I appear to have found myself in the position where I have to ride at what I believe is called a "trail centre" on Wednesday. All most unfortunate but it can't be helped. I expect I'm probably capable of propelling a velocipedal conveyance around this "trail centre" - after all, I presume it's just some land that goes up and down and around corners in different places - but what's concerning me at the moment is that I've been told that I need to make additions to my vocabulary before I can vouchsafe entrance to the aforementioned establishment. I haven't been able to find any correspondence courses, or video training sessions, about it so far, but the gentleman that I briefly spoke to about it gave me a few clues. I'm not sure I'm any the wiser though. He mentioned:

"dialled" - I imagine that I have to telephone the "trail centre" beforehand to book a place?
"run" - the man asked me what I was "running". I gave him a funny look because I'm hardly likely to jog round the place if I'm lucky enough to have access to a bloody bicycle am I?
"sending" - hmm, not sure about this either. If I've dialled the place, why would I also send them something? Anyway, it's not clear what I send, whence, or to whom.
"st0ked" - this rather interested me. My bicycles are quite old-fashioned but it appears that some participants have steam-powered ones! Would love to see one.
"shred" - sounds a bit like shrek to me. Maybe it's a "monster" route?
"gnar" - I have absolutely no idea what that's all about. Other than it is "rang" backwards, so maybe it's something to do with that "dialling" business?

I've only got 48 hours before I visit the place, so all help gratefully received - any other words or even whole sentences that I could practice would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Reginald Iolanthe Perrin

Reg please don't forget your dayglow and full face with goggles for the red route to make sure no body thinks you shouldn't be there , ( oh and learn some Brummie chav speak as well &DONT FORGET YOUR LOCK)
Edit ,don't forget brahhh you ride a gnarpoon not a bicycle

I feel for you Reg. When I was coaching there'd be occasions when I wouldn't have a clue what people were saying (obviously many don't understand what I'm saying much of the time) so communications largely came to a halt. I could always forgive the 20-somethings but when blokes my own age used such terms, it was all I could do not to openly laugh ... I may have giggled at times though.

If you find yourself at a loss, simply stand about and compress your forks a few times, look up and pronounce them 'sorted'. If you need to up the stakes, you can do so by whooping loudly at the bottom of each descent and waving your hand in the air in the hope that someone equally affected will do the same and your hands might touch. Can I also suggest that you offer random strangers snippets of advice such as, 'foot out, flat out' and 'go big or go home' from time to time.

Reg, my advice would be at the beginning of the day to announce that you are "going off to session the drop on the black until you've got it dialled" then sneak off into the woods with your brew kit and have a nice cup of tea and wait for the whole thing to blow over.

rock garden - carefully placed stones [ like a cobbled road only smoother] where you can test your skills in a more "natural" environment

nailed it = i did not crash

flowy - a section that is relatively free of brake bumps

Bearbonesnorm wrote:If you need to up the stakes, you can do so by whooping loudly at the bottom of each descent and waving your hand in the air in the hope that someone equally affected will do the same and your hands might touch.

Get with the times Grandad. It's all about the fist bumps now.

Lazarus wrote:
flowy - a section that is relatively free of brake bumps

This does not apply where reg is off to

Nearly forgot reg ,you really must stop mid way down section and have a chat (with yourself as I won't be on that side of the forest) blocking the way but if you do get to the end of the section wait till some one slower but dosent stop comes past and then keep buzzing their back wheel ,the hat you sent stu could come in very handy on Wednesday while you wait for us

It's all about the fist bumps now.

Oi, you could have said "don't search for that on Google" {scarred}

Thanks chaps, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable about it now. I liked Stu's suggestions, which I'll try out, and Sean's advice is excellent - just wander off and have A Nice Cup Of Tea And A Sit Down. With a biscuit. Abbey Crunch for preference but they stopped making those ages ago and replaced them with HobNobs. I think if I detect the dialect being used on me I'll just switch into High Victorian or perhaps expound as per Miles Cholmondley-Warner, that should do the trick.

Have you brushed up on your yamyam?

Ooh and should anyone question your technique, just tell them you used to ride with Josh Bender back in the day

Don’t forget your trouser clips, I believe they are rad? Dude.

"yamyam" - bring your phrasebook please Paul. We can have a go in the pub.

