In honour of the Olympics, one of our own has really decided to get into the London 2012 spirit. General Manager, Chris Penn will be tackling all of the 26 Olympic sports and reporting back on his experiences.
The first challenge to be faced was mountain biking, see below for an account of Chris’s gruelling experience….
So my first trial went pretty well, although it was extremely tough. I have a huge amount of respect for what serious mountain bikers must go through. I decided to take my mountain bike to Hankley Common in Surrey and completed an 18km route which incorporated 4 climbs that were nigh on impossible to mountain bike up (at least for me anyway).
The ground was a mix of stones and sand and the sand made descending quite treacherous. I have to admit that I did come a cropper at the bottom of one hill and managed to catch my front wheel in a ridge of deep sand which yanked it to the side and left me flying over the handlebars and into the foliage that surrounded me. A passer by came to check that I was alright, but the only damage done was to my ego.
Mountain biking is a relatively new sport on the World scene with the first World Championships taking place in 1990. It was in Atlanta in 1996 that it made its Olympics debut and this year’s course will be at Hadleigh’s Farm in Essex. The event (if my experience is anything to go by) will be full of excitement, fear and will definitely have its fair share of spills. I can’t wait for some road biking this weekend.
For more of Chris’s challenges, and perhaps a few amusing mishaps on the way, stay tuned as we plan to update these posts regularly!
