Puddletown

30th march 2008

Had to visit the dentist's back up my parents way this week, so decided to fit in a little biking while I was up there.

Meet up with my bros Steve, Phil and his mate Rich.
Steve doesn't ride very often, but what he lacks in skill and experience he more than makes up for with balls and ignorance of consequences!

Rich was trying out his new Astrix Havoc(I thought my bike was heavy).

Puddletown was the destination of the day. Being nice and sandy it tends to dry pretty quickly.

Started off with a few jumps by the car, unfortunately all the best jumps had super tacky mud at the foot of the takeoff.

Found a massive road gap, although I don't think it's finished, no run out or run in. But it was MASSIVE!
And some pretty big ladder drops.

Then we headed over to Sleepy Hollows for spin, found it to be in serious need of repair, wobbly, wet, broken in places, still gave it a bash though.

The trail below there is sweet, usually flows perfectly, berms, whoops dips and pump bumps, it's just like a Mini DH pump track. Today it seemed full of ponds! We all got soaked, but it was still great fun. New 5. 10s are much drier than my originals(if not quite as comfy yet.

Found some huge shonky shore by the BMX jumps(see pictures attached).

The next area we played at was a big table, you fly down a steep bank and launch off the lip, it's fairly safe, and a great place to build confidence. Steve started off looking shonky, but was soon charging down the run in and hitting it up. Not bad for a guy who hasn't tried jumping since we were about 13(15 years ago!).

Phil and Rich were hitting it up like only youngsters can. As usually it took me a few to get my eye in(I'm not a natural jumper)before we were all clearing it with ease. Rich and Phil proceeded to start experimenting with whips and flatties.

Finally we blasted down the single track to the car and headed home for tea.