UK Stand Tall!

After the amazing experience of being at the BMX worlds I had an extended holiday to look forward to in the UK, seeing all of my oldest friends, riding everyday, seeing my family and spending time with them all catching up, and getting back in touch with my home, and the people that make it so amazing.

From the after party of the Saturday night (an entire blog post could be written about that - woof) I drove from Birmingham to Sheffield at Mach 1 in the Vauxhall Meriva. Fera Baybutt, wife of the incredible talented Richard Baybutt was smashing her way through the sheffield half marathon and I aimed to be there on the sidelines to cheer her on. Will Schwar and Dave Patten and some mixing of some drink put paid to that though.

RB.com and the Beautiful Fera.

I did get there in time to sit down and have lunch with the champ, and be with my besties, RB.com, AT, Big W, the beautiful Hannah, Malco, Vicky and Lulu. It was amazing, I felt so wonderfully happy to be in the company of all the people that I can honestly call the best friends I have ever had. Lunch was banging, as was my head by this point, so we traveled out to Monkeybumps, the legendary trail spot not 10 minutes away from the City Centre to catch some of the fellas shredding and take in the sereneness of Sheffield and the bluebell wood in which the trails are built. I was feeling tender, so I sat and watched  and shoot the breeze with the all the guys, getting the scoop on the Sheffield scene and watched AT absolutely sending it.

Bolehills Forever - By www.richardbaybutt.com

Vest View in Sheffield

 A BBQ that evening and a good sleep had me feeling back to 100%. The next 4 days in Sheffield are a bit of a blur, an amazing blur, but it all meshed into one amazing experience. My best friends, the sacred grounds of Bolehills BMX track, incredible weather, good food, non-stop laughter and smiles. I fell in love with sheffield all over again. there is something so wonderful about that City. It's difficult to try and encapsulate what it is exactly, and I don't think I could, but I just feel at home there. It warms my insides, makes me happy from the belly up and I didn't want to leave. Not for a moment did I want to leave.

It was so good to be back at Bolehills, back at the trails, riding my bike around the streets, up the big bastard hills and taking in the clean, warm air. I bloody well love you Sheffield.

Hands down, the best week I can remember in a long time, and I cannot wait to be back there.

After my trip to sheffield I headed back down South to spend the last few days with my family and see the Essex mandem. I managed to get a sneaky session in at the new BMX track in South London, built by C&K and even got to visit my second home when I lived in Essex - Warley Trails. They were looking amazing and I had a sweet 2 hour sesh on those badboys to seal an end to my riding in the UK for this trip. couldn't have been better.

It was lovely seeing my folks and my Brother and Sister who were on fine form. Drinking lots of tea, filling eachother in on whats going on, and catching up. It was sad to say goodbye to my Mum when I left though being that it will be the last time I will ever be in that house again, where a reat deal of my childhood memories were made. It hadn't really sunk in until I left. But it was still nice to give good hugs to my folks and my Fam, sending them love and thoughts every single day.

The plane ride home was a tough one, I managed to spill an entire glass of tomato juice all over myself, and after I had cleaned up the mess, I just had a mini breakdown in the bog. So many emotions and a million things going around my brain right now, and the bloody Tommy J was the final straw!

I took onboard the advice of the amazing Chopper Reid and Lulu Watson, and took a spoonful of concrete, and hardened the fuck up. It'll be reet.