No worries, we had a good sesh. I'll make a map showing how to get to the tracks from Elgin some time this week

We are going to the mast tomorow, leaving elgin at 9. BTW do u know if the road up from the mainroad out is open? Cause last time we went it was closed and we had to go up through the houses.

...also thought itd be fun to get a little group of us together for a sat night gig in the woods: camp fire, few drinks, green, etc... can also recollect on my dreadful performance in the xc too

hey man, hope all is well.

Me and Carmen (girlfriend) are camping at the WC from friday to monday. U know anyone else whos camping? we dnt wna be loners in the woods...

aww man, gutted to hear that. he'll pull through, just keep smiling

I wont be up till next saturday, we can FINALLY finish the segment off too!

Raced the National Qualifying selection event for the highland youth team for ft bill wc on th 6th yesterday at aviemore. Scottish cycling team rider got 1st, scot sutherland (local ledgend) got 2nd, Off Beat Bikes team rider got 3rd, and I got 4th! So thats me racing on th 6th!!! i know its xc, but you have to come watch - i just hope it doesnt clash with the 4x. Im gna be on form by then i think, and im looking for a podium finish

All this pedalling up hill is really pushing me to sell th stab and go ahead with the bottlerocket!

You'll know what bike is right when the time comes. It's down to the terrain you mostly ride, budget and style of riding. All 3 of which you probably don't fully know yet. Built a monster of a bus stop up the mast yesterday. I wont even try to describe it, you'll just have to wait and see! When you planning on heading up next?
Hopefully be up next saturday, though that could change at any time as my dad is very ill, not good. Anyhoo, off to cut the grass now, catch you later.

aye theres a 160 in HB, its basically just a Patriot aye? Im not going anywhere near an SX Trail. End Of. Im not keen on the look of oranges either tbh, and id kinda like to support Transition anyway, espesh since im looking at applying for transition grassroots sponsorship in a year or two when i can actually ride a bike to a decent level.

I was all set for selling the stab, but me and aidan were just up the mast before riding that gnar trail with the drop onto the roots (which was UBER fun btw!) - on things like the the bottlerocket would REALLY slow me down, so im in two minds about it tbh. itd be easier if i could see the bottlerocket now but i guess thats impossible really its kinda like when your with a girl, and the relationships getting a bit worn out and theres this new exciting girl ur attracted to but cz ur so used to the current relationship you just cant bring yourself to let go. its f*ck annoying.

...reason being that i cant see myself racing dh any time soon, the stab is too expensive to run, and that the bottlerocket is more suited to the trails around here and my style. itd still be 6inches front and back, so i could deffo still shred the mast on it - itd just open up a whole load of other opportunities eg. golspie, tain, balblair, glentress, my trails, tricks, riding to the top instead of pushing, more style etc etc. ive kinda sold it to myself already but u got any input?

haha, like my tag says, I won 2nd place that highland xc series race on flats wearing heavy jeans, a tarty bikes T, and one brake

What would you think to me selling the stab and building another bottlerocket to about 34lbs verry similar to this http://www.pinkbike.com/photo/2394858/ ?

ahahaha lol. its better with green, trust me.

tbh man im cool with those shots like. as i said, the average person watching th film wont know the mast, and cant tell your just pedalling in at 1:01. i also dont think people will pick up too much on the change of clothes, but il re shoot those bits anyway to see if they come out better. the shot at 55 is as good as its gna get tho i think cz the moss aint gna look as good at this time of year when its not damp

ive re-worked the ending btw, ive dropped those last clips of the bail and the broken forks, and mixed the song to cut to the end and finish after the zoom shot straight down the middle of the jumps - it gives the segment as a whole a lot more impact and makes it look a lot more professional rather than just some cool clips thrown together!

shots at 0:18, 0:48 and 0:51 are gna get a re shoot, also maybe the shot at 0:16 might be taken from behind tracking slowly right and quickly zoom into the shot at 0:18

aye but like i say, its gna be hard, if not impossible, to add in a new clip up top as itl completely throw the timing of the whole vid, unless we take out one of the other black & white clips. for the start, i wasnt meaning just me pointing a camera at u and you talking, i was meaning the whole recording the sound, and dubbing it over scenery and trail shots up the mast. building shots might work too but il have to make them look artsy and naturish! il leave u a post of which shots im wanting to re shoot aswell, 2 secs...

