Our lovely friends from Chain Reaction crossed the Irish Sea to bring their popular Chain Reaction and Nukeproof training day to Blazing Bikes over the weekend. A day engineered around giving riders of all skill levels the chance to have top tips and demonstrations from the Pro’s! And for us a real chance to showcase the fantastic miles and miles of natural trails and singletrack we have at Blazing Bikes.
On hand were Nigel Page, Matt Simmonds, Joe Smith and Dave Garland to really give the 30 chosen riders the individual attention the day required. It was a pretty cold morning and as we rode up to the Long Mynd to start the day we steadily headed up into the cloud but it never dampened the spirits.
After a quick talk through what we were about to do and cover in the day, Nigel Page took the reigns and asked who could wheelie and who couldn’t and split the group accordingly. Everyone was then asked to demonstrate their skills and the novices then had a little go also. Bunny hopping was then drafted in and there was a lot of fun trying to bunny hop the few deep puddles on the path!
The group get a bunny hop demo from Joe
Moving on Matt and Joe went to work on technique and concentrated on drop offs and speed and line through cornering, there were a few wobbles and a couple of dismounts but all part of the learning process as everyone picked up from Matts leadership and from first runs with a little tension the guys were all booting it round that corner by the end!
Matt gives the cornering master class
For those that weren’t at this level yet Nigel and Dave took off for a basics course of cornering, body position, braking and some extra bunny hop and wheelie magic! This was really good as we had some kids and novices in the group so everyone got the level of tuition they needed to make it a good day for them. The experienced were then taken into the woodland to try their hand at converting that wheelie and bunny hop technique over this fallen tree.
Matt talks through technique
So after a spot of lunch provided by our Pub The Station Inn which we took up in the back of the motor, classic sandwiches and chips all round , we headed out for a long ride across the Long Mynd and down the famous Minton Batch! There were a few punctures and one legendary crash in front of the whole group which he will not live down for a while, it involved the only rock of its size and plenty of room around it! but a damp and soggy winter day is perfect for riding and there were many smiling faces at the end!
Mind that... Rock... Ah to late!! 
Lee Kincaid CRC’s Events Manager said of the day “After our first ever training day in Tollymore, I was confident that the Marshbrook event was going to be a blast – and it didn’t disappoint. We had another group of really enthusiastic riders, who were keen to learn all they could from the pros. The trails on the Long Mynd, combined with the hospitality of the guys at Blazing Bikes was second to none, hopefully we’ll be back very soon.”
We are looking to do more events like this, thank you so much for all of you that took part on such a damp day and we hope you got all you wanted and more from it.
The gang minus a few that had gone to get their lunch!
CRC Marathon 2012 returns to Blazing Bikes, Marshbrook, Shropshire.
We are very proud and honored to be hosting round 3 of the CRC Marathon for our second year next July 14th and 15th 2012. After the great success and turnout of last year we are hoping that we can bring you the fantastic weather we had last year with excellent evening entertainment and lots of great food at the Station Inn.
Over the two days there will be the road sportive on the Saturday covering two distances and the MTB Marathon on the Sunday with 4 different distances to choose from.
Details for the event are yet to be posted but we will bring them to you as soon as we know.
Riders for the 2011 MTB Marshbrook Marathon event cram the start line
BB.