Trials.

A few months ago I was speaking to my mate Aidan. "I'm going to get a crosser." he stated.
A "crosser," or motocross bike, is a pretty highly tuned, maintenance hungry, two wheeled money pit. A bit more of a discussion revealed Aidan was just after something to do some mild trail riding and use off road. A crosser would be a bit much for this, being better suited to, well, motocross tracks. I suggested a few light trail bikes as well as a trials bike. For those of you who don't know, a trials bike is a light weight, low geared machine that you see skilled riders battering up waterfalls and over other big obstacles. You can get an older bike in OK condition for about the £1000 mark.
A few weeks and a fair bit of research later, Aidan had himself a 2002 Sherco 290. The beauty of trials is you don't need a huge space to ride the bike. So we found a few spots to rip about before I got us permission to ride a wee bit of private land. The downside to Aidan's new purchase was me getting bombarded with "Whenur ye gettin a trials bike? Whenur ye gettin a trials bike? Whenur ye gettin a trials bike? Whenur ye gettin a trials bike? Whenur ye gettin a trials bike? Whenur ye gettin a trials bike? Whenur ye gettin a trials bike? Whenur ye gettin a trials bike?"

Riding someone else's bike means you're always holding back a bit. I was a bit reluctant to tackle the challenges we were setting ourselves with the same enthusiasm as Aidan. It's one thing to crash your own bike, but it would be pretty bad to fuck someone's new toy up, even if they did say it didn't matter. 

The badgering to get a trials bike grew as did the obstacles. I was up at Tim's campsite in Strontian where we got speaking about trials riding. Tim had a 1998 Beta Techno 250 which he hadn't ridden for well over a year. Some haggling was done, a price was agreed on and we had ourselves a trials bike. When I say "we" I mean Faithir and I. I had convinced my dad that trials riding would be great fun, agreeing to buy the bike off him when he wanted rid off it, which would hopefully coincide with the finished restoration and sale of my KDX200. We were setting off on the Norway/Russia trip (coming soon) so I arranged to head back up to Tim's with the van to collect the Beta when we were home.

Fast forwards a couple of months. Faithir's thinking about selling the trials bike to fund another project. I've got a Yamaha FZR250 that needs restored. Another quick conversation and I'd swapped my Japanese classic for the Beta.  Time to start climbing that steep learning curve.

Trials riding can be a ying and yang of frustration and reward. When you get it right it's amazing, but the slightest hesitation, unconfident approach or physical fatigue and you'll find yourself on your arse. Aidan had been getting plenty practice and had been to a few trials events so I'm definitely on a catch up. I'm still getting the basics together, but its starting to come together. My main problem seems to be not attacking something fast enough, but as I said, its getting there.

The bike's needing a few tweeks here and there too. I found that the clutch master cylinder seal was gubbed recently. I'd driven up into the hills with the bike in the van so I figured I may as well head out for a bit. All was going well until I made an arse of a wee step. My fingers stopped the clutch disengaging because the fluid was low. I flapped about for a few meters before binning the bike. I landed on top of the Beta. While I was assessing my injuries (none) I found I was lying on the hot exhaust. "OOOYAA BASTARD!!!" (burnt leg) 

As I said, it's a steep learning curve.

Mike

Proper winter. Braw.

England went into fucking meltdown at the weekend. They were hammered by extreme and treacherous weather. About 2cm of fucking snow. There was one woman on the news banging on about how bad it all was, like the world had fucking ended. She was really worried that all the snow they had would freeze and she'd be doomed. There was still grass visible in the park behind her for fuck sake.
Up here in Scotland we also had snow but we embraced it like true people of nature. It was fucking quality.
my Pugsley was originally designed as a snow bike, it just happens to work really well on sand and other soft places. So it was great to get out in some proper dry powder snow.

Friday night the snow started to fall so I went for a short spin around the village before going for a pint in the Winton with Faithir.

The snow fell for the rest of the night and Saturday was nice and bright with plenty gid snow. It was pretty warm too, I had a really nice cycle on my own around Saltoun. I never got many miles in though, I was feeling pretty fucking out of shape since not being on the bike much recently from being fucking ill all the time., so it was Saltoun and hame. 

Even with the floatation from the tyres the Pugsley broke through the ice here on the Saturday and on Sunday.

Saturday's spin was followed by a Sunday spin with Paul and Peter. We followed a similar route but added in Kinchie, Woodhall and the Winton woods. Still lots of nice snow and a wee bit deeper than Saturdays cycle. It was good crack getting out in the snow with those roadie bastards, and Paul even managed a fucking awesome jump of a wee bridge but the Gopro's battery died just before he pulled it off. (the jump)

He'll be converted soon.

Caption on a postcard to......

Caption on a postcard to......

I had the Gopro with me on both days and I made a couple of videos. They're nearly identical apart from the music, leave a comment to what you think is better. The Vimeo one's music is Orbital and the Youtube one has Leftfield. "Both are pish" is also an option.

Snowfuds from yodagoat on Vimeo.

Orbital

Leftfield

The snow fell heavy on Monday but that didn't stop me and Gary getting out for a spin that night. Not many miles covered again though. This was fucking hard going, some of the deepest snow I've cycled through. Even with the Pugsley I was struggling to get though. 

We headed back up the hill to Saltoun, the first bit was shite and slushy and I thought it was going to be a pish cycle, but only a few metres higher and the snow was getting deep and drifting. I got about three quarters of the way up the woods before I had so walk and push. If I was a bit fitter and stronger I could have maybe made the top but it was seriously hard going. If I stopped to catch my breath it was fucking hard to get going again, plus the bike had picked up loads of snow as had Gary's. It was tough going and cold but we still had a good laugh and finished the night off with a pint and a pie in the Winton. Fucking quality.

At the bottom of the woods.

Halfway up.

At the top.

Braw.

You see me rollin'.....

Ok, when I last left this we had one fucked Pugsley, a sick ass new car and...... a shiney new frame!
The new Pugsley frame was built up a couple of weeks back, thanks to Dave at Law Cycles for getting me one nice and quick. I got the frame resprayed Porsche peppermint green again by Colin at Smillie Paint who gave it the usual flawless finish and Dave G gave me another hand building it up and swapping the parts of the old frame.
All left to do was to get out and ride the fucker!

I met up with Bruce and some of the folk from the UK Fatbike forum for the usual cycle out to the submarines at Aberlady Bay then along to North Berwick for a spicy haggis and chips. Braw.

We met these guys at Berwick Law, the big metal thing is a listening device the girl is making for her uni project. They said the couldn't hear much due to the wind and it was really cold on their lugs! The ear muffs they have planned should fix that.

Listening device.

A few days after that I headed up the Lammermuirs with Paul. There had been some snow fall so I wanted to get up for a play about on the Pugsley. The first bit of the track up was sheet ice, it was a fucking nightmare to walk on never mind cycle on but we eventually made it to the top of Lammer Law without any crashes, which is a fucking miracle considering Paul's current track record.

Lammer Law Summit.

I had my Gopro with me so I've made a video using some bits filmed on these cycles and some from a spin I went on with Roli the dog the other day. The song is One Big Moment by Orbital. Paul, Gary, Bob, Gav, Tom the Bass and myself went to see Orbital in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago, I was bouncing about all over the place at the front. It was fucking epic.

Orbital

Here's the video, you might have to open it on vimeo to view it in HD.

Pugsley in December. from yodagoat on Vimeo.

What happened here?? Comments below.....