Bmw

i really enjoyed it, having ridden gaburn pass before i knew what to
expect, and rode a much greater percentage than i did last time. That
made it a good ride for me, and it wasnt that long a walk either,
compared to some other rides...

The Sunday ride, Honister to grange i also enjoyed. There was very
little walking on the way to grange which was good, and of course there
was that amazingly technical rocky stepped kinda section, very
challenging and enjoyable for me.

Slight downside at the amount of trailside maintenance required eh aaron
😉

The ride back from grange to honister was also good, as it was still a
ride, and not just a long walk back, apart from the big technical
downhill at teh end, a lot of the rest of the trail was rideable,
although it would of been much more fun without that dreaded rain that
doesnt happen in cumbria......

The trials at wilfs cafe on saturday afternoon was also good fun, not
least because i got to ride the pimpmobile (before mechanical
failures...)

Thanks to Simon and aaron for organising the event

Mark

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lol, yeah sorry about that everyone, can't blame me I'd hardly done
anything on it! And the most anoying thing is it's completely back to
normal now so what was it!? will it happen again is what I wonder, glad
to hear you enjoyed it, yes you rode all of all rides, I was very
impressed Mark! Because anyone who wan't there belive me they weren't
easy routes...

And yes we did have a good paddle didn't we? 😎
Aaron

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Aaron,

The downhill from the car park was great, additional entertainment was
provided by Steve who decided to take a shortcut just before the hairpin
(steep downhill) - rocketed across the path - applied brake - turned
into Superman - gravity then took over and he landed further down the
hill in the undergrowth. Pretty spectacular and no video camera
handy...

The railway track was a relaxing uphill with the slow group stopping to
explain what BMW / Muni is to the walkers, who were shocked when we
stated our route.

This was followed by a steep uphill road, where we walked. Soon after
the bridleway started so did the riding. Fantastic views and riding,
especially when it is downhill! We could see across the valley to the
return route.

When we reached the path to Skidaw House we found out from bikers we
were now ahead of the fast group (who rode to the house) so we started
the long descent again fantastic riding, although I walked when the drop
became too steep, the thought of retrieving myself (or a Muni) from the
valley did not appeal.

Sarah & (Luni's) Paul actually caught up with the bikers by the end
(remember this was downhill!), the ride ended in a race with Chris the
last finisher in the slow group beating Joe, the first rider in the fast
group by approx 5 seconds. A great ending to an enjoyable weekend.

Hope to see the published photos soon.

Keith

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I also really enjoyed the weekend. Garburn pass was a good, challenging
ride, and apart from the extreeemely technical bits I also managed to
ride most of it.

The Sunday ride to Grange is probably my favourite of all the MUni
routes I have ever done. It had a bit of everything and was a really
great ride.

The trials at the tea shop was good too (thanks for putting that picture
up Simon).

The weekend was a great success, and I will look forward to future BMWs,
especially if they are in Cumbria.

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Just got home from BMW, only 30 hours after leaving Cumbria!

Twas good to see every one there.
The weekend started for me with an evening in the pub with joe, John,
Mat, Phil and Paul and a little night muni on the way back to the bunk
house. Joe lost some of his ability to ride after 3 pints and upded
while still on the tarmac:-)
I enjoyed both the big rides I did, the Kentmere circuit ( about 12
miles) on Saturday with its great switch back section and fast
desent to kentmere hall ( which i gather was watched by some of the
Garburn Pass group) was fab. I rode it fast and throughly enjoyed it
even though I broke a pair of spokes some where on teh switchback
section.
Didn't ride on sat afternoon as I was busy buying some new spokes and
scoffing toff at Wilfs. Then followed a wheel re-bilud and trueing
session back at the bunkhouse, thank you Keg and joe for the help and
advice. Oh , and the Pasta.
On Sunday I was in the Blencathra loop slow group. We did a 12 mile ( or
so) loop which keg has descirbed above. A GREAT route, the climbing is
done mostly on easier surfaces like the rail path and the desents are
fun. I really enjoyed the single track through Lonsdale crag and didn't
find it as exposed as I'd expected from the descriptions. I kept
expecting it to get worse and then it was over and i was bombing down a
really wide track back to the cars. I definatly had a riding head on
at that point, I wanted to catch up with the MTBers...
Paul R and I thought about waiting for the others to catch up, but
decided we'd go and put the ketttle on, so we could welcome the others
back to the cars with cups of tea.

