were feeding my horse, and listening to this song called ”The Green and Red of Mayo”, its kinda slow and a bit sad and i got upset that mum would not come home and stay in ireland because its such a fantastic place, then i fell out of the hayloft onto my head! Blummin heck it hurt! so that song reminds me of that!

Anyway, i just wanted to share with you guys how fantastic they are…