Taken by Mikey Matthews, thanks mate!

I'm up there next sunday riding providing my knee has free'd up!

Chicksands

So, after getting to Joe's at half 8ish ready for our planned 9 o clock start, we didn't leave Mansfield untill 10 o clock, thanks to the wonderous time keeping of Till! But, never mind, as the guy we were meeting for the parts was running late also.
We set off down the motorway with the bike rack not actually sitting properly on the car, and being held on by only 2 straps really! (It was fine though, there and back with no problems).
We got to Chicky at about 11-40am, met Gee, handed over the £230 for the Pargylationikes (custom made forks made my Gee) and Holzfella bars, then I handed over £50 for my new white holzfella bar and stem combo. Good times! However I didn't get to fit my bars as I couldn't get my fucking grips off as they are OLD now, and so are the bolts- meaning they are rounded and fucked. Bad times, but, atleast I didn't need to get used to new bars as well.

So, chicksands itself wasn't in bad shape even after all the rain, as it has very sandy soil (hence the name) and drains exceptionally well. However, the big line were riding absolutely shite, and so was i for a while. The 4x was running slow too, due to the slight dampness meaning only a few people were attempting, and only one clearing the triple. Mikey, Jim, and Ben came down from lincoln to ride as well, and mikey brought his camera, but i'm yet to get the pics off him! Think he got a few nice ones, as the lighting was pretty nice I reckon.
I also crashed, right at the end of the day on the northshore. I've never crashed on it, ever. Yet, due to a lapse of concentration for a micro second, i was flat on my face on a skinny. Winded, and cut up. I also thwacked my right knee very hard, which is incredibly uncomfortable, and painful when walking.

Got home at half 7, and that's the time i'm meant to leave for work, so rushed about for ten mins like a madman, and got to work at 8.03, so I made up a lot of time, yet was late which is never good. Work went fine, but what is even better is that next week from 3-7pm i'm working on the Bar! Good times will follow i'm sure! More hours= more money.

bizzle

SKINS

Was utter shite if I'm being honest. Appalling acting. Ridiculous story line. Twatty characters. Slaggy girls. Dickhead lads.
However. There is something about it, perhaps a subconscious desire to be in someways similar to the outrageous teens on the show. Or perhaps it's the fact that within the first half a fit girl (a twin!) was half naked, and by the end of it two people were having sex in the nurses office. I'll let you decide!
Whilst you're doing that, I'll be waiting for next weeks episode.

We serve drinks and broken dreams.

Firstly, I had forgotten how good Hilltop Hoods are. Such amazing hip-hop tunes, nice and chilled. The Herd are another sick Aussie group, whoever is reading should check them out!

Secondly, I had a good weekend. I've actually already told you about that, so never mind. College hasn't been too bad the past two days, bit uneventful and boring though. Had a good day with The Bone (Josef Bone) today. Much joke was caught.
So, this coming weekend I'm off to chicksands with Joe on Saturday, to meet Gee (who i met down there a while back who works for fishers and is helping me and Joe out with parts), and Mikey is also coming down, getting driven by Jim who passed his test today! Well done that man!

I'm getting some low rise holzfella bars, and a holzfella stem to put on my stp, and beginning to spec it up. As this will be my main bike for a while, I'm gonna get it looking, and running sweet if i can. Looking forward to it.
Oh, and some even better news, the skoda passed it's MOT today, and is being kept with me on the insurance until I've left home! I'll have to contribute to renewal etc, which is to be expected, but I'm don't care about that I'm just happy to have a car waiting for me once I'm passed! So, a summer trails road trip is on the cards once again!
Brapppppp.

bizzle x

Weekends.

