What's an OGC I hear you ask.... Old Gits Collective!
And for very good reason is it Old Gits... Tony, Kev, Graeme and myself met up for a cycle trials play recently and we are all over 40's riders, in fact the total age of the four of us added up to 170.

So there we were, old blokes with bikes and a collection of rocks and ledges to ride. Just so happened to have been the first sunny day we have had in about a month as well! Tony lives in Swindon so he braved the M4 & M5 on a bank holiday Friday to come and play in WSM with us, but it took Kev longer to get from Avonmouth down to us than Tony's journey... what a difference an hour makes! The last time any of us had ridden was last Christmas!! To say we were rusty would be an understatement. And Graeme has been missing from action for about 4 years!
We don't really fly with fashion, and I don't just mean in the dress sense way. Our bikes are a mixture of old, new and strange. Kev has a Saracen MAD 2.six, Tony a BT Raven 4.0, Graeme a Megamo steel frame Mod and Heath a home build Giant Team trials set-up. None of this ultra trick new stuff... anyway, none of us would know what a higher or lower bottom bracket or frame length was all about anyway. We have enough trouble keeping upright in a carpark!! The only item that we point blank refused to be seen with was Kev's full face downhill helmet he brought with him... kept his wife happy taking it with him, but no way on this planet were we going to be seen riding with him if he wore it!!

... That sorted we were off onto the rocks. None of us are good at this lark, in fact we could be described as either beginners or just crap! Heath and Graeme rode cycle trials together around 4 years ago and even entered an event or two and Tony and Heath had ridden a few times a couple of years ago but we were never into all this leaping off tall buildings and general lunatic stuff. At our age we all have something on our bodies that has either gone wrong or is about too, so asking for trouble by doing big gaps and drop-offs wasn't on the agenda. You youngsters may laugh at our ground based riding but I bet we hurt more the next day than you!!!

To start with, whilst waiting for the others to arrive, Tony and I played on the rocks that seperated the carpark from the path near a local fishing lake and park. There are a couple of rocks about 3 foot high that I used to be able to get onto in one hop, but that was 4 years ago when i was still in my 30's! I built up to it by picking a couple of rocks sunk into the path and back hopping onto them... no crashes so onto the next bit, a one foot high rock just long enough to get the bike on and grab the brake before diving off the other side... success! So to the 3 footer, pedal, pick up the front, nudge the top of the rock face and hop.... crash, into the rock ring!! Bugger!!!! 3 attempts was enough to realise I needed a bit more build up time, we will come back to that one!