"Josh Bender" - well that sounds like something else which it might be inadvisable to google . Actually, he strikes me as a good egg - if he can ride extreme terrain in this get-up he's alright by me! -



And he's also got interesting co-riders, who I'm now extremely keen to meet and maybe get some technique tips from:

Indeed Reg - here is is minus boy scout outfit or bozz-eyed boobs riding off a bit of a step

Maybe we need a Bikepacking style trail centre with (in no particular order):-
The tussock section
The thigh deep river (but with nets down stream, it being a 'safe' environment)
10 miles of clay / peat bog / saturated chalk (depending on geographical location)
The 'death march' = 500m of clear fell / wind blow Sitka
'The push' = a 500m vertical ascent climb at a gradient guaranteed unrideable
The boulder field (also guaranteed unrideable)
The 'descent' (ditto)
The bivvy site - complete with fire pit, broken down chicken shed, broken buckie bottles and loads of litter
the pub...

Bender...
Big respect for what he did, but boy he always sat on the bike like a lump of dead matter... probably because he had to switch his brain off.

Dear Reginald Iolanthe Perrin

Go at night, in the dark.
That's (thanks to Ian B.) the only time I ever visited trail centres and quite enjoyed smashing the berms, death gripping the flowy sections and clearing the doubles.

Err... sorry... did I just say that?

After all it's riding bikes and will be a new experience. What's not to look forwards to(?)
You can then choose to go again or leave it forever.
I say, make the best out of it.
Wishing you a day full on fun and some good laughs about googles and half lids, full face lids on gravel roads and other supremely cool things.

Bikepacking trail centre =

htrider wrote:Maybe we need a Bikepacking style trail centre with (in no particular order):-
The tussock section
The thigh deep river (but with nets down stream, it being a 'safe' environment)
10 miles of clay / peat bog / saturated chalk (depending on geographical location)
The 'death march' = 500m of clear fell / wind blow Sitka
'The push' = a 500m vertical ascent climb at a gradient guaranteed unrideable
The boulder field (also guaranteed unrideable)
The 'descent' (ditto)
The bivvy site - complete with fire pit, broken down chicken shed, broken buckie bottles and loads of litter
the pub...

Sounds like your commute Phil

I always wanted to enter a team of Boners at Mountain mayhem. Obviously, we'd carry all our gear, have no pits, no crew, etc. When we needed a breather we could just crash out in the wooded section.

Bearbonesnorm wrote:I always wanted to enter a team of Boners at Mountain mayhem. Obviously, we'd carry all out gear, have no pits, no crew, etc. When we needed a breather we could just crash out in the wooded section.

They’d have kittens! Last time I turned up, they wouldn’t allow CX bikes

It's a long time ago stu but it was held at sandwell valley in West Bromwich (of all places) and if you decided to get your head down in the woods there's a 90% chance you'd have something slipped where it didn't belong , it got that bad the council paid for some small but quite nice trails through the woods and encouraged night riding to try and ward off the males lurking in there ,there's a couple of stories I could tell but writing it on here wouldn't do them justice ,think they need to be kept for those sleep deprived hrs on the rtts this year

think they need to be kept for those sleep deprived hrs on the rtts this year

I'll look forward to that

Bearbonesnorm wrote:I always wanted to enter a team of Boners at Mountain mayhem. Obviously, we'd carry all our gear, have no pits, no crew, etc. When we needed a breather we could just crash out in the wooded section.

Well in that case, I volunteer to staff the bar... Um, pits.

htrider wrote:Maybe we need a Bikepacking style trail centre with (in no particular order):-
The tussock section
The thigh deep river (but with nets down stream, it being a 'safe' environment)
10 miles of clay / peat bog / saturated chalk (depending on geographical location)
The 'death march' = 500m of clear fell / wind blow Sitka
'The push' = a 500m vertical ascent climb at a gradient guaranteed unrideable
The boulder field (also guaranteed unrideable)
The 'descent' (ditto)
The bivvy site - complete with fire pit, broken down chicken shed, broken buckie bottles and loads of litter
the pub...

You forgot:-

The Spar (closed)
The bothy (full, locked or reverberating to Matt's snoring)
Mexican wave (the bit where everyone gets a fat bike because someone else has one and said they are great)
Mugs out ( a narrow long section with a bloke who shoots an arrow up your arse if you've packed your drinking apparel away)
Temptation alley (can only be entered if carrying a meths stove, lined with coffee franchises)