July
24
2010
Here are a couple of videos from the recent Great Rock alps holiday. Nigel Page was supposed to be leading the skills part of the trip but he managed to break his hand, a couple of days before the trip started, during qualifying for the Megavalanche. Luckily Nigel sorted us out with an excellent local guide and Chris Kovarik, Matti Leikonen and Claire Buchar from the Chain Reaction Cycles/Intense team agreed to run the skills coaching days. Here’s a short video edit of Chris demonstrating cornering techniques on trails around Morzine.
Kovarik Korners from Ed Oxley on Vimeo.
And here’s a video of the lake jumping session that we were treated to by our chalet as part of a barbecue. Thanks to Jo and Tony from Chalet JoJo for looking after us in a friendly and great value style. There will be another alps holiday in the same area in 2011 and details will be up here in the next couple of weeks.
Lake Jumping from Ed Oxley on Vimeo.
July
16
2010
Tim doing the lake jump
We’re out in Morzine in the Alps at the moment on a Great Rock mountain bike skills and riding holiday. We’ve been having skills coaching led by the Chain Reaction Cycles/Intense downhill World Cup Team. Chris Kovarik, Matti Leikonen and Claire Buchar have been doing skills coaching and we have also had excellent local knowledge guiding across the French and Swiss Alps. The other night we had a barbeque laid on by our chalet where we also had a wooden ramp and a jump bike provided for us to take a dip in the lake. The water was surprisingly warm!
We drank beer with Kovarik and survived....
Chris Kovarik was a great coach, showing us lots of different cornering techniques on berms and flat turns, with plenty of foot out action. Then we went and drank lots of beer. We’ve got people on Orange Fives and other trail bikes as well as a couple of guys on downhill and freeride bikes. Everyone can progress by improving the basics and getting lots of practice in on the best trails in Europe. Happy days.
June
22
2010
Singletrack Classic Weekender DH Course Preview from Ed Oxley on Vimeo.
Me and Brant from Ragley Bikes went up to Lee Quarry yesterday to ride the different lines on the Singletrack Classic Weekender downhill course on our hardtails. You can still book a place for the weekend of fun and games and racing on 3rd and 4th July by clicking the link above.
June
3
2010
Cragg Quarry, Bacup from Tim Royle on Vimeo.
Great new video from Whitenosugar Productions featuring Rowan Sorrell, the trail designer and top rider, along with Ed Oxley (that’ll be me!) riding the trails at Cragg Quarry near Bacup, Lancashire.
Check out the dust, taste the roost! Get up there to ride if you get the chance. I’ll be using the trails at Cragg on the Flow course that I’m running on 21-22 August.
May
29
2010
Rowan Sorrell & Ed Oxley on the sunshine trails
I was up at Cragg Quarry last week showing some of the guys from Wideopen around the trails. They are going to be doing a feature in the next issue of their excellent online magazine. The photo is by Dennis Oates.
Here’s a news story about Cragg Quarry from the Wideopen website.
May
10
2010
photo from wideopenmag.co.uk
Proving that he has still got what it takes, Nigel took the win on the Fort William downhill track yesterday. He was up there for his job as the manager for the Chain Reaction Cycles/Intense World Cup downhill team. His team did well too with Kovarik 1st, Lehikoinen 4th, Simmonds 5th, camellini 6th, Cunningham 10th and Claire Buchar 2nd in elite women.
Nigel will be sharing his riding tips and tricks on our Alps holiday trip to Morzine in July this year. There are still some places left if you fancy learning from the master while taking in the great lift assisted riding of the area.
May
1
2010
We helped build it and now we're riding it. Here's Leon
The sun was shining on us, there were no gusts of wind and you could see for miles. In fact you could see all the way to the mountains of north Wales in one direction and up into the Dales in another. Around 30 of us rode up to Cragg Quarry, the latest development in Lancashire’s cutting edge mountain bike trail development program. Starting at the Buck Inn in Cowpe we hauled ourselves up the Mary Towneley Loop with a mixture of riding, pushing and heckling.
It's well worth going up this mental climb to ride the new trails
We rode a lap. Then some of us rode another. Then we did what these new trails just beg you to do. We played about on our bikes. Ride that berm again, get a better line, go faster. Stop for a natter. Ride some more. Go for a pint.
Nial was on it. Until he crashed, got in a strop and got shouted at by me...Oh well....
It's tight and it flows. Here's Tony Lund the main man of the project. Seems to be taking fashion cues from Chipps!
Mart is smiling because the trails are ace and he's heading for what's in the next photo...
A grand pint back at the Buck
April
29
2010
photo by Benji Haworth
I was lucky enough to be riding with a great bunch the other week, including Danny Macaskill, Rowan Sorrell, Joe Barnes and Aimee Dix, as part of an MTBcut video shoot for Mojo/Fox suspension. You can see the first part of the video with footage from Lee Quarry and Calderdale over on Singletrack World:
http://www.singletrackworld.com/2010/04/video-mojo-trail-diaries/
The photo above was taken on the descent from the Nan Bield Pass in The Lake District. I’ve done the usual Nan Bield loop a few times before, but this time we rode down what is usually the push / carry up. Proper ace, proper hard, proper tech, proper pass storming. Everyone apart from me was riding Orange Fives, proving how good the current 140mm trail bikes are and how they really can go anywhere. My trusty Ibis Mojo has stormed a few passes and yet again it took the whole trail in it’s stride. With a Fox 36 fork on the front it makes a true all mountain bike. Footage from that day will be in part two of the video, out any day now…
April
23
2010
It's mint it is
I’ve written a new ‘Digger’s Diary’ blog on the Singletrack website about Cragg Quarry. It’s really fun to ride up there and great for developing skills, especially flow, cornering and pumping the trail.
I’m running a Flow weekend skills course on 21/22 August where I’m planning to use Cragg Quarry on the Sunday (see the Flow tab above). If you want to book a private one to one day or group day at Cragg Quarry please get in touch.
April
20
2010
Get out there while the trails are dry and get your golden shred on……
