Owen and I had a great day riding at Bike Park Wales for the Little Rippers Halloween ride. It is an event that we have wanted to attend for a few years now, but holidays and hospital visits have got in the way. It was more than worth the wait, it was one of the best days on the bike this year!
We drove down the night before, after I finished work, stopping at McDonald’s enroute. Problems with their app led to me accidentally doubling Owen’s order, which he thought was the best thing ever, as he got to eat the extras. I have no idea where he puts all the food. The same could be said at the hotel the next morning, where he took full benefit of the breakfast buffet!
We got to the bike park in time to get signed on before the uplifts started, and to get the Little Rippers group photo! For our first run we decided to explore the far side of the hill, which we missed on our previous visit – Terry’s Belly top sections, back up to the new skills area, down Popty Ping, then the rest of Terry’s Belly back down to the uplift. Owen particularly liked the skills area, he rode the drips line a few times until he got it perfect – some of the drips were pretty big too.
On our second run, we rode Sixtapod then Willy Waver – both fast trails that finish at the uplift. I think the was my favourite run, Owen was looking really confident on his bike, especially considering he had not previously ridden these trails. Owen was getting hungry by this point (how?), so for our third run we aimed for the visitor centre, via Melted Welly, Fforest Bump, Roller Disco, Bluebell and Bushwhacker. Fforest Bump was the first of the “tech” trails we had ridden there, chosen because I had hoped it would bring us out after the climb on Melted Welly. It did not. The trail was different to the “flow” trails we had been riding, with a looser, more natural, surface and more drops than rollers. Owen coped well with it, I think sessioning the drops line in the skills area in the morning helped.
We ended up having a long lunch – hotdogs from the cafe, and catching up with some of the other Little Rippers, whilst Owen waited to get his face painted. He also got a Little Rippers Halloween goody bag, and a second to bring home for Henry. By the time we started our fourth run, my muscles had got cold, and judging by how slowly he was pedalling over to Terry’s Belly, Owen’s had too. Owen rode Popty Ping again, and I decided to ride the red graded Hot Stepper, which runs parallel. The red graded trail was a step up, with a lot of drops, I based my chainring on one and had to stop and bail out of another as it was too big and I was riding too slowly. In the end Owen had a bit of a wait for me where the trails rejoined eachother. My arms were feeling tired on the rest of the long Terry’s Belly trail, and I was not too surprised when Owen said he did not want to do another run when we got down to the bottom. The problem was that we were right at the bottom of the bike park and we needed to get back up to the visitor centre, so we had a small climb, which just about finished Owen off, and a short descent on Norkle.
We had had an excellent days riding – over 21km according to my Apple Watch, which makes it Owen’s longest ride! Do not be mistaken in thinking that because we were mainly riding downhill it was easy, riding long downhill trails fast is hard work, and muscle groups that we are not used to using on our normal rides. Owen certainly got a taste for this type of ride and is already asking when we will next be doing an uplift day!
It was a long drive back to Coventry, traffic was OK until we got past the M40, then it was very busy, even in Coventry, which meant I was too late to take Henry to his Cycle Speedway Halloween Spectacular, so Jen had to ride up with him, and Owen and I met them there to catch the last half of the session. Henry was riding fast, and even managed to ride a lap one handed. I had set him the challenge of learning to ride one handed before the 2025 cycle speedway seasons starts, but he managed it on the last session of the 2024 season!
Ten years ago I bought a mountain bike, a Vitus Nucleus hardtail. After years of going to the gym multiple times a week, I wanted to switch up my training, and I thought that after buying the bike it would be cheaper than the gym membership. I was wrong on that count, but can definitely say that my fitness has improved! What enabled me to buy a mountain bike at the time was actually having somewhere to keep it, after the completing of my garage build. If I knew that ten years later I would be squeezing ten bikes into the garage alongside my MR2 Roadster I would have made the garage much bigger!
In addition to the family’s bike collection growing, I have also had to buy a van to transport the bikes around, as although I can ride from home, getting out an exploring new places on the bike is my favourite thing to do. Especially if I can ride with other people. I am lucky that Jen and the boys occasionally come out with me, Owen especially seems to enjoy riding, and I love being able to share a hobby with him.
I still have the frame of the Vitus hardtail, it is hanging from the garage ceiling, as although it was a good starter bike, and a good second bike when I got my Orange Four, I eventually replaced it with a better hardtail, my Orange Clockwork Evo. I did over 6,000km on that bike, albeit with a lot of upgrades over the five years I was riding it. I have also learned a heck of a lot about working on bikes – ten years ago I did not know anything, but these days I would not think twice about building a bike up from scratch, or building a wheel – I just wish I had more time to do it, and a bigger workshop of course!
