Tough chick Thursday

Diet and fitness is the name of the game for this weekly slot, last week I touched on my diet, today I will discuss the demon that is exercise. As is quite clear from my blog name I am a biker first and foremost. I ride mountain bikes as much as I can manage and ride a bmx to work and at the skatepark or racetrack on Wednesday evenings. This entry is pretty much my passion for bikes.

I have always loved bikes, I remember all of them fondly from my first trike, my raleigh Bluebird with the box on the back that I used to fill with mud and rocks, my blue and white bmx with mag wheels and many mountain bikes. I was about 18, working in McD's and studying whilst living in Redcar when I bought a HUGE Trek mountain bike from a friends brother who was going travelling. It was far too big for me, but it had suspension forks, and it was a Trek, I was happy. I couldn't ride it properly as it was too big, but it was great.

One of my favourite rides was from Redcar to Guisborough where I would meet my friend Rachel and we would ride the trails in the woods (we rode the fireroad and thought that was mountain biking) before riding home, a good 30 mile loop on at least a weekly basis. 20 miles of this was road riding on knobbly tyres, I was super fit and very happy, I also cycled to the seaside for work every day, living the good life! As friends went away to uni and jobs I rode a bit but got a job and a car and discovered triple vodkas and biked a lot less though I would still take my bike out for a spin from Marske through to Saltburn through the allotments and woods and back along the beach for some zen time. 

In 2001 I moved to Glasgow, fitting my life into my fiat punto and heading off for adventure. I bought a stupidly heavy GT Chucker jump bike which I used for a bit of riding, commuting and getting about on. I discovered the trails in Pollok Park and had my first proper off road rides. Work and life took over once more and I rode less and less until 2011 when I joined "Meetup Mountain Bike Glasgow". With local rides in Mugdock woods I was challenged and my riding improved, I found a love for the sport that has only grown since.

I would say this was my first real mountain biking, trails, mud, roots, rocks, all the Scottish stuff that I now love, it was all there and all fun. I rode Mugdock and Glentress a lot for the first couple of years, with occasional trips to exotic locations such as Mabie and Innerleithen thrown in. I was comfortable on the red level trails and maintained this level for a few years. In August 2014 I crashed my bike on an innocuous bit of trail at Dalbeattie, falling 8ft or more off a cliff edge onto my arm dislocating it and separating my collar bone, my first major injury. Whilst out for 6 weeks I was researching trails, bought a new bike and decided to come back with a bang. My friend David suggested I join him and his mates on their local trails, technical, natural trails with some big features added in. I joined them for a ride and absolutely loved it, this location is now my favourite place to ride, it is fun, fast, local and allows for a lot of progression, something I am finally working on.

Two days after being allowed back on my bike I rode the RedBull Foxhunt race, my first ever race. I rolled up in my van, a bundle of nerves, signed in and collected my pack and went back to hide in my van until BBQ and beer o'clock. I took photos of my first number board and race jersey, texted everyone I know, panicked, tried to sleep, and got myself a bit stressed, before sacking it off and going in search of food and company. Within 5 minutes my worries were gone, I met a mother and daughter duo Gillian and Zoe who joined me for food and to share nervous banter and debate our theories about the possible race track and how we may fair. Pro rider Rachel Atherton gave a small speech and made everyone welcome before we had some beers and retired to our tents, vans, hotels and homes for the night ahead of practice day.

Practice day meant a great bbq breakfast provided for us, and meeting more new people, I met some fabulous friends at this event, and would recommend turning up alone to anyone who did not make it last time as they were worried about being alone.. you will not be alone for more than 30 seconds, it is just not possible! We were uplifted halfway (if you're being generous) up the track and then had to push up the rest of the track, the last few metres got pretty steep, I started to get worried as I am useless on steep! My aim for the weekend was to finish in one piece and not hurt my shoulder, so I took it easy and tried to learn lines to take in the big race. By the end of practice day I was achy, tired and ready for a rest. RedBull took care of us all with beers and another BBQ, I made new friends in Faye, Aoife and Emma amongst others whose names have vanished in an alcoholic haze and we ended up drinking too much Gin and Bourbon as well as all the beers and anything else we could find... great race tactics! It was Faye's birthday, so it was only right!