A good weekend of Xc riding.
Where are we going NEXT year?

Sarah

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keg said:

the ride ended in a race with Chris the
last finisher in the slow group beating Joe, the first rider in the fast
group by approx 5 seconds.

Huh?

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
--
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Klaas Bil said:

Huh?

[/B]

The fast group did a short extension which meant riding ~1.5km up
another hill before returning back down the same path. This allowed the
slow group to get in front as we had decided not to ride this part.

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Saturday we had a good ride round to Kentmere and back over Garburn
Pass, avoiding the difficult looking trials/downhill bit of Garburn pass
and getting to ride the cross country style side. It was good if a
little short, so Matt H, Steve C and I headed out for another ride from
the campsite and found some really cool downhill switchbacks to ride
which were super-fun.

I did think the Garburn Pass ride was a dumb one to take a mixed group
on though, there were only a few people not having trouble on the easy
side that I rode down, taking beginners down the hard side was dumb,
when one of the organisers can hardly ride any of a ride, let alone the
difficult downhill, that's maybe a point to think it might be too hard a
ride for a mixed ability group. It was also way way short, I couldn't
believe that people were all heading for cake and tea rather than doing
the other half of a days ride. I guess there not being any organised
place to stop for lunch on the ride meant everyone was a bit empty?

Sunday was good, I rode all the uphill until the gate before the
junction for skiddaw house, it was nice that almost all the uphill was
rideable and made me feel smug. There was a weeny bit there that wasn't
rideable by me after having already ridden a few miles uphill, I reckon
all the uphill on that ride is potentially rideable. The exposed bit was
fun although the point I fell off the unicycle and dropped it in the
direction of the edge was a bit hairy. We all got back to the car park
and then headed into Keswick for some food. I did this by unicycle as
there was a bridleway heading there. That last bit of riding was
certainly the fastest I've ever been on a muni, it was pretty easy
stuff, steep and a bit loose, but wide. At one point I hit a waterbar
riding flat out and did a massive jump off it and landed it still riding
as fast as possible. I was pretty close to beating a guy on a bike down
it until I pushed it too far and crashed off right near the bottom.
Still beat all the cars into Keswick though.

I'm slightly confused as to the description of the rides previously as
there not being much cross country riding in the Lakes, what with it
being famous for it's cross country mountain biking and pretty much
everything we rode except the difficult way down into Kentmere being
well and truly cross country riding?

Joe

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I note what you say Joe.
Simon

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A fantastic weekend, starting with a ride to the pub and then back in
the dark, great fun even though I did fall off and hurt myself. The
Saturday ride although much of it unridable did force me to try things
that I would have never had the courage to attempt and surprised myself
by managing to stay on, on some of the rocky drops. The Sunday ride was
great, a fantastic circular cross-country to Skiddaw House and back with
some great mountain side tracks. We would have set off earlier but some
herbert decided to take the extended Penrith route to get to the ride.
Oh well, thanks for waiting for me bye the way. Thanks to Simon and
pluto for organising the weekend and look forward to next years Muni
weekend(s).

Matt

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You do WHAT on it?
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After the best part of 1000 miles there and back, here I am again...

'Twas a good weekend. It would have been better had I not taken myself
out of commission on the first blummin' ride with a brief venture into a
particularly rocky stream; I now have one knee larger than the other
which doesn't want to bend. Ho-hum. Note To Self: work out how to wear
661s without them trying to saw through my legs after more than a mile
or two.

Still, even after only doing 12.5 miles as opposed to 35 in South Wales
it was good to see lots of people again.

The photos I took - mainly from the longer ride over the Garburn Pass -
are (temporarily) 'here' (http://gallery.unicyclist.com/phil).

