My neighbour ‘puts down‘ his own compost. Every now and again I see him wander out his back door resplendent in dressing gown and Next slippers, used tea-bag and a half a leek clutched bravely in hand, heading towards his green plastic bin. Open her up, throw it in and wait. How long for, I don’t entirely know, but the end product is an alchemic transformation from crap to nitrogen-rich, well, crap…

Now, as much as I admire his climbing bush things (I really should insert a Latin name here to illustrate that I know the Latin for stuff but I don’t so scratch that) but I don’t compost myself. I was thinking about this the other day and realised that I do, sort of, in a way, ‘bike compost’. My shed, like a lot of sheds, has a crap receptacle. I hate throwing bike stuff out – nuts, bolts whatever, I can’t stand to bin seemingly useless little bits of metal.

Into the tray they go then and every now and again it will come to my rescue. Spare shoe cleats, oddly-sized headset spacers, headset bolts, stem bolts, rotor bolts… They’re all in there. It doesn’t take much for me to simply chuck these little nuggets of time-saving gold in there but every now and again I get to scatter them on to a bike late at night which needs to be ready by the morning and they fill holes, plug gaps, hold things together and generally come to my rescue.

This really has turned into an ode to crap, hasn’t it?! ‘Bike composting’ is far too twattish a term for me to try and endorse too. Instead, lets just salute our jars/treys/boxes of crap. They’re a lot more valuable than the sum of their bits…

The Staff Of Life pub practically leans into the main road between Todmorden and Cornholme. As an Irishman living outside of Ireland, I’m always cautious of stereotyping BUT I’m pretty sure that I could have inadvertently wandered into an episode of Emmerdale. Horse brasses, stone walls and blokes with sheep dogs fill the public bar whilst a local PTA meeting clad in various shades of Goretex huddle round a table full of soft-drinks.

I’m shattered. And hungry. The drive ‘up north’ was long, my B+B is at best odd and I’ve just had my legs torn off by Olympic hopefuls Kenta Gallagher, Annie Last and Grant Ferguson all day around Lee Quarry. The greyness never seemed to lift today and despite it never raining, I ended up soaked.

Ribs – that’ll sort me out. Ribs and a pint of best. The pint is a bit of a disappointment, it tastes like licking barley off the back of a dusty tractor. The ribs though… wow. This can’t be designed for one person surely?! I eat until it feels as though pork may be about to start seeping out of my ears then call it a day.

It was up early the following morning to meet Neil ‘The Don’ Donoghue and snapper Luke Webber over at Lee to tackle a Wrecking Crew loop of both it and neighbouring Crag Quarry. I hadn’t seen Donny in a bit so it was cool to catch up and to fail miserably in keeping up with him as usual. Fair play to Poppies Deli across the road too, after 4 1/2 hours of riding the girls there sorted us out with pies and coffee.

Keep an eye out in MBUK 272 (on sale 14th December) and 273 (11th January) along with some tasty little vids set to appear on this here blog in the not so distant future…

01 Happy Canadians

Canadian DH outfit Team Cycle Neron/Specialized blast dust filled corners and float massive rock gardens in this feel good edit which will have you aching for summer and the music of Eels.

02 Ric’s Morewood

In another of our new MBUK Machines videos, gangly Ulsterman Ric gives you an insight into his Morewood Izimu DH bike. Cheap and simple – like the man himself!

03 High Voltage

Ever wondered just how far you can push a Scott Voltage FR? The Coastal Crew take ‘a quick razz down the woods’ to a whole new level – you’ve been warned!

04 Balls-out backflip

G-Shock watches are notoriously tough, as is Cam Zink. Here he sends one of the biggest flips we’ve ever seen as a million and one alarms, timers and functions merrily bleep away.

05 Trail Terras

Italian helmet maestros, Met, have a new trail-shredding Terra lid on its way in 2012 and they’ve released this natty vid to complement it. Proper French trails in A’Lange getting torn apart – bien!

06 Really Garwy

The Garw Avalanche was a locals race which took place just outside the mighty metropolis of Bridgend. Proof that assemble enough mates, enduro bikes and tins of Carlsberg and you’ll have a good time.

If ever there was an excuse to be out of bed at 6am on a Saturday morning, racing bicycles is probably it. The Vito Sport had been washed, fuelled and packed the night before, I’d safely made it through my ban on my usual Friday night beers and was feeling pretty fresh. Resisting a cup of coffee, I threw one last ball for the dog, wheeled my Whyte 19 out of the shed and fired up the Vito – it was time for Oktoberfest!

