Loving the evenings!

With the weather finally giving us what we've waited a loooong time for we've been able to get out and enjoy the light with some amazing evening biking sessions.  Castlewellan has some stunning singletrack, beautifully flowing and well known for that deep roosty dust whenever it dries.  I headed out with the Hawk and Andy Mac to enjoy the best of it with a few laps.

Work is due to start on permanent graded trails there sometime soon.  Hopefully they'll sit alongside the existing ones as natural singletrack offers a challenge that trail centres sometimes can't.  We'll have to wait and see but in the meantime hopefully this weather will continue!

Trail Cycle Leader

Ryan learning to tune his gears

The first Rock and Ride Trail Cycle Leader award was run by me on March 21st and 22nd.  Based from Meelmore Lodge we not only had some amazing views but also really handy access to the hills and some nice soft grass for practising skills on!  The course covered the whole syllabus with assistance from Rachel, Cycling Ireland's head of coach development.  Day 1 was all about the skills, maintenance and planning with day 2 focusing on fitting out bikes, risk assessments and putting it all to the test out on the trails.

Sammy and Ryan starting their leg

Everything went really well, the weather was spectacular and so was the feedback.  Looking forward to the next TCL training in July and hopefully seeing these folk back for their assessments soon.  Had to laugh at finding out that the Tollymore trainees could hear me running the skills sessions from miles away even though the wind was blowing the other way, I get vocal when I'm coaching!

8 new TCL trainees!

Mega Pitches and Classics at Fair Head

Wow it has been quite a while since I have blogged, not that I have been sitting about doing nothing but work has been very busy.  My week in Spain with Mountaineering Ireland and the kids went very well, a quick week to Lanzarote for Noddy's wedding (www.noddygowans.com) and flights booked to San Fran for 3 weeks scaring myself on the big stone - it has been fairly busy over the last while.  Ian has also been flat out and his TCL in June is full - happy days!

Salango in a ONER!

The fear! Abbing in for the first time this season!

With Yosemite only 4 months away training has started properly this week.  I managed 2 runs this week to stiffen the legs up and a cracking day at Fair Head yesterday.  The technique of double ropes is very popular in the UK but not so much in North America, they quite often use a single rope for most routes.  Now both have advantages and disadvantages and I will not go into them in detail.  Our tick list for the states consists of routes that are mostly climbed on a single rope so yesterday at the head we opted for a 70 m single.






My personal opinion is why would you climb with double at Fair Head?  No need for a 60 abseil and most people have 100m to ab in with, 90% of the routes follow cracks and 99% of the gear is bomber!  10 years ago at University it seemed trendy to climb everything on double ropes but at the head there really isn't a lot of need.  A single rope gets rid of FAFFING and no twists at belays!  Personal opinion only of course - each to their own!




For our training we also decided to get our early season trad heads on and do everything in one pitch.  This was great fun and in a few hours we had managed to tick Titanic (E2), Salango (E3), Ocean Bulovard (E3) and Mizen Star (E2).








Thanks Marshall for a brilliant day just climbing and revisiting the old classics from years ago!

I also came across this blog last night, sonnietrotter.com/roadlife/.  The 'what's his secret' section is worth a read.  It is sort of cool to read that some of the top climbers don't just live for the next route and get so self obsessed with training - they just climb because they enjoy it!