NWAlps on tour day 3: Ian earns a nickname

day 3, a photo by rOcKeTdOgUk on Flickr.

after the exertions of yesterday and some morning rain we had a late start and a more chilled feel to today's ride, Ben and the Captain to the fire road climb to the top whilst Ian and I took the blue singletrack climb which is longer but in my opinion more fun. I think we were all suffering from tiredness or an ache or pain from the previous day and it took a while to warm up, But once we dropped into "berm baby berm" the adrenalin started flowing again and it was on the trail the Ian earned his nick name as "The Spaniard". as i followed his down the trail he effortlessly lifted his front wheen and coasted on the back one over a series of jumps, it was the sweetest thing i've seen done on a bike outside of the pro riders on video, very, very impressive!, so Double Maunal (as the trick is called) became Double Manuel or The Spaniard, i hope it sticks as it also suits his swarthy good looks! I even went over the large "fun box" a few times and spent a while practising jumps with the new technique. we had decided to do the full blue route but there is quite a lot of boring fire road on it and when we passed the beginning of the final Spooky wood climb we couldn't resist it especially with my new found jumping confidence. we resumed the blue trail at the end of the first section, of course this does include all the fun downhill bits that have been described previously although non of us were "full gas" today so it was a less competitive finish
ride 44
15 miles
total 723