I feel like a Proper Beau

Not a big turn out for today's ride, probably because of a forecast of slight rain, although that failed to emerge. Just 5 of us, Chris back for more after his baptism last week, Ken, Gilles, Simon and Claire the regulars.

So as I'm just one of the boys when it comes to riding, Simon decided I needed to become a "Proper Beau" master. So we sprinted on up to Peaslake and up Pitch and turned onto the "Warm-up" jumps on Proper Beau- the first is a slight downhill onto a small ramp and a tiny gap jump that if you don't clear it you won't get into trouble, the 2nd is a bigger ramp and a bigger gap to clear, the gap is filled with logs so its not too nasty if you land on them but its not that comfy either.

After a few fast and faster sessions over these playing with our speed and technique we were clearing them enough to be ready for the big gap jump no.3. Well all except Tree magnet Chris who despite never trying this stuff before was valiantly leaping off everything but frightening us with his wish to hug trees after each jump!

As we are still learning this stuff I've tried to show some freeze frames in the video to help everyone with their technique analysis.

Next Simon and Gilles demo'ed the bigger gap jump on Proper Beau - it's about an 8 foot gap but the ramp up looks huge as you roll in fast to it. However if you miss the landing tranny, again, you won't hurt too much but you'll get a jolt.

There were far too many trees around for Chris to attempt it and Ken was preserving life for his holiday but I gave it a go and landed pretty well on my first attempt, so next we rolled in as a 3 rider sequence and this time I was faster and flew of the ramp and landed perfectly on 2 wheels on the great tranny- it felt sweet!

We were just getting ready to move on when Ken went back to get his bike and after a long pause and thinking about it he rolled in fast and cleared it first time- I just got the video on him in time! Sweet!

We carried on down T2 to the car park and then watched Simon and Gilles drop off "New Values" - a DH roll in to a large drop over roots and a nice steep smooth transition. As usual they made it look easy.... so I rode up to it twice but decided to leave on a high note and save that adrenalin shot for another day. Watch this space....

Sounds like we only play but after that we got some fast miles in and fixed 2 punctures in a row for Chris. Fortunately he saw fit to invest in new tyres back at the shop, ready for his next tree seeking expedition!