Rivington Ride January 2012

Fantastic ride on Saturday at Rivington, beautiful sunshine and cold crisp winter air. 5 of us were supposed to ride but due to unforeseen circumstances only 2 of us made the ride. Pic: below: Mark F. on the descent from Rivington Pike.

Picture Right:

Flying Chick: Background is Winter Hill.

Flying Chick's Autumn Riding Nov. 2011

Riding in the woods last weekend, I stopped to admire the beautiful colours around me. I hung my stumpy in a tree and took a great picture.

Pic below. Dr. Amy takes a berm with full concentration and precision. I've never seen an MTB back pack as big as that before.
Photo By Panther

Jill shows Tony B how it's done.

Flying Chick's Swan encounter

Great to be out on the Kona yesterday bouncing around Healy Nab, Rivington out on my own for a change. Dry & sunny for mid October the trails were great. (pic is last year at Glentress)

I took a short cut home along a disused part of the Leeds Liverpool canal and discovered a swan hovering over another swan that appeared to be dead. On closer inspection I was alarmed to see that the poor bird had got into a fine mess and imprisoned himself under a hawthorn tree and the whole length of his neck was pinned to the ground with a thorny branch. I could see blood on his neck from his struggles. His companion was at this time hissing frantically at me and I used my bike to gently wheel a barrier in between myself and the aggressive bird and lodged my bars on a branch. I knew I had to free the swan but I'd remembered my father telling me as a child " a swan is strong enough to brake your arm if you try to hold it" at arms reach the swan was massive. Thank God, I was wearing my my downhill gear, should I have been attacked by the bird I was trying to rescue I would be protected. Wearing my thick cycling gloves I proceeded to reach in and carefully break the thorny branches, the swan pulled his neck free and I could see that one wing was still trapped as I freed that he rolled backwards and sat motionless in the grass with his head just looking from side to side. I think the poor thing was in shock as it didn't seem afraid of me. I moved away from it a few metres and watched it for 10 minutes until it got to it's feet and wobbled its way to the canal where the other swans were swimming. It made my day to have rescued such a majestic bird and no two days are ever the same when out on the bike.

OH, Lord, won't you buy me, a beach, a mountain and a bike ?

"For the remote beach and mountain, there is no charge" he said.
"So what more do I need for the rest of my life?

Flying Chick The Tribe MTB club Morzine Pics.

The Tribe MTB Club Holiday is to Italy this year however Morzine has been put on the back burner mainly due to the wet weather we have had to endure over the 8 years we've been riding there. The trails are dangerous to ride in the wet. Picture left, flying chick Andrea and groovy chick Carolyn with our club downhillers.

Here are some more pictures of the fun we had in Morzine over the last few years with our bike club. www.thetribembc.co.uk

Steve can't resist the pig roast.

Andrea And Sandra

Downhill gear

Phatboy Ian, Too wet and muddy to ride!!!!

Do cross country instead of Downhill much safer when the DH trails are muddy

Just a little muddy today ! So much gear.

Great View !

Sandra

Groovy Chick Girl's on their New Bikes !!!!!

Groovy Chick Girl's and their new bikes

Flying Chick's ride Rivington 19 Feb 2011

Fantastic ride on Saturday, but as we'd expected it was pretty muddy and wet.

I love out local area Rivington so much that I often wonder sometimes why we load our bikes in our cars and drive for hours to favourite places like Ladybower or Keswick, when we have our very own fantastic MTB trails just a few minutes ride away for most of us. I find I'm more tired from driving 4 hours round trip than I would have if I'd been doing a 5 hour bike ride. I'd rather spend more time riding than driving any day. There are so many trails especially over the West Pennine Moors around Brinscall area.


Pic Top Left: Time to clean the dirt splatters from our cycling glasses and shake the mud from our hair.


Pic bottom left: Rocky descent via the woods from the Pike Road.

Pictures by Mark Foster

Flying Chick's Ski Holiday Alberta, Canada

Fairmont Bannf Springs Hotel, Alberta, Canada. Where else can you ski from late October to late May ?

Any club members interested in our Easter ski holiday, get in touch with Flying Chick.

Check it out:

www.fairmont.com/bannfsprings/

This is a fun and pampered 10 day ski holiday with a direct flight to Calgary from Manchester.

Flying Chicks Groovy Chicks Weekend Glentress & Innerleithen

Panther is organising a girls only weekend at

Glentress and Innerleithen May 2011.

Confirmed dates will be posted here soon.

Picture is Panther at Rivington, Lancashire, UK.

Tracy Moseley, Top Flying Chick 2010

Tracy Moseley Wins Women's Downhill MTB World Championship 2010.
After fifteen years of trying, Tracy Moseley has captured her first ever World Championship at Mont Sainte Anne.
In an exclusive pre-race interview, Tracy commented how much it would mean to win the rainbow jersey and in time honoured fashion, took the win by a huge margin.
Taking to the track with three French riders still to race, Tracy's time smashed the previous fastest of Mio Suemasa by 12.79 seconds, but with the defending World Champion Emmeline Ragot, and Sabrina Jonnier still to ride, she could only look at the ground during a tense waiting game.
But neither Sabrina Jonnier, Emmeline Ragot or Floriane Pugin could come close to Tracy as the rain continued to fall.
Sabrina Jonnier was closest, 7.50 seconds down, but in short it was a total destruction of the field by Tracy, who can now relax knowing her final career ambition is realised.
Rachel Atherton, on her return to the World Championships managed seventh after a huge over the bars crash, and now returns home for surgery on her injured shoulder.