Mountain bikes have also crept into my other hobby – photography. I love either going out on my bike with a camera in by bag, or shooting mountain bike races. To me, mountain biking feels more like a way of life than a sport, and I am glad that I found it, after buying that bike ten years ago.
One of my goals for 2024 was to do a 50km bike ride – I had a few routes planned, but had not yet got around to riding them. I had planned to take a full day, ride at a casual speed, maybe have a lunch stop etc. However, sometimes things just fall into your lap…
This summer I have been trying to join the local mountain bike group, the Godiva Trailriders, on their Wednesday evening group rides, as I find riding with faster riders helps me to push myself. This evening was a prime example! The pace was faster than I am used to (16km/h average), and my first experience of riding off road, at speed in the dark. On trails I do not know. I did lose the rider in front of me a few times, as I was right on my limit but fortunately the group waited for me.
As we got to the end of the group part of the ride I realised that it was one of my longest rides to date – no wonder I was struggling, but also that I could push on to 50km if I took a slightly longer route home. So I did, and ticked off one of my goals!
I have enjoyed shooting the Racers Guild Winter Cup Series downhill races at Stile Cop this winter, it is good to see grassroots downhill thriving in the Midlands. This is just a quick post to share a few of my favourite images from the final round in February. Somehow the Racers Guild managed to arrange for good weather, which has been rare so far this winter. I got to Stile Cop during the practice session, so took the opportunity to shoot something a bit different to my usual race images. I used my little Fuji X100V camera to do some slow-shutter-speed panning shots. I really should have put a wider lens onto my main camera, but it was a nice change to use the little camera for some action photography. I managed to get a few good shots, but the one above, of Fletcher Gallagher, was my favourite. Especially after I had converted it to black and white. I feel like it captures the speed and madness of downhill racing.
For the first race runs, I chose a rooty section, which seemed to be where most of the riders were gathering after their runs, it was a great atmosphere, but the light was not ideal for photography.
When there was a gap i the racing, after a crash, I walked up the track to a better view point and stayed there for the rest of the race.
I have thoroughly enjoyed shooting the winter cup series, and am already looking forward to the next races planned at Stile Cop.
As a fortieth birthday present to myself I upgraded my trusty Fujinon XF55-200mmF3.5-4.8 lens to the New Lens: Fujinon XF 50-140mm F2.8 – Fuji’s equivalent of a 70-200mm f2.8 lens, aka the standard sports photography lens. It is a bump up from a good consumer grade lens to pro grade lens, albeit with less reach. The new lens had been on my radar for a while, but it was only when testing the Fuji X-H2S camera body that I decided I should prioritise a lens upgrade. I had planned to call in at my local camera shop, LCE in Leamnington Spa, and buy the lens on my birthday, but got a good Black Friday deal from LCE online, the week before, so got it a bit early.
With everything else going on, I did not get much of a chance to test the lens, only a few walks in the local woods, but managed to get to the second round of the Racers Guild Winter Series at Cannock Chase to put the lens through its paces.
Mountain biking in December in the UK is cold, wet and muddy, an added complication is that it also gets dark mid afternoon, which is not great for photography. Driving up to Cannock Chase it the weather was not too cold, but it was the heaviest rain I have driven through in my MR2 Roadster for a long time. It was still raining heavily when I parked up, so I waited until it had stopped, before getting out of the car, donning my waterproofs and heading to the track. As I was late getting to the track the best angles had already been claimed by other photographers, so I was somewhat restricted in where I could shoot from. I also did not want to walk too far down the track, as I knew I would have to make a quick exist due to other commitments later in the afternoon.
As the riders came down for their first timed runs, I lined up a shot to catch them splashing through a puddle, which worked a bit too well, both the camera and I got splashed with muddy water – what a way to christen a new lens. Fortunately it is weather sealed. As the afternoon drew on the light got darker – I was definitely glad of the extra light from the wider aperture of new lens, I would have really struggled to shoot this race with my old XF55-200mmF3.5-4.8
The other area where I noticed an improvement was the autofocus. I do not know if it was the extra light getting to the sensor, or the faster focus motors, or maybe both, but the autofocus felt like it was on a par with the X-H2s and XF55-200mmF3.5-4.8 combination I used at the first round of the winter series. Athough this was only one race, so I need to shoot some more to get a better feel for it.
