Aberfoyle SXC and Macavalanche
It is time once more for another quick round up of the life of James…
I have recently been feeling the pressures of 4th year mechanical engineering. Yes, most of the time university is a bit of a doss about but the last wee while has been flat out for me. Dissertation, oral exams, regular exams and course works all squeezed into the sunniest spell of weather I have ever seen! With all this extra work, I have been missing out on valuable training time so last weekend I decided to do a cross country race to see how I would compare…
Posted by James Shirley on July 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm | Race Reports
SDA Ae Forest
Last weekend was the first round of the popular Scottish Downhill Association series. As soon as the entries went live at the beginning of March, all 300 spaces were filled in a matter of minutes…
Posted by James Shirley on July 21, 2011 at 11:53 am | Race Reports
Northern Downhill – Gravity Enduro 2011
As soon as I heard about this race I got onto Google and hunted down an entry form. Without stopping to check the specific details I printed off a form, filled it in, wrote a cheque and popped it in the post. A race with a title containing the words: ‘gravity’, ‘enduro’ and ‘downhill’ had to be a good one. They are my three favourite words when it comes to riding bikes. After further inspection I discovered that the race was to be held in Kielder forest on the 5th and 6th of March and organised by a man named Carl Davison. (more…)
Posted by James Shirley on March 7, 2011 at 11:20 pm | News, Race Reports
Pre-season Activities
It was a cold and damp day on the 12th of February which made ideal weather for the first ever Scottish universities mountain bike championships! The event was held in Blairadam forest just north of Dunfermline. The format of the race was to do as many laps as possible of a short cross country course in 2 hours. The course itself took less than 15minutes for the fast guys. It was predominately narrow, natural single track trails with only three small forest road blasts to break up the flow. Due to the rain over the previous days leading up to the event, the course was really muddy and some of the climbs turned into a mandatory ‘get off and run’ sections. Apart from the running bit, the course really suited me. The trail was super slippery and since the descents were of shall gradient you had to be really smooth to keep your speed. I had a great race jostling for position against Liam Moynihan and Jack Richards for the lead. A small crowd of rowdy students had gathered round a jump about two thirds round the course which gave a good atmosphere to the event.
Posted by James Shirley on February 22, 2011 at 8:27 pm | News, Race Reports
The Dudes of Hazzard episode 4
Here is my favourite episode from the dudes series. Enjoy:
The Dudes of Hazzard episode 4 from Joe Barnes on Vimeo.
Posted by James Shirley on December 8, 2010 at 9:48 pm | Video