Phil

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First of all, a big thanks to Simon & Aaron for organising the second of
this year's BMW.

As usual I really enjoyed myself. These meets are always great social
events and this one was no different. I think there were about 25 of us
which is a good turn out for a BMW. Apart from the riding, the hi-light
for me was sitting ouside the pub (with the electric heaters on) 'till
midnight supping beer and catching up with everyone.

The route back down to the carpark from Garburn Pass was a really good
ride, but the route the other side of the pass to Kentmere should be
definitely avoided by all but the experienced rider. There certaily was
a lot of people walking that day, which was a shame.

The extra ride that Joe, Matt & myself did later that day was good fun,
although the strong winds were a pain. By the time we got up high the
weather had improved and we were rewarded with clear skies and fantastic
views.

The Blencathra XC loop on Sunday was also a very good ride and was
certainly hard going at times. Possibly to much XC and not enough DH for
me. I enjoyed it all the same.

I will do my best to get round to putting my photos on the gallery
ASAP.

Steve

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Quoted message said:

I note what you say Joe.

I don't, I'm sorry lol, but we gave acurate descriptions of the routes
and when we were talking about route choices near the bunk house I said
(quote)...

"this is very hard and claife heights is easy-intermediate."

To be honest, no one has the right to complain about that because
everyone said they'd do Garburn. It was totally their choice.

Personally I find 9 miles of hard, technical riding enough. (remember we
did the other side down, more tiring than smooth singletrack, even
though you did 3 miles more.

Glad to hear you seemed to enjoy it. And everyone else 🙂

Aaron

PS: there arn't that many XC routes, we did 2 of them, and I would say
theres not that many MUCH better.

By the way, the next BMW we host will be very different. So for those
who didn't enjoy this one, dont be put off.

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Sounds like the vast majority enjoyed it!

I really wish I was able to come, as planned for the Sunday, but getting
up at 5am on saturday, going to London, then home at 11pm proved fairly
tiring.

Hopefully we can ride some time soon, Simon and Aaron.

I'll take a look through the pics....

Joe,

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pluto said:

*

Personally I find 9 miles of hard, technical riding enough. (remember
we did the other side down, more tiring than smooth singletrack, even
though you did 3 miles more.

PS: there arn't that many XC routes, we did 2 of them, and I would say
theres not that many MUCH better.

. *

I would chalenge your labeling of the kentmere circuit as smooth single
track, it wasn't a rock garden but it wasn't smooth either, however
falls were less serious as the landings were not so sharp. Personally I
find that I don't want to fall on steep rocky outcrops miles from a
road... therefore I walk those sections. Had i done the Garburn Pass I
think I would have been bored, too much walking, not enough riding. I
chose to go and do a route with more riding.

As for The XC thing... do we have to go there again. There is bags of
XC in cumbria, I've riden some it. I crossed the lakes over four days a
few years back and that was mostly XC with small amounts of road or
cycle track where they fitted our route. I think there may be a lack of
"short circular" XC routes however as most of the best bridleways are
over moutains beween two valleys so to make a circuit you have to go
around a big hill. For a mixed ability group like a BMW a short route
is usefull, left to our selfs, some riders will enjoy 25 miles
circuits, but others are knackered at the 5 mile mark. Partly this is
because riding is less tiring than walking and pushing , and the less
experienced riders will be doing more walking. It was a mistake we made
on the first BMW, when the short route was 7 miles and the long 10.
It is something for organisers of big group muni events to bear in
mind. Along with the fact that small groups move a lot faster than
large ones
and some times some subtle group engineering is usefull.
Sarah

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Sarah,
most of what you say is very true and I know you have ridden across the
Lakes a few years back.

You obviously chose the right route for yourself - I don't blame you for
not liking bouldery technical riding like Garburn Pass.

When you live in an area lacking in bridleways you might even come to
the conclusion there is bags of XC in the Lakes.