The last rider down the hill got the biggest cheers – Santa Claus going the extra mile to test the 2023 crop of kids bikes!
I only usually do birthday posts for the boys, but it was a big one for me today! The last few months have been pretty stressful, for various reasons, and plans for the day got changed, not to mention a birthday weekend away being cancelled. But in the end, it was just nice to have a day off work and spend time with family and friends.
After presents and cards with Jen and the boys, we got soaked walking to school. And then got home to a broken washing machine – it had sounded poorly for a while, so at least we already have a new one on order to be delivered later in the week! With the bad luck out of the way, the fun stuff could start – we took the MR2 to meet Partho for breakfast at The Barn At Berryfields. Given the poor weather, I had not been expecting to drive the MR2, but I figured that all of the rain overnight would have washed the salt off the road. It was good to get out with Jen in the MR2, even if it was just a short trip, with the roof up. Breakfast was tasty (as always at Berryfields) and not too big. It was great to catch up with Partho – he had made a card for me with photos spanning our 25 years of friendship, which was a really nice touch.
After breakfast, I packed the van and went to Leamington Spa to ride the new mountain bike trails on Newbold Comyn. It was cold and rainy, and my kit was still wet from yesterday’s even wetter ride, but I was not going to miss out on one of the few things that was able to go to plan. Even if my shopping trip to Leamington was scuppered by a too-good-to-miss Cyber Monday deal last week, and my Clockwork Evo, which I had hoped to ride, still being in bits in the garage. Jen had also hoped to do some shopping in Leamington, but her trip was replaced with a trip to her parent’s house to sort out the half-washed load of washing. I had a short but fun ride on the excellent trails – which were holding up surprisingly well given the recent weather. I can confirm that being forty is no barrier to jumping your bike and having fun in the mud!
By the time I got home and cleaned up, it was time to pick up the boys from school and meet my parents at Hickory’s restaurant for some BBQ food with my mum and dad. Dad convinced me to share the BBQ platter with him (I did not take much convincing) – it has been quite a few years since I last had the platter, so it was good to try the latest version, as it has all of the main things from the menu, which has been subtly updated in the years we have been going there. I will certainly be ordering some of the newer dishes on future visits. We came back home – to our newly refurbished living room(!) for birthday cake. Jen had asked me what I wanted, and I said “Devil’s Food Cake”, but it turned out that my mum has a unique take on Devil’s Food Cake, so Jen asked her to make it instead. It was a lovely cake, Henry also seemed to enjoy it, asking for a second helping. I am very lucky that both my wife and my mum make great cakes!
With the boys in bed, I ended the day with a wee dram of single malt, building the Lego Porsche that Jen bought me and thinking that as birthdays go, this has been a pretty good one!
When I switched camera systems to Fuji back in 2018 I thought that my sports photography days were in the past. However, I really enjoyed photographing the British Downhill Series at Llangollen last year, and a few other mountain bike races since. The only problem was that I felt I was being held back by the autofocus on my Fuji X-T2. When Fuji launched the X-H2S camera with a stacked 26 Megapixel sensor and improved autofocus my interest was piqued. Especially as they announced it with a mountain bike video! I did have some reservations, as the camera was aimed at hybrid (stills and video) shooters and hoped that Fuji would have carried over the new technology to the next X-T camera aimed at photographers. Instead, they went for a higher resolution, 40 Megapixel, sensor. My ideal camera would have been the sensor from the X-H2S, in the body of the X-T5, but sadly Fuji have not made that (yet!), so I have to choose between the high resolution stills model, or the fast hybrid camera. Luckily Fuji UK free 48 hour test drives, so I would be able to try both options. I decided to test the X-H2S first and booked the loan in to coincide with the first round of the Racers Guild Winter Series Downhill race at Cannock Chase.
My first reaction on unpacking the camera was that it is a chonky beast – I had not appreciated how much bigger it would be than my X-T2. After failing to attach the supplied strap, I threw on some Peak Design tethers, so I could use my Peak Design Slide strap. The strap lugs on the X-H2S are much better than on the X-T bodies which require metal rings between the camera and strap (or anchor in my case), it is only a minor point, but one that made me warm to the X-H2S. On my lunch break, I quickly dialled in some settings, and went for a walk in my local woods, to try and test the autofocus on some squirrels. I did not have much time, nor were the squirrels cooperating, but I did get a glimpse of what the subject detect autofocus was like. However the first real test was in the evening when Owen was at his karate dojo – Henry and I went to a nearby park. Henry was typically reluctant for photos, but I managed to grab a few shots with my 35mm f1.4 prime lens fitted to the X-H2S. This lens is known to be slow to focus, so I could not come to any conclsions about that, but chasing Henry around the play ground was a good test for the handling of the camera – such as quickly switching to a slow shutter speed for the photo on the roundabout. Upon getting the files in to Lightroom I really liked the Nostalgic Negative film simulation, which is not available on my previous generation Fuji cameras.
