Team Unfit

Now that everyone has finished work ready for christmas, the handling and speed of our bikes will be tested to the extreme downhill to the maximum. Goody wanted to test out his new shimano breaks, and pip had some brand new tyres. The lake-district is our playground and we love to play. Karl however was to playing bingo. Skiddaw is awsome this time of year and if its a clear day you can see scotland. The journey was no problem apart from pauls phone going non stop and he had a flatty to fix once we got there.

We parked at the leisure center and had a flask of coffee before setting off.

Pushing the bikes uphill was a stinker, it was very hard work and steep in places, about 2 and half hours uphill with rests between the steep parts. Just knowing how cool the ride back down was going to be pushed Team unfit forward and upwards. The ride back down is about ten minutes of exhillerating high speed technichal mountain side.

When we eventually got to the top we were greeted with fine views of the scottish borders, back into the lakes and back into the lakeland falls. Paul puked on a fresh patch of snow. Pip can’t wait to get his new camera. The snow on the ground looked very picturesce, like a christmas postcard.

We full on nailed it down the mountain, goody had no fear setting of first and effortlessles flew over the jump, pip was unsure what was going on at first but soon flew past goody with andy hot on his trail, paul was lagging. Pips new maxxis tyres did the job and he picked a smooth line all the way, he finished first laughing all the way followed by Andy. Goody was third destroying sick paul by miles.

It was well cool and maybe team unfit’s last but most enjoyable and possibly best down hill of 2008.

Since the random forest adventure mountain biking has been hard to find the motivation to get out because of the bad weather.

This is an example of what the weather has been like lately, snow everywhere, snow nice, istn it nice! Riding in these conditions was virtually imposible so we decided to sack it off and have a snowball fight, then after a trip to the local pub, a nice meal and a pint the day wasnt a total loss. The pub meal was excellent value for its money.  It was to cold and white for paul he suffered the snow blindnes, but after the refreshing beer and hot pub meal he was back to his old hyperactive enthusiastic self.

However we still been on some cool cross country adventures at the following locations.

Grisedale – North Face
it was all right, lol, makes a cross country ride a bit more interesting, goody totally enjoyed himself, it was rad. Pip thought it was way better than riding round fire roads, but not very challanging. Paul and his specialised full hit wondered what he was doing on the the fire roads. Its about a time someone built a purpose built official downhill track to accommodate this continuingly growing sport. Even though its not the best or most challenging ride around, the scenery is a pleasure in its self.

Walna scar and a secret location deep within the lake district known only to Team Unfit, its a downhill mecca. At first the local mountain bikers hassled us on the secret track, but once we showed them how to ride their own track they were cool. There are no pictures of the secret location because its just to good.

Found have a half decent jump clearing the road at some random forest in Scotland a couple of weeks ago. It was nice size leap, looked gnarly turned out nice again.
Photos by Big Steve, Animation by Andy.