However, in my opinion, having spent the past 30 years walking them, the
past two years riding them, listing and writing about ALL of them for
the Club guidebook I have found:

1. the 'quality' xc routes form a small percentage compared to the
routes going DH from a pass, hill or mountain,

2. what there is, is generally more suited to MTB, which is why it is so
popular to MTB’s and

3. In order to produce a long route of 20+ miles of quality riding you
have to, without exception, include road of some kind.

Even without cataloguing all of the bridleways in Cumbria, if you look
in the MTB guidebooks at the XC routes you will see this is the case.
For example, see the Coniston route in this months MBUK which is
nominated as an MBUK Trail of the Year, see
http://www.mbuk.com/trails.asp?id=45

Your advice concerning the size of groups etc is both true and very
useful and we shall certainly bear this in mind in the future.

::Thank you all very much for coming:: 🙂 I am glad the majority of the
people attending enjoyed it. It was nice to catch up with so many I
haven’t seen for a long time. In the future I think we should make
attending the pub on the Saturday evening a scheduled social event!

As Aaron said, if we do organise anything for next year, one way or
another it will be very different, so I do hope you will all come to
that as well.

::CMW (UK) = early July 2005?:: 😄

Regards

Simon

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pluto said:

*

I don't, I'm sorry lol, but we gave acurate descriptions of the routes
and when we were talking about route choices near the bunk house I
said (quote)...

"this is very hard and claife heights is easy-intermediate."

*

I think there was a bit of pressure going on not to have to run a claife
heights ride that day though. The thing to remember is that as possibly
one of the best technical riders in the UK, your idea of very hard is
much much harder than many riders, especially less experienced ones. I
kind of had some idea of what it was going to be like, hence I headed
round to miss out the really hard bit, but I suspect some people would
have classed that side well into impossible, rather than very hard.

As for the what is XC / what is downhill thing, that's one that could
run and run and run. I think there is a big difference between more
technical DH riders and faster XC riders, which is possibly why some
faster riders think there is more XC riding in the lakes, as once you
get quite fast, you're riding much closer to bike speeds, so bike XC
stuff is fun, whereas if you're riding it with long cranks on a small
wheel, it just isn't. There's also some difficultly in categorising what
is DH and what is XC, I'd have put one side of garburn pass down as DH
and the easy side as XC riding, simply because one side was something
I'd not be surprised to see ridden on a rigid hardtail bike and the
other side totally was.

Anyway, that was just a few comments, it was a wicked weekend, well
worth the travelling, good riding, good campsite, nice people etc. To
those who weren't there, you missed some good riding.

Joe

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I must thank to Simon and Aaron for organising the weekend. I did enjoy
the weekend even though I was exhausted by the time I got home late
Sunday night.

For me Saturdays ride was half good. The eastbound DH required lots of
hopping something I don’t do partly so I don’t break my Muni and partly
because I’m [censored] at hopping so I ended up walking most of it. The
westbound DH was good though and I really did enjoy that part. I never
enjoy any UH (uphill) so no comment on doing that (where’s the cable car
when you need one)

Sundays ride was the better of the two I did, with the exception of the
necessary UH of course. I particularly liked being chased by a flock of
sheep down the difficult DH section forcing me to ride virtually
non-stop except for the odd UPD when I had to mount quickly else I’d
would have had to wait for the sheep to pass. The bad part of Sundays
ride was getting soaked in the rain at the end but I blame that on Aaron
for bending his frame so we had to wait for him 😉

As for what is DH, XC or any other acronyms you care to mention it ends
up being a personal evaluation. What you may say is flat I may say is
uphill but I get fatigued quickly unlike some who just seem to go and go
and go :envy: I’m now trying out 125 cranks instead of 150’s on my Muni
so I can go faster and my (short) legs don’t have to bend so much, so
far they feel great, the cranks that is my legs are a different
matter.

Cheers, Gary

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Thanks Gary,
hmmm... 125mm cranks and I was just thinking the 145mm cranks I want to
try would be short!

Hope you didnt get too wet and I am sorry we left you providing shelter
for Tim and Jack till their lift came - we took Rick and Mark back to
Gillside to get their lift home.

Hope you will come back next year for the next instalment!😄

Simon

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