Panther at Glentress & Innerleithen 3 - 5 Sept

Panther on her new Lapierre at Glentress, Scotland.

Flying Chick at Innerleithen uplift, Scotland

Flying Chick at Innerleithen uplift weekend
31th July - 1st August 2010

Great weekend at Innerleithen, Scotland, the trails remained dry and 4 of us managed to crash at least twice each. I stacked twice in the bomb hole on Caden Bank, as I went into the berm it was filled with gravel and it was just like hitting marbles. The trails have not been maintained in years and they get rougher and rockier each time we visit.

Pic left is Flying Chick, pic right is Prince Wills flying the Matador drop.

Air Maiden 2010 serious fun for Flying Chick's

Air Maiden 2010
Further to the success of Air Maiden over the last two years, organiser, Lynn Aitchison is once again holding the 2010 Ladies freeride event at Glentress Freeride Park, Scotland, 26th 27th June.

The weekend will follow the same format as previous years, with coaching on Saturday, followed by a barbecue and live music.

Sunday will see the return of Air Maiden competition with once again more giveaways for winners of categories such as best trick, best crash and biggest screamer.

There are lots of places to stay in the area for all budgets and some camping will be available at the Buzzards Nest.

Places are limited to 50 so contact Lynn for an entry form at http://www.airmaiden.co.uk/

PICTURE LEFT LAST YEARS WINNER
Air Maiden 2009 Polly Harrison
TOP FLYING CHICK IS
Polly Harrision

Flying Chick's and Groovy Chick's Mountain Biking Weekend

The Flying Chick's and the Groovy Chick's are back at Dolgellau, North Wales, this May.

Pictured left is Panther.

The weekend is planned for 21st - 23rd May. Contact Panther for available places.

Riding all the usual challenging trails at Coedy Brenin.

Flying Chick Rides Snow Covered Spooky Wood

When we arrived at the Hydro Hotel in Peebles we would not have guessed that the middle MTB trails (red route) would still be a whiteout, icy and treacherous in places.

Hard to believe it's the middle of March and Spooky Wood is still snow covered. We met a local lad at the top of the trail and he said it's the first weekend in weeks that the trails had been rideable.

Our bikes were all over the place and I dabbed on every corner as my front wheel got stuck in the frozen ruts. I know I should know better, but it was fantastic fun and a real challenge to get down safely as some areas are too steep to walk down in the snow anyway.

As always I can't wait for my next trip there.

The Tribe MTB club are back at Innerleithern in June.

Flying Chicks Charity Sky Dive

Keely's smile says it all, "Can we do it again"
Pic left is Keely and Cousin Em triumphant after their recent tandem charity sky dive.

"It was the scariest thing to get your head around" said Keely,
but once you've done it, "bring it on"
They are both hooked. It was the girls third attempt as the weather proved too foggy on the weekend they were booked to do the jump
so they had to go back on Valentine's weekend and luckily the weather was good. Great thing is they got a lot of training from the Black Knights, this gave them the confidence they needed.
Keely raised over £300 for art therapy classes for under privileged children.


With thanks to The Black Knight's Sky Diving Centre, Lancaster, North West England.

Flying Chick's Snow Fun in Lancashire, UK

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow !!!

Pic above, Flying Angel, on her home made sledge, super fast, super crash.

Pic above. Flying Chick @ M61 Motorway bridge Whittle-le-Woods.

Beautiful Sunshine, and enough snow to ski, we could not resist going for a play. This is our local village where we live, it's close to Rivington where we usually go mountain biking. I had been tempted to take my bike out in the snow yesterday until I heard about the broken bones my friends have suffered over the past few days, doing just that. The bikes will stay locked away, until the freeze is over. NOTE: Groovy Tribe AMG 11, Jan 2010.

Flying Chick's Night Riding, Rivington, Lancashire, UK

There is something very magical about my local area Rivington, and the surrounding forest at night .

Now the clocks have changed, it's time to explore your local area at night.

It's such a special experience riding a mountain bike in the pitch black darkness of the Chinese Gardens at the foot of Winter Hill situated in Lancashire, North West England. You'd expect to encounter deer and rabbits and other animals but we rarely ever see them, they see and hear us first and are obviously frightened off by our bright halogen lights approaching. You're more likely to encounter deer, squirrels, and foxes in the day time. In fact the only sign of life we saw on one of our night rides was a tramp with a can of beer in his hand, I said to my friend Carolyn? Did you see that tramp? Couldn't miss him she said. We feel safe riding at night because no one can tell the difference if we're a couple of ladies or a couple of mud splattered rough lads out for a ride in the darkness.

How much can you see ahead?

Well, not much is the answer to that.
The above picture is a true example of the amount you can see with my Smart twin Halogen lights
Always take a backup battery as most only last 2 hours and it's easy to forget how long you've been riding when you're enjoying yourself. My battery once died on a night ride and I could not see my hand in front of my face, I had to follow behind my friend and be guided by his helmet light and bike halogen's. Really hard to follow someone else's lights. also pays to stick to riding the area you know well because if you get lost in the darkness, you're in trouble. Never, ever, night ride alone
I smashed up my lights last year, it is a lot easier to crash your bike on a dark forest trail. I guess my Christmas present to myself this year is a new set of lights.

Big Biking Weekend 9 - 11 October 09

Some pictures of the Groovy Chicks XC antics on a tipical cross country weekend.