A weekend of Downhill!

So it was an early morning start to head down into the Dartmoor forest. Me and 2 friends had packed up our van with bikes, gear, tents, food etc and were on our way down to what has been hyped as the premier downhill mtb location in the UK.

We headed to Princetown where we were staying and speedily set up the tent in a pub garden. Then we jumped back in the van and headed to Gawton woods. Gawton has been set with the help of lottery funding and was built, with help, by Rowan Sorrel who has built countless top trail centers in Wales.

We were greeted by a very large welsh chap who we bought a weekend riding pass off then headed into the woods. Now at the start of the trails we were told to head down HSD first as it was the easiest trail. This was a fast passed trail littered with jumps, rocks and a huge potential for speed, a good thing in my books!

After a few runs down HSD I was itching to try the harder graded Super Tavi and Egypt trails. Super Tavi was again a fast trail but this time it was interspersed with technical sections and much larger jumps. Then onto the Egypt trail and I have to say it’s the closest I have gotten to riding a European style trail in the UK. It was steep, tight and technical most of the way down, just how I like trails to be! The push up back to the top was just over a mile so after about 6 runs we were exhausted and all looking forward to heading back to the pub for dinner.

Back at the pub the car park was full of American cars. It seemed there must have been some sort of car meet on at the pub. We managed to find a table and tucked into some delicious, filling food that was cheap too! After the early start and day riding we soon headed off into the tent to sleep.

Next morning and we headed to Tavistock Woodlands which is run by the same team at Gawton. The trails here were well marked and offered a real mix in terrain. They are shorter but this means pushing up is quicker so you can do more runs. After spending the morning here we had a break for lunch and then headed back to Gawton. This time we went straight onto the harder graded trails. After blasting them both it was unfortunately time to call it a day. We packed up the van which now had began to smell from all the sweaty body armor and clothing and headed back to Bournemouth but not before stopping at a pub on the way back for a well deserved pint.

How to buy a VW Campervan (apparently) Part 2

The day was a Thursday, the sun was out and I was up way before I would normally have deemed acceptable. But there was a good reason for this, today was the day that I was going to look at the campervan I had spent weeks researching and I had been looking forward to this moment.
I had arranged to meet my friend Nick at Oxford train station so we could begin the road trip down to Bristol. I came prepared for him with flavoured water and M&S sandwiches in hand (I’m a great friend aren’t I!) while he came prepared for me with work van and steering wheel in hand (he’s a great friend isn’t he!). We set off after inputting the postcode of my new bff Jeremy into the sat nav and spent the first 45 minutes catching up on what was happening in each other’s lives and reminding each other how much better we had now we weren’t living in the same house anymore.
We got to Bristol with plenty of time to spare but we still had to find Jeremy’s house which was in a tiny little village 5 mins outside of Bristol, in a beautifully named village called Barrow Gurney. I have always loved little villages like this with names like Barrow Gurney, Pratts Bottom, Land of Nod and Thong although to anyone not from this country may find them slightly weird!
After spending 30 minutes trying to work out how to get over the river Avon we discovered we could actually go across the huge transport bridge that continually had a sign up that said it was closed (thanks a lot Bristol Council!). We got to Barrow Gurney and pulled up at Jeremy’s house, which was lovely and went to find Jeremy.
Now when I speak to someone on the phone who I don’t know I tend to play a game with myself which basically entails trying to guess what they look like. Well I have never been very good at it but with Jeremy I was spot on! Having guessed that he was a surfer dude with long hair and a laidback way of life, I was very impressed with myself when someone walked towards me who looked like a surfer dude, with long hair and a laidback gait. This was Jeremy and this was, Edd 1 Telephone game 0....back of the net!
He opened up the garage to reveal the beautiful campervan that lived in there and when I say beautiful I mean beautiful. If it was possible for me to be in love with an automobile this is the feeling I would have, it was light blue and white, had an I-pod dock and an engine that roared like a lion (if that lion was born in 1967).
This was the time for Nick to step up to the plate, he looked the van over, checked for oil leaks, rust, any kind of bodge job and then we went out to take it for a test drive. The van was brilliant, it was fun to just sit in it and when Nick was driving he had a permanent smile on his face. This was it, the search was over and we had found our VW Campervan.
I shook Jeremy’s hand and the deal was done. We headed back to Oxford and the boss wrote out a cheque to make the van officially ours.

Keep an eye out for the Campervan, now the British Leisure Show mascot (any name suggestions are welcome) and say hello if you see it. And if you’re ever in the market for a VW Campervan remember the most important things to look out for are:

1) Character over modern
2) Not too many television
3) Cow names are always good
4) Telephone face game
5) And only buy from a random village with a random name

All very important and technical points I’ll think you agree.

How to buy a VW Campervan (apparently) Part 1

It all started one sunny day in June, with the boss saying "Edd, we need an old style Volkswagen T2 "Split Bay" Campervan", this is not something that my fragile, inexperienced ears had ever heard before. So being a novice to all things automobile, not to mention Volkswagen campervan'obile, I set to work on the research.
My first task, was to see whether you could have power steering fitted to said campervan without comprimising the drive, you could not...apparently. My second task was to decide on brand new import or old school van that had been done up. This was the trickiest decision, but after much deliberation we decided on old school, this was down to what everyone I had talked to called "character". Character apparently is a very important thing when it comes to buying a Volkswagen campervan, due to the fact you have "conversations" with your vehicle and name it things like "Daisy", "Mildred" and "Ermintrude" (personally I thought these were names of cows). Anyway I digress, having spent weeks and I mean WEEKS looking for a T2 Splitty (which is what us experts, as I was by now, call them) I stumbled upon an old Motorola Van that was deep purple and had a beautifully remade engine, no rust and windscreen windows that opened out (my personal favourite part of the van). I immediately e-mailed the boss suggesting possibly that this was the van for us, I liked it because it was kitted out with huge speakers and t.v's and dvd's galore. I awaited the reply with baited breath and excitement....
An hour later I had a reply; "Dear Edd, I love it, brilliant, the only problem is, I don't like the fact its kitted out with huge speakers, t.v's and dvd's galore. Look again." DAMN.
Back to the drawing board. I spent hours more looking online and stumbled upon a lovely little website called http://www.vwcampercrazy.co.uk/, here I found two beautiful looking vans. The first one, was a purple coloured Splitty, which looked a great deal, but it didn't have a "rock and roll" bed which was one of the requirments of our van. The second Van I found I fell in love with straight away. It was light blue, had a rebuilt engine, the rust had been completely treated and the all important rock and roll bed was fitted...YAY!
I got the phone number of the guy that was selling, a lovely guy who lived in Bristol called Jeremy and rang him. "Hello is that Jeremy", I asked "Yes" he so eloquently replied, I knew we were going to be friends from the off. "Can I please come and have a look at your van that you have for sale?", "yes" once again came the reply, I was liking him more and more. So we arranged that I would come down with my car enthusiast friend Nick, look the van over, take it for a test drive and if all was well put an offer in for the almighty beast.....to be continued