I always loved playing on my bike when I was a kid.

I would just go out and ride round the streets with my friends on a clapped out old thing.

That was until my 12th or 13th birthday when I got a brand new "mountain bike" from my parents. It was a great thing: 5 proper gears (non-indexed, unbranded, rear mech), rigid forks and side-pull caliper brakes.

I would take this thing out on "huge" 3 mile trips around the local country estates - this was the business.

Real Biking

To the first degree...

I went to university when I was 17 and left my old bike in my dad's shed. One of the first things I did when I got to Aberdeen was buy myself a new bike with the money I'd made working over the summer.

This was my first proper mountain bike - it was a black 17" steel frame with an 6 speed indexed Shimano SIS cassette and rear-mech; a non-indexed Shimano front mech; steel rimmed wheels; cantilever brakes and rigid steel forks. It was fantastic!

Of course I added X-Lite bar-ends and replaced the plastic brake levers with completely tasteless purple alloy ones. Eventually the chain-rings had to be replaced after too much hammering around Kirkhill Forest outside Dyce with my mate Steve (Steve's bike was much better than mine and his 6'6" height helped him to power up to the tops of the hills on his big ring - the bugger).

At the end of our final year of Uni we took our bikes loaded them up with Karrimor panniers and headed out with my flatmate Kye and Steve's girlfriend Fee on the A93 to Banchory and then up to Glen Muick for the weekend. We camped at the Spittal of Glen Muick, did a fair bit of pissing about and then back into Aberdeen on the Sunday. A round trip of about 150 miles!

To the second degree...

On graduation I realised that I had two chances [1] of getting a job in my first degree (chemistry) so I enrolled for a MSc. in Software Engineering at Napier University in Edinburgh.

A good friend of mine, Paul, had attended Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh and still lived there - consequently living in Edinburgh for my masters was a great year - far, far too much drinking and dancing and generally having a good time.

During that time the trusty steed came with me; there's a fair bit of biking around Ediniburgh but the lack of a car resulted in my biking being limited to Arthur's Seat and along the top of Salisbury Crags in Holyrood Park.

Not particularly wonderous biking you may think but still the home of one of my worst spills. Descending from the summit I was hurtling along at a fairly silly speed and ended up thinking "I better avoid that roc..."

Maturity (?)

After getting a decent job [2] I was endowed with suitable amounts of funds for a modern top of the line machine. Consequently along came the Marin Indian Fire Trail [3] (and into the shed went the trusty Outback).

Since then I've been riding around the forests of Aberfoyle and Mugdock Country Park with my work colleagues Donald and Fergus.

I "officially" moved up to the Highlands in May last year [4] so I'm now meant to be doing way more biking than I actually am. Unfortunately trying to get the house and garden in order and the combination of foot & mouth and the shitty summer has put a bit of a dampener on this.

Last year Avril had a go on the Marin. She had never realised just how nice cycling on a good quality bike could be. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy cycling before this - purely that the bikes she'd owned had never helped. Consequently we bought Avril a Trek 4900 Disc (with red wheels) [6] so she's joined me on the forest trails around the village but has never been foolish enough to join me on the single track routes.

In April we headed out to Morocco with the bikes on an organised holiday - suffice to say the biking was great but the holiday part of it left a bit more to be desired.

Since then I've been biking on and off - Paul pops up for the weekend every now and then and brings his new Gary Fisher for a spin. We're into Autumn now so the lights have been dusted off and the battery's sitting on "charge" so I should get some riding done in the evenings of the coming months [8].

I made my first trip down to Glen Tress last month with some of the Buca Crew - Paul didn't have a very good ride that day [10] - what an absolutely amazing BLAST that day was. That horrible hingy rain which gets you completely soaked over a period of hours.

A couple of weeks later I headed back to Glen Tress with the guys from Edinburgh again. This time we took my neighbour's 15 year old (BMX-riding, bunny-hopping, wheely-muscled) son with us. We got to the top and had a break for flapjacks, Powerbars & bananas; while sitting in the drizzle Lara noticed that Robin was white as a sheet and his hands were shaking. Several flapjacks & a couple of bananas later he was fine and we headed down the hill.

Unfortunately the photos from the two rides didn't come out that well (we were in a forest in drizzling rain after all) Trip I, Trip II.

1. None and feck all.
2. I got the Master's by the way.
3. Yay!
4. Officially as in returned the keys to my flat in Glasgow [5].
5. Unofficially as in the Marin moved in 3 months earlier.
6. It's important that the red wheels are mentioned [7].
7. As often as possible.
8. If I actually get off my arse and go [9].
9. Which isn't very likely cause it'll be cold and wet.
10. Way too much Guinness the night before.