had to leave that in 2 posts aparently it was so long my IP adress was recorded for possible spamming =\

what do you think to the jumps too? u mind having that in it? its just that those shots looked amazing so i wanted to throw them in somehow. Il have a play with the end too because the clips dont really flow together so il see about crossfading the audio and stuff in places, might include some bike audio in the rest of the segment too. anyhow, il have a think bout the intro, and u have a think as to what you can talk bout/how you can introduce yourself and the trail etc. gna get some 70g michelin tubes for the stab btw il just have to carry a spare tube or two in my bag just in case!
Laters man.

yh im pretty chuffed like. i cant really add any more to it though in the way of riding shots because it wouldnt then fit in time to the music, but what i will do is re shoot some of the black & white bits from slightly different places so you can see whats going on etc - espesh now i can work the camera better than i could back then. theres about 30secs of music cut from the start, so i might shoot some 'intro' clips, and maybe have you talking about riding nd building up th mast, and the general inverness scene n stuff over the clips just so that people feel more involved in the video. Im really pleased with how that last section of burtha looked btw, i had no idea itd look tht good when i was filming!

http://www.vimeo.com/4601620 take a look!

hey man, guess whos just cut a 4 min segment of yourself only problem is, the shots i got on sunday look reeeally sexy and professional looking, and kinda upstage some earlier shots from further up the hill, so il get this rendered and fired up on vimeo for you to take a look at, but I'll re-shoot a few clips from the top of th hill before i bring out the finalized version.

hey man hows it goin??
what u been up to??
demo day at laggan tomorrow u goin??
wb x

Soundooo, haha ill give you a woop woop bud cos its you x

Aye ayee boyo, im nae bad. yoursell? break is really good, got the cast of a week ago today! tendons are still abit moist tho lol so just gonna ride xc for a few more weeks first! ayyeee the new bike is awsssoommmeeeeeeeee i love it so much, got it for a no bad price too , ill probally take a burn up the mast at the weekend at some point. might see you aboot xx

thanks man! yeah, im probably too fussy, but ho hum! yeh, should be up as and when i can be.

footage is fine, some nice angles and panning which i wouldnt have been able to get with the tripod. segments coming together nicely now! gna work on it some more in a bit

Thanks, I took about 1000 photos over the weekend. Were you racing?

not yet dude. not sure what to do with them yet tbh.

hi i fella. theyre healing, haha, im riding-ish. got a couple runs in on sunday but was still a bit tender!
il most likeley be up sunday with my brother. him who stacked the double on the marin.
laters dude

Nice man I'm stuck down in Biggar for now as my mate shattered his wrist hitting a crazy stepdown yesterday so he cant drive me to edinburgh station I dno how Im gna get there like cz Ive got loads of luggage and no money. Il be up the mast on saturday hopefully, and I'l try for some roadgappage if the weathers decent If straitline want their pedals given a good beating by a complete hack, then give me a call I hit Inners on sunday, it was pretty sweet like, but Ive never ridden a hardpack downhill trail before - it was rough as hell so my bike got a good working! managed to hit a tree head on at mach 5 too, went straight up about 4ft in the air and came down next to my bike without a scratch laters man.

you up the mast today? or know anyone who is?

hey man, wedding was shit like =\ Im down at glentress and inners this weekend anyway so I'll no be there anyway like. Ive worked out how to set more shit up on the camera now too, so hopefully the focus on the video will be sharper gna use lousy reputation by we are scientists as your seggy music if u dnt mind? ive got shots worked out for it so its all good we need to get up and film burtha tho! btw, how do I measure the bearing sizes on my stab, cz im really badly needing new bearings throughout the frame (and hubs) if you can still hook me up (Il find some cash for you too man if you can, i aint that stingy )? Oh aye, you spoken to straitline yet? If they wanna send the videographer a set of pedals for publicising them in this vid too, then thats fine with me laters.

hey man, i dnt think im gna be up tomorrow cz the weathers pretty shite n im wanting to make a start on this trail I marked out at loch migdale. im off for the next 2 weeks, so whenever your riding, giv us a shout and hopefully the weather will brighten up and we can get this video finished! laters.

