Went for my first fun ride in 2013

I just got back from a 50ish mile ride on mainly dry roads and it was great being able to get the throttle on mid corner and not feel the rear tyre sliding like the ride in January I did. The bike felt like it was gripping instead of just hanging in there. I even came home the long way just to make the ride last longer. Roll on the summer when the roads are nice and warm and we can get backup to speed again. If your out riding watch out for the little patches of road salt that build up and remember to take your time to get back up to speed. Be safe.

This is Worth a view. Pepsi MAX & Jeff Gordon Present: "Test Drive"

Insurance renewals CALL THE COMPANY

I have my car and bike insurance with Carole Nash on a 6 wheel policy and my renewal just came through offering a premium of £489 if i pay in full. A quick search with a comparison site provided separate quotes for the bike and car with the same features like legal protection and European breakdown cover etc provided a price for both of £368. That a lot of money to save. A call to Carole Nash and 5 mins later i have a renewal of £367.50 for the same policy as last year with all the same benefits. I guess i spent 30 minutes in total and saved £120 that's time well spent. Your insurance company will do the same to you so don't let them, call there bluff and if they cant compete for the same service change company.

Wow that was hard work, but worth it.

In late December 2012 my buddy James who lives in the Derbyshire area called me up to tell me he was turning 40 in March 2013 and wanted to do something special and that something was Trail riding Wales. He had spoken to this firm at the NEC bike show that offer a 1-3 day trail riding experience for groups. James had a total of 5 people wanting to do this so we booked for the weekend of 9-10th march 13. There is also accommodation there where you ride from or if you fancy something posher or with private rooms there is places to stay in the near by town. We chose to stay in the accommodation at Colin and Marianne's house as it was cheap and we were all men so the open plan upstairs wasn't a problem. We arrived Friday afternoon so we would be ready for Saturday. We were provided with Enduro style jacket trousers boots gloves body armour knee pads helmet and even waterproof over socks. I choose to wear my EDZ base layers an then thermal layers on top of the body armour jacket and i was very warm even up high in the mountains. For our first day riding we drove to a National forest about 45 mins away and Colin and Marianne brought the bikes in there vans.This is where we first got to meet the bikes there were 3 Honda CRF 250's that had less than a thousand miles on them. these have had better trail tyres and had the gearing changed to be more off road than on road, a Yamaha WR250 which is already a proper trails bike made road legal and a Suzuki DRZ400 which i rode for the largest part of the weekend. We were under way riding by about 10.30 and wow i don't like riding these really thin ,light, knobbly tired things after 10 minutes on the hard packed road im hating off road bikes. I started to think and use the techniques Colin told us about and straight away this is  fun and a load easier. NOT EASY just Easier then trying to ride it like a road bike. We made our way out of the easy park roads into the wilds and its becoming a lot of fun. We rode for a few hours till we stopped in a little village for lunch. After lunch the going got a bit harder and we came to the first part of track where 4x4's have left wheel ruts that we need to ride in. I think all of us had a fall on that section you really just need to relax and keep your vision up and let the bike follow the track but its hard i  kept dropping my vision to the rut and then BAM im down. You cant follow a rut when you can only see a few feet of it. The only part of the ride that was really scary was a downhill sloop maybe 45-50 degrees with a lose shail and stone surface we all made it to the bottom with just a few people having drops but no one was hurt and we all had a good laugh about it at the bottom. We rode back to the vans and my car by about 5ish and packed up and got changed to go back to the house. Sunday morning and there's light snow blowing around and the temp is way down on sat morning so we rap up again. Today's ride leaves from the house so were on the road by 9.30 and im glad for the layers im wearing as we have some on road riding to get to the trails and these bikes are still good for 60ish mph. The trails today are starting as hard as yesterday ended so we all have a idea of what were doing but still have to work at getting through long deep 4x4 wheel tracks with your foot pegs sometimes banging on the edges of the ruts must remember to lift vision before i DAM im off. No damage to me or bike and were going again. Sunday carried on that way for me and most the others we were all tired and this is hard work. The big DRZ no longer feels light but more like a large lump of lead. My legs are tired from standing on the pegs arms are burning from holding me forward against the wind that was doing its best to blow me off the back of the bike. But its now lunch time so i was having fun as the last 3-4 hours have flown past. Lunch in another little village i can remember the name of and were of again feeling some what better. I have my worst off Sunday afternoon on a track that we had ridden in the other direction just a few hours earlier. As i follow the left wheel rut around a left uphill corner my vision drops to the track directly in front of the wheel and again im bouncing left to right in the track till the front gets grip on the left side and climbs out the rut the rear tire spins and then bites in and were off, me on the seat and the bike in the air starting to lay to the left we have leapt up the bank getting air, maybe only inches but it felt like feet and i remember thinking dam this is a long way to fall and there's nothing i can do till im grounded and bang i land on my back head down the slope. i was lucky i found a soft place to land but now the bike is on its left side bar and peg well dug in and the machine is nearly upside down. When Steve finished laughing and pointing he came and helped me lift the bike up we found no damage to it or me so of we went, me very slowly for a while. There were a few other crashes between us but no breakages of human or bike. We finished the day when the sun was just staring to go down so we had another really full day of riding and fun . If you fancy a go at Trail riding look up this place you'll have a great time.  http://www.trailrides-wales.com/index.html
I didn't take any pictures but here are Jamies pictures http://razzi.me/albums/23160-trail-ride-wales-2013