The race was on Sunday, but we also had a fun plan for the Saturday – Owen and I were going on a boys mountain bike trip with my friend Partho. The original plan had been a trip to one of the “top ten XC trails” with Partho, which was one of my goals for the year. However, Owen needed to come with us, so it changed to a boys trip to the Forest of Dean to keep the driving time down. Then we realised that there was a big event on there, and plan C formed – a return visit to Sherwood Pines for Owen to try and meet his goal of a 20km bike ride.
We rode the full length of the red-graded “Outlaw” trail, which was not quite long enough for Owen to meet his goal, so we added on another short loop, starting on the blue-graded “Maid Marian” trail, then rejoining the last few sections on the “Outlaw” trail. Before heading out for the second loop, I swapped my hydration pack for my camera bag, to get some shots of Owen and Partho on a new section of the blue trail. I chose a berm, with good lighting, set the X-H2S to 15 frames per second high speed shutter, activated the “bicycle” AI focus mode and called for Owen, and then Partho to drop in. I felt like I got good shots of them both railing the berm, then quickly packed up my bag and chased them down the trail. It felt great to be riding at my pace on a fun section of trail, even if I had a heavy camera bag on my back. As I caught up with the others Partho even managed to get a photo of me airborne over a jump.
We completed the loop, and celebrated Owen achieving his goal with some lovely brownies that Partho had brought with him. The excitement only lasted until we were back at home and I had downloaded the images to Lightroom: none of the eleven frames of Owen were sharp, and only one out of seven of Partho were sharp – the one above. The shutter speed, 1/500th of a second, should have been fast enough, so it could only have been missed focus. Disappointing when I had such high expectations for the autofocus on the X-H2S.
Not feeling fully convinced with the autofocus on the X-H2S, I decided to also take my X-T2 with me to Cannock Chase, just in case it was needed (thankfully, it wasn’t). After walking down the track I found a good corner to shoot from, but again, the AI autofocus was struggling, so I started going back up the track to try a few more angles. For the last few runs of practice I was shooting head on, as the riders came down a long chute – and the AI autofocus was working well. It seemed that it needed to see the rider for a bit before tracking then – maybe this is something that I could have tweaked in the advanced settings, but would need more time with the camera to be sure. Another option would have been to disable the subject detection autofocus and to just use a single focus point, like I would have done on the X-T2, but in the heat of the moment I did not consider that option.
Now knowing how to play to the camera’s strengths, I stayed at the bottom of the chute for the first race runs. The photos were nicely in focus, and I had been able to get a shot of most of the riders. However, they were not what I was hoping for, they were lacking in dynamism, execept for the riders that were jumping.
For the second race, I went back to the first corner I had scoped out. I had come up with a plan to work around the autofocus limitations I had experienced earlier – I would switch the camera to manual focus (I missed the SCM focus switch from the more traditional Fujis) and pre-focus on the exit of the corner. The 15 frames per second burst mode would allow me to pick the sharpest frame. As well as being better for photography, there was more of a party atmosphere at this corner, as it was towards the end of the track, next to the biggest drop. Riders were finishing their runs and gathering around this area to watch the faster racers coming down on their runs. Once again I was reminded just how fun it is to watch mountain bike racing in person, even at a grassroots level, the fact that I was able to photograph it was the icing on the cake!
When I got home, I had some issues importing the files to Lightroom, I do not know if this was a hardware or software issue on my MacBook Pro, or anything to do with the Cfexpress Type B card used in the X-H2s. I tired importing both from the card reader Fuji had sent with the camera, and by connecting the camera directly by USB, but both had issues. It is something that I would need to investigate more in the future, but I would not rule out the camera based on this. As I understand it, the Cfexpress Type B card is part of the reason that then camera is so fast in use, but I thought that it was worth noting the import issues. Otherwise, I was happy with the image quality, it is the quality I would expect from a Fuji X camera.
