After last week's excitement loads of new riders wanted to visit Chicksands and we got a group of eleven plus hangers on heading for Shefford early on Sunday morning.

The newcomers started to moan about the length of the 'road trip' up the M1 but this was quickly dispelled as we got to 4x car park to see dozens of bikes and riders milling about.

We quickly put our bikes together, pulled on our armour and full facers and rolled off into the wood to see what it was all about.

First up was the dual course, a great place to warm up. I was definitely up for it, with my riding nicely dialled in and definitely in the zone to use three cliches in one sentence. But it's true, I took off straight where I had left off the previous week and really got my act together.

After diagnosing Rob's headset issues and him fixing it by borrowing another spacer from one of the dialled bikes 4x team we moved on up to the 4x. It was all going a bit too smoothly and after a few runs, we raced each other to the first double and Grant decides to pull up far too high before nosing over and going right over the bars, landing on his head sprawled across the track as we all desperately tried to avoid him. Most did but someone ran over his leg and left him battered and brusied for a bit.

Then we headed over to the North Shore and freeride section. We started low on one of the small ladders hidden in an old section of the wood and after all 'owning' it started looking around for the next challenge. This turned out to be the smaller ladder drop and after psyching myself up for a while I went for it. No problems there although my jumping style lacks pretty much all style and just consists of the jumping bit. Grant hardtailed it on his Prince Albert and then Tony after many false starts cleared it too.

After 'owning' that we moved over to the log-drop which has taunted me on many occasions going back to February 2004! However I was in the mood and launched myself off there too, gaining confidence and going larger and larger each time.

From thereonin I didn't care what happened, my day, week, month, year, decade was made and I was riding on a wave of adrenalin for the rest of the day, watching everything else happening in a dreamlike mode. Can't wait to get back there and do it all again.

When I first started this site, I only ever expected me, Keef, Paul and David to view the pictures or log onto the forum to organise rides. So it was with great excitement when I saw a few years ago Cas and Woolly arrange a ride via the forum and I had never met either of them.

Things have continued to grow and with close on 250 forum members and dozens of riders known to each other via this site I thought it was time I met up with Gazza and Beanarillo who have been logging onto the forum for a while now and even been on rides with other members.

So as we reach the warmest day in January since records began I head for the meeting point at Pitch Hill for a ridiculously early 9 a.m. start.

From here we do the classic 3 hills route, following a fair part of the MBR killer loop, except in reverse to the way I normally ride it. The week's rain means there's still plenty of gloopy mud on the trails and combined with a week off last week messing around on the drops and jumps I struggle to keep up with the two Dave's who are setting the pace.

We complete the loop in a little over 3 hours, allowing for a tea stop and me getting us lost in the woods. pretty good going in today's conditions. Due to ongoing building work in my house the bathroom is out of action at the moment so I stop off at my parents on the way home to borrow their shower. Roll on the spring and the end of the extension!