I reckon this is a good formula for any weekend-
girlfriend round friday night, go riding saturday, work saturday night, have a few drinks after, riding sunday, relax sunday evening at home. but then i am so shattered for college it's unreal, thank god I only have 2 and a 1/2 hour in on a monday morning- so i can recharge monday afternoon to get me through the rest of the week.
So, riding saturday was good. Sherwood Pines, my locals and mine and ollie's trails is rapidly evolving into a pretty sick spot. I'm not talking about all the shite 'dh' trails that have been put in by the trail builders (no offence to them, it's not their fault the plans they were given by gay bray were utter shite), i'm talking about stuff that me and ollie have been, and will be building. So far we've got a nice hip-drop/path gap. not the biggest gap or drop, but a techy run in and fun gap- once it dries out, we'll rebuild the take off and landing, making it twice the size so we can trick it. We've got a few other little things as well, but they're under construction.
The trails were in a bit of a bad way on saturday, poor lips on most and roughed up landings- so i spent a few hours touching them up, and smoothing out ready for sunday.
Sunday i spent another hour digging, and got them running pretty smooth, so i'm happy with at the moment. Got some very sick flat tables as well which i was chuffed with, and my no-cans are coming back. Buzzing!
Bring on next weekend, Chicksands on saturday and Pines sunday. Cannae wait for chicky, just cruising the pro line, getting some more tricks down. GOT to get 3s on it, and stop being a pussy.
laters.

Exams

Mannnn I fucking hate exams. I think all grading should be done on coursework. I realise though that it's much easier to get a mark much higher than your actual skill/intellect level in coursework, what with the Internet and help from other people- in which case to make gradings reflective of your intelligence, they should be taken from exam results... but you could have an off day surely? In which case it's entirely UN-reflective of you. If that makes sense. Anyway, i hate exams as they tend to require revision, something which I'm not very good at, and never have been. it's unit 1 of business studies tomorrow, and I've read through my key terms (and I actually understand them all) and flicked through my text book and notes looking at break even and cash flow etc. I'm going to do about another half/hour tonight, and lots at college tomorrow morning with Easton. With any luck cramming will greatly help...

I'm listening to The Kooks now. I've been going through all my cd's and putting them on my itunes, and as they play once they're uploaded, i've decided to listen to their album now. InsideInInsideOut. Not bad actually, quite nice.

UK Trails.

I'm getting pretty confident on trails now, and size isn't seeming to faze me as much. I've hit up chicky, and woburn a few times now and not really struggled, and now I've got my driving test coming, I think a trails road trip around Easter time might be in order. Shotgun trails, Chertsey trails, Wisley, and many other secret trails are gonna be ridden, or atleast that's the plan. If you're a nice guy, you fix your mistakes and have good trail etiquette you'll get invited back. No one likes riders who bitch about trails that aren't their own, who bitch crank cos they can't ride trails for shit, or who spend ages trying to bust out a trick that they're never gonna land and just want fucking cool points for it. Tricks fade, style is eternal.
So yeah, I'm gonna get a few mates around me, load up the skoda to the brim, fill the tank and fucking drive around the country spreading the word. I wish it wasn't my mum's car, because I'm dying to sticker it up, or give it a fresh coat of ghetto paint.

Oh, and I seem to have forgotten how to old school no hander- gutted. Also, since i got extended nfc's dialled at corby, i've forgotten them as well. So this weekend up the locals will be spent trying to get them back. I've only got x-ups and other wank little stuff otherwise, and i want a few small moves to bust out mid pack.

bizzle
x

Back from the deep (south).

I got back from Brighton where I was visiting relatives a few hours ago.

It was a good trip, drove down with the Mother, took under 4 hours thanks to all the motorway widening work that's finally finished! (Not everywhere though I might add, only on the route we took, past gatwick and heathrow). It was jolly good fun seeing everyone and we played lots of games of articulate in the evenings- which unsuprisingly I won everyime bar once (I use 'won' in a loose term, I was in the winning team).