My preconceptions of the X-H2S were that I would love the autofocus, but hate the handling, I was wrong on both counts. I was underwhelmed by the autofocus, although I expect that with more time, tweaking of the settings and learning how to work with the camera I would be happier with it. Experienced camera reviewers believe that the autofocus on this model is pretty much on a par with Canon and Sony’s high end cameras, so will have to trust them on that. After initially thinking that the camera was huge, I grew to appreciate the size and handling – I even managed to forget to take a camera strap with me to the bike race, so held the camera all day – I am not sure that would have been as doable with my X-T2, which is a much smaller body. I was shooting in shutter priority mode all weekend, but adapted to the different “PASM” controls easily – I thought this would be a deal breaker for me, but I think I could manage.
Although I am yet to try the X-T5, the X-H2S has overtaken it and is now top of my wish list for my next camera. However the reason I use wish list is that there is a big price jump from the X-T5, especially when you consider the need for a Cfexpress Type B card and that there is no “kit” package with the 16-80f4 lens available for the X-H2S. However, my main takeaway from the weekend is that I probably need to prioritise a new telephoto lens, rather than a new camera body. When I bought my Fuji 55-200mm lens I liked the compact size and versatility, but after a few years I am coming into its limitations – the autofocus could be better and I either use it at the wider end or maxed out at 200mm for wildlife, where it is not really long enough. So an upgrade to the Fuji 50-140mm f2.8 lens is in order, and my aspirations for wildlife photography will have to be put on hold. 50-140mm is the Fuji equivalent of the 70-200mm lens that I used on Canon for many years and is the go to focal length for sports photography. So even though my expectations for the weekend went out of the window, I still feel like I have come out of it with some clarity on what camera kit I will purchase next.
Since photographing the British Downhill Series last year, I have wanted to shoot another downhill race – so where better to start than my local race series, on the Stile Cop downhill trails at Cannock Chase. Despite riding at Cannock Chase a fair bit, I had never ventured over to the downhill trails, so I was a bit surprised to find out that the entrance was at the top of the hill. I got there just before the first, of two, race runs were about to start and made my way down the trail until I found a good spot, and bumped into Sean from Little Rippers, who had found a good spot by a jump.
I could not make that angle work, partly because I was lower than the riders coming through, and the wide-angle lens on my Fuji X-T2 was struggling to focus. During a break in the racing, I crossed the track, found a better viewpoint above a switchback corner, switched to my telephoto lens and was getting some better images.
I then noticed a better position to shoot the jump I had started at, so walked down the track to that. The angles didn’t quite work for the jump, but I could get a nice clean shot of the riders coming down the chute after the jump, so stuck there until the end of the first runs. The weather was overcast, which was both a blessing and a curse, it meant that there were no strange shadows to deal with, but also that it was pretty dark in the trees. With lots of riders coming straight towards me, I took the opportunity to experiment with some of the different focus modes on my camera but came to the conclusion that placing the smallest focus point where I wanted the rider’s face to be in the frame, then tracking them was getting better results than any of the more “intelligent” focus modes. This is the method I have been using since my motorsport photography days (fifteen years ago!), however, I would like to try the new bicycle tracking mode on the latest Fuji cameras though.
After lunch it seemed like everybody went back up to the top of the hill, so I joined them. This was a bit of a rookie error – as I was the only photographer to do this. All the others seemed to have shot the first race runs from the bottom of the hill, and then come up the hill and got themselves set up with good viewpoints for the second runs. I considered going to the bottom of the hill, but took the lazy option and returned to the switchback I had shot earlier in the day. Lesson learned for next time though!
Concentrating on one corner was a good exercise in getting the best angle and in the end I managed to settle on a “BOGOF” angle – capturing a full rider shot exiting the previous corner (photo above) and then a much tighter image of the rider going through the corner in front of me (photo at the top of this post). I would not normally go for such tightly cropped action images, but I liked how I was able to capture the rider’s expression, even behind a full-face helmet and goggles.
Even though it was “only” a local race, the standard of riding was high – the elite riders looked particularly fast, pedalling everywhere they could, rather than solely relying on gravity. There was also a surprisingly big crowd which meant there was a good atmosphere. Racers Guild has another race at Stile Cop planned for the autumn and I hope I can go because it was a great day out!
As in previous years (2018 and 2019), I thought it would be interesting to look at each of my best nine performing Instagram posts in a bit more detail. Unfortunately Facebook/Instagram have broken the Worpress embeds for Instagram posts, which is really inconvenient, and partly to blame for the delay to this post.