Thanks.

alreet, my head is banging after today, didnt drink enough haha

Alright, that would be sweet.

New Zealand? aye will do, you know if anyone else is heading up?

only just got your note dude, had no idea you were heading up, good banter the day like, see if we can get more up next weekend

It was really good, the weather was great. Im just going to upload the photos now. We'll hopefully be back at the mast again soonish

Sure mate, No worries.

As i said in my comment. No offence intended.

improve and change that.

Does he know that you are trying to fight some battle for him. I don't want an argument mate, I was just helping unlike a lot of the comments and he didn't seem to mind.

Oh and don't try and make it personal.

Thanks
Sam.

Well,

Photography is a very hard world and you only improve with hard criticism. I'm sure Aidan understands this.

I think that what I said was perfectly fine. By telling him what wasn't great I could help him

thanks man. if i could drive id be up for shots. ill sort something out though soon enough. enjoy the weekend tho, eh.

i might try hobbling up on sunday, we'll see though. binned my brothers moped at 30mph on tuesday, no leathers, so cant walk without a cane now, only got out of raigmore today, haha.
thank god for hot nurses! haha

but no chance of me riding im afraid.

No bad mikey babes urselll? broke my wrist on sunday at forres, pretty gutting lol cant wait to get bak on the dh bike! might try and get up the mast on sunday for a wee looky, gt fuk all else to do xx

theres just not a lot of potential after that bit i built (plus i built it too tight for the speed etc). ive found a new spot further afield though and ive marked out the whole run (well, halfway up the hill anyway - still got rocks to pick through), its honestly going to be f*cking emmense if i can pull it off, and it ends with a gap over a river im nae up the weekend as im about to catch a flight down to england in like an hour, wont be back till monday =\ (tbh, i wish I knew that I'd fall in love with the mast before i agreed to go down, id much rather stay here and ride ). im taking the mattock to balblair next time i go as theres a load of potential dh runs in the woods there (check out the last bit of Ben Reid's seggy in anti-grav 2 for an idea). should be sweet like. dno if il get on th net in england like - saying that, i can use my phone if i can find a 3G signal. laters.

hey man, you up the mast sunday?

haha, for sure. its hit or miss as far as manuals go, il occasionally get a sweet one like across falcon sq. but most days i just cant get them for shit =\ getting easier tho with being on the trials bike cz theyre piss on that thing! gna have to get them dialled pretty soon tho - cz im wanting to get a shot of me manualling past the 'Spinningdale' road sign in my segment Ive put building at mine on hold cz tbh its pretty shit - but ive started exploring further afield - u know lock migdale? between bonar and spinningdale? with ive marked out a trail there on the most effing sweet hill you could imagine! got a river gap at the end too! see you soonish man.

tbh, th prodigy one is kl, but itd require too much work =\ i was there wiv 5mins spare! got a nice manual across falcon square too which was quite a rarity! ive managed it once before but thats it! all i need to re-shoot is the cablecam shit, maybe some of the fisheye stuff without the fisheye (as its too distorted), and im gna get u coming out of the hip at the end of marks trail and down the slimey bit at the bottom of burtha - then we can move back up to the top of the hill!

Hey man, check out how your seggy is going: http://www.vimeo.com/3397902 Im gna stick with megadeth as it suits both my filming style, and your riding style theres just a few more shots to get at that lower bit then we can concentrate on the top and mid sections of burtha! Im feeling really good about this vid man - once i turn the not so good shots into really good shots its gna look amazing - you can see its starting to come together like - I much prefer the shots without the fisheye too; it means i can use the zoom to keep the shot interesting! I love the shot with the wheels on the berms by the tree which i made u do a load of times - it came out really nicely! I actually cant f*cking wait to get back up there behind the lens!

yh thtd be aweful kind of you! lol. lets hope i catch it this time...

yh im deffo gna re-cut it to a different song - tht tune just doesnt go with ur style at all - your too fast