Ashton Court was bunged – packed even. After some near-catastrophic wheel-spinning and inch-perfect parking Jamer, Coxy and I took a wander over to registration to collect our race boards and to sign away the rest of our Saturday. Next stop was to go and see Matt at Torq who very kindly sorted us out with enough energy drinks and gels to power an invasion of some kind. Their new vanilla drink is amazing by the way – a nice break from citrus.

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The start was a running one. Uphill. Through wet grass. Nice. Jamer and I managed to stick together and in a move that would echo our approach to the rest of the day, we ignored the cattle-like stampede to go the long way round and rather under-handidly cut into the main group as it thundered towards the opening singletrack section.

This is one of the biggest challenges of racing the new look Ashton Court – it’s tight. There’s little room through the enclosed, flowy singletrack get stuck behind a slower moving rider or get bunched up and there’s little you can do but pump round and wait for an open section to pass on. As soloists you then face two distinct types of problems;

a) The full-Lycra XC warriors – These chaps do this sort of stuff all the time and are very good at it. They go very fast for very long periods of time. The vast majority of them are polite and will charmingly blip past you when you find a space. Some of the others though, seem to get rather frustrated.

b) Teams –  The sensible option and to be fair, what we should have been doing. Beast out a lap as hard as you can then simply hand over to a mate and have a rest for an hour afterwards. They don’t then need to get stuck behind a muppet like ourselves three or four hors in…

That said, it may have been competitive in places out on the loop but in the pits the atmosphere was top drawer as the smell of BBQ’s inter-mingled with kids chasing dogs, dogs chasing kids and all to the rather odd sounds of Oompah music. It was Oktoberfest after all…

Anyway, as Jamer and I started to suffer from severe back pain at around lap seven, Coxy got on with the task in-hand and beasted his way to 28th overall with a mighty 11 laps under his belt. A top effort worthy of his first ever race. Jamer made it to nine whilst I called her a day at a lowly seven. I rested the back for half an hour and on deciding to go back out again, went to stand up and basically fell out of the back of the van. Game over – get tidying.

Good weather, good racing and even the odd celebrity (see the Bike Riders United boys including Peaty) – Bristol’s Oktoberfest was a top way to spend a Saturday after all! Thanks to Mike and the boys at Bristol Bikefest, Mercedes Vito Sport as always, Matt at Torq for keeping us fuelled up and the bloke who helped us escape the mud on the way out!

Preparation for the Megavalanche pretty much knocked the Morewood on the head for a month of two there. I was keen to just ride my Pivot Mach 5.7 and get used to hitting stuff flat-out on it. Now though, the big South African is back!

I’m a big fan of the Morewood and although at £2,800, you can’t call any bike ‘cheap’, I reckon given the sensible spec, sorted angles and 36.5lb weight it’s up there with the best value DH rigs.

The Forest of Dean was the venue for a long drawn-out tested shoot yesterday and despite being (accidentally) conned into riding the entire Verderers Trail on it to begin with I was loving being back on the Isuzu Trooper.

It was difficult re-calibrating my brain to the full-on DH bike again. Getting used to hitting things faster and just the sheer amount of grip the thing has in the corners caught me out a few times. Weaver and I sessioned a freshly cut locals track towards the end though and it felt awesome to be hitting roots, turns and wide-open off-camber sections again.

I’m also running a cool new Elka Suspension cartridge in my RockShox Boxxers. After 4 years of riding Fox 40-equipped DH bikes, I’ve found the swap on to Boxxers tricky but the new cartridge has brought them to life. More on that in the mag soon…

I’m itching to get back out again on her now though, that’s the problem! Some Winter-based Mini-DH racing is high on the agenda too…

Plymouth – a town steeped in naval history and, believe it or not, the 16th most-populated city in Britain. True fact.

Anyway, if you’re in the area at the weekend and fancy getting an eyeful of some of the finest tricks and stunts-related mountain biking you’ve ever seen then get thee to the Piazza.

Thanks to the mechanical engineering skills of Robin Kitchin, the Bike Tour team, captained by the fearless Martyn Ashton, will be hopping, jumping and generally showing off all over their Mercedes Vito Sports.

Go on – it’ll be a welcome relief from a days trudging round the shops dancing through the minefield of “What do you think?” Truly a great way to spend half an hour.

France is big. Big and dull. And largely filled with ham and cheese.

