Skedaddle mountain bike guides gather from around the world in Castleton Derbyshire!

It’s that special time of the year when all the Skedaddle guides from hotter holiday climes come to together in the cold and rare snow of England, to partake in a weekend of cycling , drinking and of course discussing how we can make this year’s Skedaddle holidays even better!

Mechanical Guru Dave from TSW Cycles explained the finer points of how they keep our Giant XTC hire fleet running smoothly, along with plenty of helpful hints related to taking bikes apart.

Saturday’s bike ride and snowball fight!

Thankfully the log fires and real ales in the local pub “The Castle”, soon Calmed everyone down

A great weekend was had by all , thanks to everyone who came! Same time next year?

More photos available at…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7234381@N05/sets/72157603897034247/ 

If you would like to try mountain biking in Derbyshire (hopefully with better weather) , take a look at our Dark Peak weekend

http://biking.skedaddle.co.uk/holiday/Mountain_Bike_Holidays/Derbyshire_Dark_Peak/59/viewchild.rails

or the slightly easier White Peak weekend.

http://biking.skedaddle.co.uk/holiday/Mountain_Bike_Holidays/Derbyshire_White_Peak/40/viewchild.rails

Check out these shots from our latest Mountain Bike Skills Weekend
These UK mountain bike weekends are a great excuse to get fit , improve your mountain biking skills and enjoy the stunning scenery of the lake district. All our weekends are run by guides who are expert mountain bikers and can help you improve whatever your level!

You can see more on Flickr

Here’s a Skedaddle Guide top tip for getting home if you have the misfortune to ride over something razor sharp!

The sound is deafening. There are ten of us in the tiny bar, and we’re all yelling at the top of our lungs in the name of “Karaoke”, the national pastime the Japanese use to let their hair down. The bar owner has already had to go next door and apologise to his neighbours for the racket. “HERE WE ARE NOW, ENTERTAIN US”, sing Nirvana, accompanied by a group of very tired but happy Skeddaddlers, celebrating their last night of a fantastic trip.
Scroll back 2 and half weeks and I’m excitedly sat on the plane somewhere above Russia with an air of naivety and expectation, on the way to Osaka.

The weather was fantastic in the Mendips earlier this month, which was just as well as I spent the hours between midnight and 3am Sunday morning waving a torch at riders in various stages of fatigue and mountain biking insanity at charity cycling CLIC24 event. All off this on my weekend off from guiding in Exmoor and the Quantocks for Skedaddle…do i get a medal??

Running from midday Saturday to midday Sunday, CLIC24 is held over a fast, 10 mile course over the Mendip Hills. At least, it’s fast when it’s dry, which it was this year and wasn’t in 2007, when it rained heavily for more or less the entire 24 hours. That didn’t seem to have deterred entrants, with 420 of them starting the race, either in teams of four or, for the insane, solo.

In the team stakes, it became clear that it was a local derby, with Wells-based Bike City and Cheddar Cycle Store running neck and neck: early laps were running at 38 minutes or so. In the event, Bike City completed 35 laps, and Cheddar 33. Bike City timed their finish to perfection, sending their last rider out at 11:20, returning precisely as the clock stood at 12:00.

This guy and his passenger got in a bit earlier !

Similarly, two of the soloists stood out: David Powell and Aidan Harding. Seemingly not needing to eat much or sleep much, these two piled on the laps, eventually completing 22 and 21 respectively. Yup, 220 miles of mostly off-road biking in 24 hours. How they can do this is beyond me: I rode one lap on Sunday to check the course out, and it knackered me.

A great event, admirably organized by Neil Wilkins and his team as usual, from the party on the Friday night to the speeches on the Sunday, by way of the bar, the food, the on-site massage therapists and the all-night tea and coffee, all of which were excellent. CLIC24 raised £56,000 for CLIC Sargent last year, with high hopes for this year, and they’d like to make it more. So, if you fancy a nice, laid-back 24 hours of cycling pain for a really good cause, bear it in mind for next year ! Go to www.clic24.org.uk for the details.

A very sunny backdrop created the mood for some great mountain bike rides in the Quantocks last weekend, as you can see below!! Can’t always guarantee the sunshine, but we;ve loads of UK mountain biking and road weekends to pick from throughout the year

Hopefully the weather will be just as glorious in September for the next Quantocks weekend
More photos of the weekend are:

On Flickr

Thought i’d drop all the Skedaddle people a little post to let you know what me and Laura are up to, since we left the UK

We’ve been in Queenstown for about 3 months now, and we’re loving it!

I’ve got a job fixing bikes in Queenstown and laura is selling clothes! (so she’s happy!)

I’ve been biking in a few places in my time with Skedaddle, and i’ve seen some great trails and some great riders, but i think Queenstown has to be the craziest mountain bike destination

This place seems to have a really high concentration of great riders who think nothing of throwing themselves.. and bikes off huge gaps and jumps and to top it all off, there actually (annoyingly) really nice people who are more than happy to give you a few pointers to help improve your riding, (tips for me mostly have been along the ’stop being such a p**** and go for it’ variety) but it seems to be working as my wheels seem to actually be leaving the ground when i go for a jump these days!

And don’t even get me started on the scenery, lord of the rings didn’t even do it justice!

infact it’s sooo good over here i’m going to have to try and set up a trip for Skedaddle, but maybe with a few less death defying drops!…or maybe a gentler cycling holiday instead?

so watch this space and maybe in a while you’ll find yourself over here and loving it too!

cheers,

 jim

p.s, i only took these pictures it’s not me on the bike. (my sense of self preservation is still annoyingly to high!)

The 2008 UK Mountain Biking spring season has begun for Skedaddle! With our first beginners weekend taking off under the beautiful and changeable English skies we got off to a good start apart from the one “involuntary cycle dismount” !

For more great introductions to skedaddle mountain biking check out our beginners  / tuition weekends!

Derbyshire

The Lake District

There are more shots of the weekend available on Skedaddle’s Flickr

This superb desert biking adventure focuses on the deep south of Morocco, a land of big skies and stark mountain ranges where mud-brick kasbahs appear to rise up out of the desert, sitting in tranquil palm oases and framed by dramatic backdrops of snowcapped mountains. We ride along Morocco’s dirt roads, taking us from Marrakech to the Tichka Pass, the highest in the High Atlas, and then southward, descending along the Draa Valley to the fringes of the Sahara Desert.