This was from parental leave with Henry, when we went for a drive in the MR2 together. Henry loved being in the sportscar.
One of the benefits of parental leave was that I could take Owen for midweek mountain bike rides! This was from Owen’s first ride at Hick’s Lodge – somewhere that we loved visiting in 2020. On this trip we only rode the final section of the blue trail – now Owen can ride the whole trail.
At the start of March, Owen’s balance bike club, Ready Steady Riders, took over Adrenaline Alley skate park in Corby. Owen loved it! I had fun too, I took loads of photos on my Fuji X-T2, and it was the first “big” trip in the van. After spending 2007 and 2008 commuting between Kettering and Coventry, it was the first time in two years that I was excited to do that drive.
Another shot from a ride at Hicks Lodge! This was just before lockdown, Owen and I rode our bike, but Jen and Henry also came along for a picnic and walk. I blogged about it at the time.
This photo is from Henry’s first bike ride – sat on his Thule Yepp Mini bike seat Amazon affiliate link on the front of my bike. It was just a short loop from home, but it opened up a whole world of family bike rides. Henry has now grown out of this seat and is on the Mac Ride, which will open up more technical trails.
I did get out on some solo bike rides in 2020! This photo was from a particularly satisfying ride. During lockdown I had given my Orange Four a full strip down and service, this was the first ride back. Working from home in the summer, I really enjoyed going for a short post-work ride on a Thursday evening. A sort of commute/celebration of the end of the week.
I may have been a bit premature celebrating Henry’s first ride on his balance bike, as it has not been repeated since. I am trying to get him out on the balance bike as much as I can. Even at Henry’s current age Owen was not regularly riding his bike, I had to keep trying him on it, and all of a sudden it clicked. Hopefully Henry will get the bug soon and we can go one rides together.
I was slightly surprised to see that my old Vitus Nucleus made the cut for the top nine, but the Orange Clockwork Evo that replaced it did not. I had many adventures on the Vitus, but it has donated most of its parts to its replacement, and the frame is hanging from the garage ceiling to remind me of the 6,256km we shared.
This is really the odd one out – there are no bikes or boys! It was taken on a photowalk in Sutton Park with my best friend Partho. It was a really enjoyable morning, we had breakfast and strolled around the park with our cameras. I need to remember to make time for this sort of thing and hopefully we can do more 2021.
I enjoyed doing my Instagram Best Nine 2018 post earlier this year, so thought I would do one for 2019 too. Like last year I used the bestnine.net app to rank my Instagram posts from the year by likes.
Here are the individual posts with some more detail:
My best friend, Partho, finally bought himself a mountain bike, so we took our bikes over to Cannock Chase, to give it a shakedown. I love riding my bike, but riding it with a friend is even better!
I went to Llandegla on the May bank holiday. It is one of my favourite trail centres and worth driving for an hour past Cannock Chase! I fitted some purple parts to my Orange Four for 2019 and really like the new look.
Baby Henry was always going to be a popular post! He looks so small in these photos!
Ten days after Henry was born Owen and I were meant to go for a Little Rippers MTB Facebook group ride at Hicks Lodge, but Owen struggled, so we came home and I went out on my bike. And fell off – on a drop off that I have ridden loads. I guess my Instagram followers liked me falling off!
We were more prepared for this Little Rippers MTB Facebook group ride at Cannock Chase – I had the Mac Ride fitted to my hardtail and Owen had new wheels, with pneumatic tyres, fitted to his Strider! Jen and Henry came along with their running buggy. I really enjoyed the day, and I’m sure Owen did too. He rode really well, trying some tricky sections of trail on his balance bike. My lasting memory from the day is when I was tucking Owen into bed that evening he told me he was going to dream about having a pedal bike.
Owen loves his #supersaturday sessions with Ready Steady Riders, and sometimes I bring my Fuji camera kit along to shoot some photos of him. This week the light was particularly good and Owen was riding well!
This was the first day when Owen used his Strider as transport, rather than just on a bike track – it was by far his longest ride at the time. I rode some of those trails yesterday and they are so muddy and flooded in places – definitely not passable for a balance bike!
I love photos of me and Owen riding together! My Mum came along to the pump track to wrangle Owen, so that I could ride too. She was surprised at how fast Owen was riding, but managed to grab these photos of us riding together.
This post ends the same way it started – with a photo of Partho on his mountain bike! This time at Sutton Park, his local trails. Being able to get out on the mountain bikes with Partho has made for my favourite rides of the year – we have already agreed to get out more together in 2020!
