Jeeeee Wilikers!
It has been such a long time since i wrote anything on here, the confounded technology that is twitter and facebook…aka ‘takes about a second to update’ stole my words for a few weeks. but no more!
The main reason i’ve failed to update is because i can’t seem to write just a quick update on the latest, i always write so much and this time is no different!
So much has happened since last time, namely that i got back on the old Down hill bike.
We went to schladming about a week before the last world cup was there, me, the brothers, Dan stanny Stanbridge, Ben baltic Reid and his mechanic Alastair Beckett.
After squashing 4 of us, bike bags and kit bags into the smallest hire car ever, (4 in the drivers seat it felt like)
we arrived and my heart was practically leaping from my chest. It had been almost a year to the day since i had last ridden downhill, and boy was i ready to go!
We got to the top of the race track, the boys were extremely hesitant to let me ride down it, but i insisted that i had been riding some pretty gnarly XC all year and so wasn’t a complete off road virgin!
They all set off, i took a deep breathe and followed.
It was incredible! (apart from all of them stopping every 2 seconds to see if i was alright! )
I was pretty nervous, thinking that my bike would be too heavy, that i would have forgotten how to control myself on such a track etc etc, but it was almost instantaneous. As soon as i was a few corners in, the hesitancy and nerves were replaced by, well, by nothing.
Absolutely nothing in particular was in my head, it was like i had never been away. Everything was waiting for me where i had left it, in my Downhill riding drawer.
I was surprised how easy it felt, how easy it was to slip back into riding downhill, how natural my body felt on my bike. I was delighted when, at the end of the day, i realized that perhaps, if anything, i was better and more precise than before, but definitely slower!
One day we drove to this bike park along with a couple of NZ lads we met, it was raining SO HARD when we arrived and in seconds we were soaked to the skin and covered in mud. We all moaned a lot but secretly we were all loving it, and we rode all day long, run after run. Ive never had such a good day riding, it was so rad.
I would take a little short cut at the top of the track so that i would pop out in front of the guys, then ride in front of them shouting ”that’s it boys, follow me, you’re doing really well, keep up” and things, it was so funny cos we were going pretty slow, me leading and all, we were all laughing so hard and i kept nearly falling off because it was quite a hard track. Gee was in hysterics because at one point i tried to show off and go faster but forgot the track already and got a massive swap on and flopped into a tree and he crashed into me! Im smiling even now!
It sounds so simple but it had been such along time since we had all ridden like that together and baltic and stanny are our oldest and closest friends, it was just like the good old days, with the welcomed and brilliant addition of Alastair! Gee and Affy almost made me cry because they said they had missed me this year at the races, riding with me and all that, and it was so lovely!
We had to break into an under-ground carpark to get changed because it was so wet, we took over the whole place with our muddy shite, it was pretty funny as everyone was looking really strange at us and i just wanted to shout ”YEAAA WE ARE CRAZY LOOPY BIKERS AND WE LOVE IT AND IM NEVER GOING TO STOP”, but i didnt!
After 4 days of solid riding, (and the lads sinking ALOT of kebabs) i was so tired. Every muscle ached, but luckily we had to stop because the world cup was starting. 2 days went by and i couldn’t handle not riding so for the last few days i rode the top of the mountain at schladming, the view was insanely beautiful, my shoulder felt pretty strong, and i was falling in love with riding all over again, i couldn’t have been happier!
I wont bother talking about the race because there’s so much to say, and i prefer talking about myself
When we got home from the race i had to take my sorry ass to the hospital and have a 2nd shoulder operation. I felt pretty sorry for myself, after feeling the downhill tracks again, to be back in a sling for 3 weeks.
I hid myself at home whilst the boys were away in Brazil and South Africa doing Redbull races, but then i got so many kind and lovely emails and things from people, some i knew and some i had never met, it cheered me up no end.
I’m so grateful to everyone for taking the time to say nice things, even when they themselves are having a hard time. So i want to say to everyone, ( thanks you!!) and weather you are having a hard time or whatever. hang in there. Time is an incredible healer, like they say. remember who you are, where you are going and how much fun it is going to be getting there!
Spread the love!! x

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Random Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.