The All Mountain Addict team wish you all a Merry Christmas!
enjoy the video from our Elfs…

The winter is coming, days are shorter and Sunday mornings are colder.

Anyway, some weeks ago I managed to kill some bike hunger: packed the bikes, photo and movie cameras and joined André and Filipe to a little tour around some of our trails from the past century (the hardtail times) looking for some fun.

It went something like this…

The video is too short to exemplify how much we enjoyed the ride.
It’s amazing how easy and simple is to get some great fun. That’s why I love MTB!

One of the things that was missing in this little project called All Mountain Addict was the photos and videos that allow us to remember the great moments we had (and still have) with our bikes and friends.

In the beginning of the summer the focus was 100%  training for Megavalanche (whenever possible for a guy that doesn’t  pay the bills with the bike), then after the big event of the year it was time for Holidays, afterwards it was full power in the daily job to get back on track… no extra time for nothing (well, almost nothing, I still manage to participate in a Avalanche type race in September ).

It was about time to get things done: Multimedia section is now updated with the right links to our little Pandora box.

Check our photos (and soon videos also) at our Flickr photostream, and follow our daily thoughts at twitter.

hint: use the RSS feeds to be always in sync with us…
RSS feed of flickr: http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=34889240@N05&lang=en-us&format=rss_200
RSS feed of twitter: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/78276363.rss
RSS feed of del.ici.ous: http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/AllMountainAddict

Long time no see… why?  first we were busy getting ready for the Mega, then we were riding it!!!  Soon we will post a brief summary and some photos/videos from the unique  Megavalanche Alpe D’ Huez  (race results here).

Undoubtedly one of my favourite MTB race concepts, too hard for a XC bike and too soft (?) for a downhill monster. What you need is a All Mountain (or Enduro) trail bike, light enough for the uphill sections but at the same time strong and effective for the downhill sections.

Bike Enduro races are mainly composed of downhill timed stages interconnected by several kilometers of (normally) uphill trails, the winner is the fastest rider in the downhill sections which also completed the interconnection stages within the established limit times.

Have a look at our All Mountain Addict Delicious bookmarks for the video coverage of the Avalanche Cup 2009 / round#2 -  Kielder Enduro (race results here).

When things go the wrong way… normally it sucks.

At the end of a very enjoyable All Mountain ride with some mates (we found some new single-track sections!), there I was having the “fun of my life” blasting trough a fast section of an old downhill track when suddenly while getting out of a small (but quick) jump exiting a left corner, my front wheel decided to take a different route than the one I was planning… you can imagine what happened, let’s say I had a very quick and unexpected encounter with the “mother Earth”. The damage was restricted to the careless rider (that’s me), basically I reshaped part of my right arm and leg (fortunately I had no serious damages). For some time that I hadn’t a fall like this, it wasn’t serious, but it was enough to raise some alarms inside my head.

The confidence we have on our capabilities to ride is for sure one of the key points which enable us to ride quick and be aggressive enough to overcome the natural obstacles.
The falls are almost inevitable for anybody who is riding in a competitive way (since we are constantly riding over the limits) either we are training for the race of our lives or racing against our best friend in the backyard track, every time we pass over the comfort zone we are exposing ourselves into a potential dangerous territory. Nevertheless there is a certain margin (security margin) above our comfort zone which we know we still can handle and we in-conscientiously use it to evolve and improve our riding skills. But, when things go wrong we must reflect on what happened and be able to determine if we are being careless (riding way over our limits/comfort zone) or if it was pure bad luck. Riding high above our skills is not the right way to evolve, we must take it step by step.

I try to enforce some basic rules during the rides to avoid unnecessary damages, as such during the ordinary epic rides I usually ride inside the comfort zone (maximum in the boundaries of the comfort zone but risk nothing); in downhill/technical training sessions the default working mode is very often above the comfort zone but still keeping a security margin, of course sometimes I pass way beyond such security margin but I try not to due it frequently.

Most importantly, each of us must have conscious of our limits, improvements will come as often as we train. An interesting detail I earned with the experience of riding for some years is that the awareness each of us have about our comfort zone and security margin is a little influenced by our age and stage of our lives; unconscious teenagers simply don’t think in the consequences, I remember to be one of them.

Anyway, like it or not, anyone who rides fast will (time to time) have some unpleasant surprises, it’s part of the sport. If we cannot avoid it, at least we can minimize the damages by using the correct protections and body armour according to the type of riding. At least for downhill and/or very technical trails  I strongly recommend everybody to use protections!  …but, in the end that’s up to you to decide.

my message: do not be afraid, just enjoy your rides and be conscious.

…still about my fall (in the picture), it was purely bad luck!

It was time to get out from the anonymity and present ourselves.
Check The People and start to know us (All Mountain Addict founding members) a little bit more 

Imagine that Yesterday you went to the local bike shop to check-out your bicycle, she was there about four weeks to be upgraded and tuned up for the new season; imagine that you don’t ride since past November; imagine that the weather is bad enough to get the name of a strange women (like the typhoon Katrina); imagine that you have only sleep about 5 hours during last night; imagine that you are still in the bed and already know that it won’t be easy, you know that there will be lots of mud waiting for you in the climbs and wet rocks laying down in the descends; imagine that this is Sunday morning, the last day you have to rest before another stressful week; just imagine that your dream monster (the bike) is ready for the first ride of the season, but you’re not.

So, what do we (strange creatures who love Mountain Biking) do even before hearing the alarm clock set to 8:00 am? Jump out of bed, eat some cornflakes, gear up (even the Lycra stuff), get our precious monster from the garage and blast into our little secret trail to measure how much damage Christmas season did to us. Why? Because we know that this will be one of the most enjoying rides of the season!

It’s just too much time off the saddle, we need some action and we know it will be fun (at least until the start of the wall climb…). It isn’t easy, but if you pass this little test you got what is takes to guarantee several hours of fun with your little two wheel monster. I did my test two weeks ago, it was fun but I shouldn´t have eaten so much during Christmas season!

I’m in Portugal, hopefully the full sunshine days are rising anytime, so let’s get ready for it. Enjoy.

Did you ever established goals in the middle of your rides? I do.
Sometimes I look to a descent that scares me to death or a “wall” climb that everyone says it´s impossible to pass by and I think to myself “I can do it!“, and then I do my best to pass over it.

Sometimes I fail at the first attempt but I still keep trying and trying until finally I achieve the goal.
Some people might consider those personal goals insignificant and sometimes make fun of the whole situation, but I simply don´t care. For me it´s a big step on my Mountain Biking skills. Those little improvements allow me to explore new trails that I never thought to pass by and to excel myself on every ride.

For the next time the challenge will be harder. No matter how hard the situation is, how difficult it may look, how insignificant it seems to be, we can always beat it and feel proud of yourself. That´s the spirit of my rides.

I just love the feeling of blasting through the dream singletrack, the never ending one, just me against the nature. Nothing and nobody can stop me. Such instants are magical moments that makes us feel in the eternal glory of the Gods.

Some other times we need the restlessness, the rush of riding with our friends, share sensations and states of mind.

For someone who has friends spread all over the country, what can we do?
It can’t get much better than enjoying a full day with our bike and more importantly, with our friends.

North, South, West or East it doesn’t really matter from where they come, just come!
On the 28th February we will be there, and Lousã will be waiting for us.

Because this is the spirit which makes us go further. Because this is the feeling which unites us. Because this is our passion.