These were my razor-sharp impressions of the place. They’re pretty cynical but when you travel for ten hours on a dual carriageway and see nothing other than fields and expensive peage boothes, I challenge you to come to any other conclusions.

In fairness the road up to Alpe D’Huez itself is pretty special. It climbs 13.8km via 21 switchbacks and has been a key man-breaker in the Tour De France  more or less every year since 1976. We ended up riding up the final four turns rather than wait for the lift back up after qualifying and can assure you that it’s bloody steep…

After our mammoth journey we got the bikes out and tackled the qualifying course straight away. Having only consumed Red Bull and biscuits for the guts of a day, we weren’t in the ideal ‘frame of mind’.

Jamer and I both had a couple of crashes getting used to the combination of big rocks and fine dust but other than that it went ok. The biggest shock to the system really was the pain coursing through our arms and hands. If you can get some time in on lengthy Alpine descents/a placement as a brick-layer before going, you’ll be fine.

We ended up eating and having the odd pitcher in Smithy’s most nights we were there. Nowhere in Alpe D’Huez seems to be that cheap but after a long day on the hill with only blackened bananas and energy bars for nourishment, we were pretty happy to swap Euros for fajitas.You can surprisingly get Kilkenny in there too.

I’ll not go too far into how we got on with the race itself (you can read all about that in MBUK 268, on sale 24th August) but it was an incredible experience. It’s a combination of Mad Max and the opening half hour of Saving Private Ryan with the iceberg from Titanic playing a cameo role. It’s brutal and beautiful all at once.

For all the times that you come off and feel beaten by it there are soaring moments when you think “This is why I ride my bike!” If you’re a racer, it’s one of the ultimate races demanding power, skill, stamina and most importantly, brains. If you’re a rider then it’s one of the most gruelling tests you’ll ever give yourself. Surviving or racing, everyone should give the Mega a go.

Here are some pics from the trip… We’ll get some video up soon too once we’ve fixed all the bikes.

Well, here we are then – the week of the Megavalanche. By this time next week, we will have taken on and (hopefully) come out the other side of one of the most daunting races in mountain biking. Before we even get to Alpe D’Huez though, there’s a lot to be getting on with…

Jamer’s Scott Genius is still in partial disarray with his height-adjustable seat-post having let go last week. Rob’s Specialized Enduro and my Pivot Mach 5.7 are looking in better nick but we’re still guessing a bit on set-ups.

Worryingly, my chain managed to escape the clutches of my chain device at a roundabout this morning and sent me hurtling limply into the middle of the road. It’s never done that before though so I’m confident that it won’t do it again. Ahem…

Tonight is scheduled for packing and more head-scratching. The problem with the Mega is that everyone you talk to who has completed it has a completely differing list of stuff that you’ll ‘definitely need’. Folding or non-folding tyres? What chain-ring size? Can we really bring ourselves to wear glasses with a full-face?! All questions needing addressed…

Thanks to some dodgy deadline scheduling we’re also on for a full-on mad dash across France to make sign-on. But these things, we shall take in our stride. Hopefully. Probably.

Stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter along with this here blog for updates as MBUK take on the Mega!

So busy infact that, I’m only getting a chance to tell you about a pretty cool day out Weavs and I had last Thursday at Cwmcarn.

It was a classic case of two birds, one stone – dead! Sort of.

Rob’s mission was to visit Mojo Suspension and check out the 2012 Fox Racing suspension whilst my objective was to loiter with intent with the Lapierre World Cup team.

We got to Mojo early doors and head honcho Chris had the coffees on straight away. If you’ve not been before, Mojo is a seriously cool place to visit. Signed memorablia from some of two-wheeled sports greatest hangs everywhere, monster Fox ATV shocks hang on the walls and there’s row upon row of just about every part of every Fox suspension unit ever invented.

As Chris talked us through the new stuff the Mojo lads got busy bolting some of the slippery Kashima-clad units to our bikes – there are definitely worse ways to fill a morning! More on the new stuff winging its way online and into the mag very soon…

Next up was more coffee and a meet with snapper Russ and the Lapierre boys – Sam Blenkinsop, Cam Cole and Scottish ripper, Sam Flockhart. The banter was good and despite the Welsh weather’s best efforts we got a decent bit of riding in and some pics shot. Having given up on attempting to hang on to the back of the Lapierre boys, Russ and I even found a new trail on the way back to the car park too.

Anyway, need to get back to the Fort Bill-related grindstone now. In the mean time here are some cheeky snaps…