Irwin, Jonny and I are going on Saturday to the 3pm Bike showing.
Between The Tape – 43 Minutes
Downhill Mountain Biking In The Peak District – World Premiere – 4 Minutes
NWD 8: Smackdown – Festival Edit – 28 Minutes
Seasons [By The Collective] – World Premiere – 3 Minutes
Vicious Circle – 16 Minutes
There are also loads of videos being shown not just mountain biking so make sure you get yourself to the showroom cinima this weekend and support this great local event.
We had a successful dig day at Joe’s on Saturday, with Joe, Jonny and myself (Jeff) present. Joe had already done the first roller line and the majority of the berm. The first thing I noticed about the rollers was they were pretty big, twice the size of the ones at the Bamford Pump Track, also the track slopes slightly down into the first berm, meaning you can just roll into the first berm without much effort if you want to.
The berm is a little different to anything I’ve seen or ridden before, the down slope from the roller is quite long before the berm starts to curve, its fairly tight with a high wall and steep angle on the wall. The exit is the interesting part, a metre high large roller. It took some time to perfect the roller position, angles, and size, and even more time to perfect riding it. The combination of speed tightness and the exit roller means the berm has real kick to it, sucking you in and spitting you out where you don’t expect to be. If you don’t get you line right you end up shooting out the berm and going of the right side of the roller, or if you don’t have the speed to make it to the summit you have to jump off you’re bike and back to ground level. O and braking cos you’re scared would be a mistake too. 
After we had finished digging for the day Jonny headed home and Joe and I pushed up the hill for some razzin ‘n shootin. I set up my flash on the extension cable and Joe sent the loose bracken flying.
As it got darker I noticed the sky was looking good with dark clouds and some slightly pink sky in between, after a bit of fiddling with the flash brightness and shutter speed I had the camera set to get the nice sky in the shot too.
I decided to go a bit controversial and keep the flash burst in shot, I think it adds something.
I threw the wide angle lens into the fray later on and then with the setup good we swapped over and got some ones of me looking quite good for a change (the pictures and riding, not me 
).
When we came back down the hill we stopped at the rocky track for some more shooting, it was pretty much dark by time I’d set up, so Joe had to stop as soon as the flash fired and blinded him. 
Thanks to Joe’s mum for the egg and bacon cobs, not just cos digging is hungry work, but more for the opportunity to see Joe make the Text Book mistake when eating an egg cob… again. 
I doubt it will be long ’til there’s another dig day, so make sure you get yowr ass to the next one, in the mean time check out the progress in the Image Gallery.
08-02-23 Joes Dig Day JK+Joe+Jonny, 28 Pictures
So last Saturday (16th Feb) we headed out for an afternoon ride at Hagg Tor, with the bright afternoon sun beaming down on us it felt like spring might have at last arrived. There were five of us in all; Pete, Tim (Pete’s mate, not his brother), Matt, Jeff and myself (James). It was nice to see we were not the only ones out riding a group of about 20 XC riders came down, which is always funny to watch. Although the sun was great for pictures some parts of the bridleway were still frozen from the night before which made things a bit more interesting! This was the first time that Matt and Tim had been down Hagg Tor so me and Pete showed them the lines. Nevertheless, in no time they were both riding it as if they had ridden it many times before. However, they quickly discovered that Hagg Tor is one of those things tracks that you get 100% either right or have a horrible run down. The key to getting down quickly is to get the top section smooth and carry your speed onto the lower sections. This isn’t as easy as you might first think, especially when the ground is frozen 
. In terms of a short downhill Hagg Tor has a lot to offer, natural berms, slow and fast corners, loads of rocks and one of my favourite things being a nice wide track. With space to overtake! This gives you loads of different lines to pick between with every rider taking a slightly different one.
As the afternoon progressed on Jeff got the video camera out and did some filming, expect to see that some time in the future. It was nice to ride with a different group of people and watching how everyone rode the same section. Tim uses his height and strength to man handle the bike around corners, and considering he has not been riding much on his new full suss he was going quickly. Compared to Matt with his BMX background providing the basis of his mtb skills again he does not hang around, it is hard to tell that he has only recently started riding mountain bikes. As the cars were parked down on the A57 Snake Pass we finished the ride off with a blast down Hagg Tor from top to bottom, this is not something that I have done many times before as we normally ride a loop that goes up Hagg Tor and session it as we push up. From top to bottom, it isn’t a bad run, although the gate half way down does spoil it slightly. Well at least it isn’t my turn to stop and hold the gate open next time!
After we got back to Bamford some of us headed down to the pump track to try riding it during the day. I got my new (second hand) BMX off Matt and fitted a bit of metal though the bottom bracket so that I had something to stand on. As I not yet have any cranks, brakes or pedals for it. The pump track is really coming along well and will soon be ready for summer. Thanks to everyone who had been down there and dug some more rollers and jumps it will be worth all the effort once the ground gets a little harder. ShaFF will soon be upon us (Feb 29th to 2nd of March) so make sure every gets down there to see Monkeyspoon on the big screen along with many other great mountain biking and extreme sports videos.
08-02-16 HaggTor JI+JK+PD+Tim+Matt, 17 Pictures
On Friday night we went to ride the pump track, there was me (Jeff) on my hardtail, Irwin on his dad’s rigid, Pete on Irwin’s full-sus, and Tim (Pete’s mates not his brother) on his full sus, so attention soon turned to the jump. We had enough lights to light the jump and landing, so Tim was first, he later found out not only had anyone present done it in its’ current state, but also no one had done it in the dark, oh and that it’s structure was mainly metal based.
I had some new flash accessories meaning I could place the flash so its’ light was coming from a different angle, giving a lot more deep to the image than when it’s mounted on the camera. I’m quite pleased with the results, the biggest problem I had was focusing the camera in the dark.
With it being freezing (literally) and the prospect of something feet warming from Irwin’s drinks cupboard we only stayed there for about half an hour.
08-02-15 PumpTrack Night, 8 Pictures
