Coed Y Brenin Mountain Biking (15/16 August 2009)

What an outstanding weekend. The weather was rubbish... see last photo of the most benign sky we encountered over the weekend... and being able to borrow tent pegs to replace those safely stored in Peter's loft averted a potential accommodation debacle, but this was right up there in the outdoor fun/fear/excitement top 10.

The reviews of the trails talk about the adrenalin rush... they did not exaggerate - although they do not dwell on the 45 minutes of climbing required to get to the highest section. There were some fantastic bits of single track and in places only the knowledge that the trails had been built for bikes convinced you that they were do-able.

Steve pretending all is well!

Notice how Dave releases his gonads when Steve is safely behind the camera....

A chink in the clouds... on the rare occasion when we were below them rather than in them!



"The Beast" 38.2k of Mountain Biking delight.

Sutton 20 - Avondale 8 (Surrey Div 1 - 13 August 2009)

This is the part of the season where Sutton and Avondale first teams meet once or twice a week for a month ... It's a good job they generally see eye to eye.

The shoe switched feet again for this encounter (after a heavy defeat for Sutton at Putney, it was Avondale's turn at Morden). The visitors managed to turn up without five of their first team, which was never going to improve their chances even taking account of the return of King Louis to their offence. Having said that, they hung on well and late in the third quarter were only two goals adrift at 10 - 8. From that point on however it was one way traffic as Sutton's better fitness and organisation paid off.

The soft shoe shuffle continues at Putney on Monday.....

Croydon 9 - Avondale 5 (Surrey Div 1 - 10 August 2009)

Avondale managed just seven players and two (junior) supporters for this Surrey league match. The supporters were disappointed to miss of the more entertaining members of the team, but were very impressed with the game nevertheless.

It was a typically tight match and given the size of the pool, the absence of a shot clock and the paucity of members in the visiting team, the slow pace was probably inevitable. As usual, Avondale had more than their share of shooting chances, but converted fewer of them than they should have. Good defence for the first three quarters contained the home team's strong attack, but the majors were mounting and in the end, rather than lose a man, the visitor's defence had to sit off the hole man and suffer the consequences. Half way through the last quarter the scores were level at 5 - 5, but the inevitable tiredness of the visitors presented the home team with several late scoring chances that they took.

One particularly moment of brilliance from 007, early in the last quarter is worthy of note. He stole the ball from an attacking Croydon player, wide on the Avondale left on their own 4m line. THe Croydon player was swimming in on goal with the ball when it disappeared over his head and Bond headed up pool with it. He sprinted to the opposition's 5m line and their with a bounce shot that was too fast for the eye to follow. "What a pleasure", as they say!