"Mountain" Biking for Beginners.

Steve and his girlfriend Lesley came down to visit me in Bristol this weekend. They came down on Saturday and we went out for some food and beers around Bristol.

I had quite a good time showing some of the sights and sounds around Bristol to Lesley as she had never been to Bristol before.

We even managed to gate crash a private party at the Mud Dock later on in the evening. We managed to get into the private party venue without realising that it was a private party. I remember mentioning to Steve at the time that it looked like a bit of an odd set-up with a big happy birthday sign handing from the roof inside the bar.

Then when we got to the bar a few people were looking at us a bit strangely. I ordered a couple of drinks from the bar and before the barmaid could serve me a beer someone asked who we knew at the party. We all said pardon and then we realised it was a private party.

At this point we made a hasty retreat laughing all the way to the exit. If only we had been a bit quicker we could have just replied 'John', or 'Peter' and may have got away with it!

On the way out we noticed a small sign on the steps up to the bar saying that the private party was on tonight and the place was closed. How could we have missed it, I think I saw the sign on the way in, but didn't take any notice of it as I was too eager to get a beer.

On Sunday I convinced the two of them to come out on a small off road bike ride at Ashton Court. It was only a very short 5 mile beginner route and ideal for the two of them.

I really needed the training and would have gone on my own in the morning and let them stay in bed for a while longer if they wanted.

Fortunately the weather was quite good and
we all had a really good time on the ride. Even though both their bikes were quite old and didn't even have front suspension they both coped really well with the technical bits. I even had a quick go at Steve's bike and it was quite a bone shaking change to ride a bike without any front or rear suspension or disc brakes.

The three photos were taken near the end of the course on the easier gravel path outside of the forest. They wanted an actual action shot so the last one is of them on the bikes riding past me.