Hungover race day began with all of us crawling towards the communal teepee and filling up on bacon and COFFEE! Race tactics were being discussed whilst my aim was still to finish in one piece. After my gentle qualifier I was in the back row, where I wanted to be, to protect my shoulder and what little dignity I had. The idea behind the race is a reverse fox hunt, so all the racers start in a grid formation with the pro, Rachel, behind us all, the horn sounds and all the riders go for it, 10 seconds later Rachel sets off and chases us down with the aim of overtaking as many people as possible. She overtook me at about 14 seconds, given that 10 was spent with her waiting, that means she over took me after 4 seconds, haha! There were crashes and clashes galore on the first corner, then it got serious with race lines, overtaking and fast riding. I even managed to overtake some people, to finish 97th out of 117 racers for the day, I was over the moon!

The atmosphere at the bottom was electric, with everyone cheering each other on, spectators, kids, riders, racers, sponsors, everyone just having a great, positive time! My face hurt from smiling. I gave a few garbled, hyper, interviews, tried to wind down, speak to all my new friends, Sarah, also from Redcar, Clare who takes beautiful photographs of dogs, Chantelle who runs Hamsterley Divas, Gael who is also in my Meetup group and now my best riding buddy, Jaqueline who rides bikes like a demon, Victoria with her awesome dogs, and so many more that I cannot name them all. What a weekend, what a rush.

The point of my ramblings about the race are that it gave me so much new confidence to get out and ride more! Since the race I have pushed my riding up a few levels, I now encourage more women, children, anyone, to take part. My enthusiasm was such that I started a facebook page for a reunion ride, this has now passed but "Foxy Riders United" is still running for all women who ride mountain bikes, come join in and share rides and adventures with us. I cannot say enough that every lady who rides bikes and can make it to The Pentlands in September should come to FoxHunt, you WILL make friends, your riding WILL improve and you will have an amazing weekend. You have my word.

I now ride faster, harder and better than I did before my injury and I am only going to improve more as it has only been a few months and most of that has been winter. Tomorrow I am riding an uplift day at Innerleithen and I am equal parts scared and excited, this is going to be a big challenge for me and I like it, if you're not pushing yourself then what's the point? Get out there and LIVE!!

See you on the trails boys and girls!!

Girls DH day Inners

As the title suggests Friday was another brilliant day of bikes. Rona Strivens had posted on the Foxy Riders United page if any ladies fancied a day on the Uplift Scotland trailer at Innerleithen. I signed up, this was before I had ridden Ae and before my trip to Bike Park Wales. I was scared, nervous and excited about the prospect of riding some seriously steep and scary trails on my bike. I am way over biked for most of the riding I do with 160mm front and back suspension, but the point of buying that bike was that I could do uplift days and other downhill oriented days on it, so time to "Woman up" and commit.

On the day the uplift was fully booked with 16 keen riders, more than 50% of us were female, thats a fantastic turnout on a weekday! Here's a photo of most (not all) the girls who were present in our psychedelic glory! I am the vision in yellow on the left, Rona is on the right in the brill pink Flare shorts!

I missed the first run of the day as I set off on time, but on the M8 I passed a car with a wheel missing, then my friend Gael's (Green shorts in the photo) car on the hard shoulder... Yep her boyfriend Scouse had managed to send his rear wheel into the central reservation, luckily no-one was hurt! I doubled back and loaded all the kit from the car into my van and pressed on to Inners whilst they sorted the cars and followed in Gael's car.

Getting ready for uplift two and Marianne (black and white in the photo) turned up, I was relieved to not be the only late one jumping on the 2nd uplift. Marianne had brought Harry the dog to see if he might make a good trail dog. He will not, I think I ran him over at one point, oops, but he seems to like me judging from the kisses he was giving me. Thanks Harry!

Bikes loaded onto the trailer and we set off to the top of the hill. Gael was still en-route and was meant to be giving me some guidance for this new type of riding, so Marianne stepped up and offered to guide me down my first run of the day. We started at the top of a track called Tunnel, which looked fine, but looking behind me I could see the steep line in from a track further up, leading to a road-gap jump into the line we were about to try. What had I let myself in for?! Ahh well, here goes... Follow the black and white warrior and hope for the best! 

The first section allows you to pick up a LOT of speed, I was on the brakes pretty soon to keep my acceleration to a minimum, it is easy to see that letting go would allow for some fun jumping action in the woods, but I will work up to wheels off the ground once my confidence and skills are up to it. After the straight line of jumps the trail gets a bit twisty with berms, roots and rocks pushing, pulling and firing you down into more trees, with multiple line options and some technical sections. I fell apart on a section called Luge, all the options looked really tricky and I was already struggling to keep up with my guide. I minced my way down and onwards to a section made of some nice 180 degree switchback berms, at least I did after hanging too far off the back of my bike in sheer fear and having my leg dragged into my bike by my knobbly tyre. OUCH. There were bad words. Lesson learned though, get forward, be strong, be aggressive. I made it down most of the switchbacks without too much bother though I had to walk a few bits, I met Marianne at the fireroad ready to pick the next line. 