Thursday once we arrived and unpacked our assorted shit I got the bike out the car and rode off down to the sea front, along the promenade and then dropped down to the lagoon skatepark, which is only a few years old and quite nice and 'new' looking. The quarters and half pipe were nice, as were the flat banks, but the fun box in the middle was atrocious. NO transitions between ramp and flat, just a 45 degree angle from concrete to concrete, which killed all speed and made it a challenge to even b-hop the box. But oh well, it's better than nothing and it's predominantly used by skaters I reckon.

Friday my nanny, mum, and I got the bus into the city centre and met my eldest sister Daisy which was nice! I bought a pretty sick jacket from topman, reduced from £40 to £20, then a further £2 to £10 thanks to my college card discount! Bargain. Then when i was returning a hoody in tkmaxx I thought i'd have a gander at the shoe section and found the dopest pair of adidas's, and as they were £30 i bought them- those at my college will see them shortly.

Saturday, I met up with some other riders who live in the area who i've spoken to on http://www.southerndownhill.com/ and we went riding. First spot we hit was Shoreham, which is a small area with some jumps, nothing special but a good place for a small sesh as there's potential! Then we got the train to Portslade, as there's an 4 pack there, which was better as they had a bit more flow. Jeron had his camera and got a few nice shots of me, cheers mate!

Then today (sunday the 11th) was just spent travelling back, with a bit of a scary moment infact. On the m1, around junction 11-13 there were road works, (yet still 3 lanes of traffic open so we couldn't see what the problem was at first), and due to a bit of rubber-necking/late-braking/carelessness the red car directly infront of us ploughed pretty badly into the jeep infront of them. Luckily, we just about saw it in time and Mum slammed the anchors on and prayed no-one was about to go into the back of us. Luckily, we got away with no injuries or contact with other cars! Scary shit though, just shows how easy it is to go into the back of someone else!

Further up the jam just as the 2 nearside lanes were moving freely, the fast lane (which was segregated as a single lane) was stationary as there was a 4/5 car pile up, as each had rammed into the back of the car infront, not nice at all.

Bizzle.

Instrumentals (and sampling)

I haven't had any new music recently, but when I was watching a video on pinkbike (i'll link it at the bottom of this post) the song that was used on it simply blew my mind, and it has been a long time since a song was that good for me. The artist is called RJD2, and isn't new I realise that (as i'm not one of those dicks who claims they have discovered a new artist only to find out they have been around for donkeys years). Well his last album was released in 2007, called The Third Hand. He has also produced many hip hop tracks, teaming up with Aceylone, Copywrite, Cunninlynguists, and MF DOOM. A personal favourite track of mine though is 'Ghost writer' without a doubt. I first came across RJD2 though when watching ROAM, a mountainbike film from The Collective. The track 'Since We Last Spoke' was used for Darren Berrecloth's segment, on the North Shore, BC.
I've also got back into listening to Tinchy Stryder- however I think he's gone a bit chavvy (well, more mainstream) now, and is drifting away from his grime roots slightly, shown in the track 'Take Me Back' featuring Taio Cruz. It is a sick tune though, no denying that but it's considerably different from 'Catch 'Em' or a similar song, from his album 'Star in the Hood'. (Which is one of my current favourite albums, despite it's age!)

That's pretty much it from me now for this post, and again I apologise for being a poor blogger. I seem to be apologising in every post now, I really ought to post more often. In fact, as I don't have any New Years Resolutions, this will be one, albeit a slightly late one.
I'm going for a trip down to Brighton (Hove, actually) tomorrow morning avec my mother, to see the fam we have down there; Grandma, uncle, cousin and baby cousin, the latest addition to the fam. As we're driving down in the old skoda estate, I'm taking my bike so I have a bit more freedom in the evenings, to pop down to the sea front and hit up the sick concrete park at the lagoon for the second time. The first time I was on my Faith, and it wasn't really suited to park so I mainly hit stair gaps when I was out.

ciao bella(s)

Oh, and here's the video. It's made by George Allen (a member of pinkbike, and I don't personally know him yet his username is georgeallen, so i'm presuming that's infact his name).