New toy!

The last month has been pretty quiet up here in the NW. Mostly because of laziness/real life obligations but I’ve also because I’ve bought myself something new to help me explore (and I’ve been waiting for it to turn up)….

I’ve got myself a new Orange G4 mountainbike!

My process for going out looking for new boarding spots involves scouring online OS maps (not during work time of course…ahem) for any trails that a) have a decent gradient , and b) are longer than 0.5 miles. After that, it’s all about getting out there and checking it out.

Against better judgment, I still tend to drag my board around behind me when I go out exploring which often means that if a spot is pretty remote (as they all tend to be up here), I’ll spend most of my time trudging around and could possibly miss something that is just around the corner or down a little trail, just because I can only cover so much ground on foot.

The new plan is to go out in advance with the bike and cover as much ground as possible – tracking as I go with the MotionX GPS app for my iPhone.

I have taken the bike out for a spin at my local “test track” Longridge Fell to check out the final couple of trails I have been meaning to explore. Turned out they were rubbish – but it only took me 15 mins to find that out.

The great thing about exploring this way is that I can completely explore an area in one go and if I think something is rideable, I can freewheel it down to see what its going to be like on a board.

Anyway – I hope to be finding lots of new freeriding spots and posting them up on the blog soon.

Coming soon….a possible 2 miler????