The entrance to the next section started with a small run in, but this had a long drop to the left and I could not get the thought of my Dalbeattie crash (dislocated shoulder) out of my head, I took a couple of attempts at committing to it, but in the end I had to walk in and set off from the first berm, I will have to work on my confidence when the ground vanishes to the side! Eventually, tired, arms and legs aching, we were back in the car park, having missed the 3rd uplift due to my need to track walk and discuss all the options and my wee paddy at the fireroad, so a bit of much needed rest was had before jumping back on the land rover for another go.  

Despite protests and offers of help from Gael, Marianne and other lovely ladies I opted to spend the rest of the day sessioning the same track alone. I find I ride at my best when I ride within myself, if I am following someone I tend to forget to focus on myself, and if someone is following me I get too worried about them, but alone I am able to concentrate and get myself in the best frame of mind to ride. I rode Tunnel, getting faster each time, until I scared myself hitting a tree stump and almost pinged over the bars, so I reigned it in a bit. After Tunnel is Luge, and I almost got better at that, I had 3 lie down's in the woods, but with a bit more speed I know I can ride that tricky section, not bad considering I looked at it on the first go with Marianne and thought "no way, just no.". At the fireroad I decided to pedal uphill and join Janes Lane, a trail I rode on a coaching day with Jess Stone in February, it is tight, twisty, rooty and a level up form my riding in technical terms. By the end of the day I could very nearly ride it all, there are still some gremlins for me to defeat, I will return for them soon.

Popping out of Janes Lane brings you to the second half of Caddon Bank, a whooping, undulating, rocky trail which can be fast and furious if you have the skills. On the coaching day I had struggled a lot with this, despite having ridden it before, I am always scared on it, the downs are steep and I have a massive fear of it. I followed Jess that day and on each of the undulations I held my breath, got to the top at an almost standstill and then let go of the brakes and hoped for the best. By the last one Jess could see I was pretty stressed out so tried to challenge me by telling me I was about to ride the steepest bit of trail I had ever ridden. It worked, I was frozen. No matter what she did, including holding my bike for me, I could not let go of the brakes, I got so stressed out and gave up.

Not today. I got to the whoops, and I was in my element, none of them scared me, I was flowing and enjoying it like the first time I rode it, before this fear developed. I got to the last one, I knew it was 'that one', but I did'nt hesitate, I looked at it, looked at the opposing summit and went for it, what a rush. This was not a technical bit of trail, I have done it before, but the relief of getting that monkey off my back was amazing. I flew down the final berm and jumps, powered into the car park and got straight on my phone to let Jess know I had defeated it. Her coaching worked, albeit a little later on, but that is because I am a major stress head and far too hard on myself. I got back on the uplift and rode these same trails for the rest of the day, by then end I was overtaking people on Caddon Bank, try telling stressed out me that that would have happened on that first uplift, phew!

I might not have graduated to the scary trails but my riding improved so much over one day. I will be going back as soon as I can to rinse and repeat that same combination until I can ride it all clean. Uplift Scotland means I can practice the same thing over and over in one day, this means I can see a measurable improvement each run. I love this. I will be riding the scarier stuff one day, but for now I am so happy to be able to ride any dh trail at all and to be pushing my riding up a level again. I just need to remember to stop being hard on myself, I will never be the best, I learn by repetition, so just keep on trying, I am improving!

Thanks Rona, and well done to all the ladies who came along, you inspire me!

Hello world.

Lets get started shall we?

This is me.



I am a graphic designer living in Glasgow who rides mountain bikes most weekends, I also ride BMX badly when I can. For me life is all about fun, friends, adventures and the outdoors. 

I recently changed my diet to resolve some health issues (asthma and lethargy) and as a result lost 3 stone and gained a stack of confidence, why not share?


I collect t-shirts, over 120 at the last count, and I have a fondness for mens formalwear, I do like to look smart when not on a bike!


Hopefully this blog will be a fun way to connect with people and share my adventures in Scotland, bikes and clothes. Who knows?





Todays clothing: Lego Pirate tee, Jeans, Inner tube belt, canvas trainers, penguin shirt at work. 





Todays bike: Haro 24" bmx for the commute, practicing more circular pedal technique (think scraping poop off your shoe on the back stroke).