Happy New Year!

Well I've just started the training regime! Been riding Aston Hill with my friends on some fresh tracks. I am going to be focussing a lot on technical skills and fitness coming up to the race season to make sure I'm hitting all the right lines and fit enough to be giving 110% the whole way down. I will be racing the Megavalanche and Sprintavalaches in the summer out in the French Alps in the summer so I will also be doing more endurance based training to help prepare for that.

I am getting some help tomorrow from a friend who is a sports psychologist and with his tag heur timing system we are going to see how much we reduce my run times by, exciting stuff!

Cheers

James

This season has had highs and lows as ever. Coming back from a major break to then dislocate my shoulder and tear ligaments was a real hard one to swallow. It has since caused me problems all season and we are looking at operating over the winter. That said I do not feel it has hindered me too much as once adrenaline kicks in I forget about it.



To say my downhill riding has come on is a major understatement, I feel myself getting faster every ride/race and I am as mad for riding as ever. I have already been offered a big team contract for next season and I'm super excited! Bring on 2009!



Cheers



James

Bloody hell!

What a year it has been already! We had a slight issue with the team frames arriving on time which meant I rocked up to my first race on a very last minute borrowed bike! Needless to say I took a solid third place and a podium to start of my season with my new sponsors www.ride-central.com .

I got my new PDC Kingpin frame built up for my 2nd 4x race of the year, turned up and did a couple of practice runs having never ridden it before. It was breathtakingly quick and on my second run I cleared a double which I had rarely gone near in the past! So I decided to race a friend of mine on my third practice run, needless to say I got a little ragged and overconfident and ended up binning it straight over the bars. I new something was wrong straight away as my shoulder was killing me. I quickly checked my recently recovered collarbone and was relieved to find no broken bones. I went to hospital with a suspected dislocated right shoulder and fractured left arm. Thankfully my arm was merely heavily bruised but my shoulder was bad. It had not only dislocated but I managed to tear my rotator cuff muscles. So over a month on I am just starting to get back on the bike.

My next race is on the 30th of march, after which I am racing for a month solidly and can't wait! Lets just hope I have got my injuries out of the way for this season!

Happy trails

James

Hey guys,

Getting back on the bike next week for my first ride with my new sponsors. We are going to shoot a promotion video for Sunn bikes and I'm getting my new hardtail. I'm pretty weak but hopefully I'll soon bulk up again!

Cheers

James

Hey guys,

Getting back on the bike next week for my first ride with my new sponsors. We are going to shoot a promotion video for Sunn bikes and I'm getting my new hardtail. I'm pretty weak but hopefully I'll soon bulk up again!

Cheers

James

It is now two weeks since my crash. I think I'm doing ok. The collar bone turned out to be a break, not a fracture and is starting to heal although I now have a nice big lump of extra bone on it! I am buzzing to get back on the bike and don't know how I will be able to bare the next month!

However, what did cheer me up was a little phone call from Dan at www.ride-central.co.uk as he has offered me a place on the team for 2008. I will be racing on one of their 4x bike (we still havent decided yet), wearing the team Royal Racing strip and a nicely airbrushed helmet! Thanks Dan, I'm stoked.

James

Well, this is my first time using my blog! I will aim to update this fairly regularly, although it may be a little dry for the next 6 weeks or so due to a nasty crash on Monday. I guess the superlightweight frame wasn't as strong as we thought, seeing as the headtube snapped! I now have a couple of broken ribs, one particularly badly and a fractured collarbone. This is my first ever major break but I aim to get back on the road bike soon and then back onto an mtb.

Cheers

James