Hello all.

**********Update 28 Aug 2010***********

The order has now been placed.  If any additions come along it will be possible to add them up to a few weeks before the production run.

I will confirm the expected delivery date as soon as Endura have confirmed.

********************************************************** 

*****Update 31 July 2010*****

Hi all,

I now have samples of jersey’s and gillets which from this point on I will carry around in the car so that those who are interested can try them for size.  Please note that the gillets are the light summer type and not the heavy quilted version.

The artwork is now ready and can be seen by clicking on this link.   Click on me to see Bigfoot MBC Final Artwork

***********************************************

*****Update 27 July 2010*****

A big thank you to all those who have sent in their deposits.

For all those who have not yet sent in your deposit could you please send your cheque payable to Bigfoot mbc asap to:

Ian Almond
Magflo House
Ebley Road
Gloucester
GL10 2LU

Any delays will hold up the order!

Thank you in advance.

*****Update 12 July 2010*****

Hello all. Thank you very much for your interest.  The design is proving very popular.  By way of an update I can confirm that the committee agreed to promote the long and short sleeved MTB jersey and additionally interest in a gilet is building.  See code 4032P.  I hope to have samples for all garments soon.

For all those who wish to confirm your interest in a club jersey I will require a £20 deposit per top as soon as possible.  The order has a 9 week lead time and can be altered up to 4 weeks before going to print.  Get your deposits in early to prevent disappointment.  Cheques should be made payable to “Bigfoot MBC” and together with cash can be handed to myself, Jason, Janet Peter or Andrew at club rides.  Alternately you can contact me and I’ll give you an address for deposits to be posted to.

———————————————————————————————

I can confirm that the artwork is now with Endura and we are now waiting for them to respond.

In the mean time the image can be seen here as it should look (thanks to all who put in the work to provide this).

It has been suggested that initially we offer a short and long sleeved MTB jersey with a 3/4 concealed zip.  As interest builds we can add more garments such as a selection of T’s.  This will all depend upon demand.

It is also agreed that between the club and “Nextdaytyres.com” we will be able to provide up to £5+ discount to all club members who place an order.   Please bear in mind that a deposit of 50% of your order will need to be paid before the order will be placed.  For now if you wish to show initial interest in placing an order please respond to this article and I’ll keep a list.

Ahrrggh! My eyes - that headtube!

Cash – club has £751 in the bank. £800 was paid to Endura and Ian will confirm the balance as the order enters production, we’ll probably have to pay sometime around the end of the month. Ian’s going to start collecting the balance off people to ease cash flow.

Jason is owed £30 for BBQ goods – Pete to sort him out with cash. Ian has a few membership cheques to give to Pete too.

Members – 60! A new record, Andrew to print off some more membership cards for Janet.

Rides – Wednesday rides now need lights and are officially ‘Night Rides’! Jason happy we’ve got the ride calendar sorted out with Wednesday rides, the Sunday one’s were filled in and we’ll run an intro ride on Saturday 25th Sept.

Events – Huge thanks to Janet and Jason for helping to organise the BBQ day last month, the ride beforehand and the choice of venue were a big success. Given the number of people on holiday (and the weather) we might move the BBQ forward a month into July next year.

People to be reminded that we’ve got a couple of Enduro rides coming up – the Forest Enduro on the 26th and the Wiggle Falling Leaves New Forest Enduro on 2nd Oct. More reminders and etc. to be posted up, particularly if people might need to share lifts.

Not Buffs – but Squiffy’s. Passed around the sample from Simon at Breeze design. Broadly people liked the material and the printing but didn’t like the length and the seam. I’ll forward on the comments to him but I think if we could get longer one’s for the same price we could do an order of 20 or so as the demand is there.

Breeze design can also get mugs and potentially socks made too. I’ve asked Simon for more details.

Ian asked about drinks bottles too – we’ll have to look into that, I think Impsport can do them for one.

Website; For Sale forum is OK but peeps should be able to delete their own posts when things are sold – I’ll check to see if they can or not. Remove avatar icons from latest forum posts on homepage as they look a bit messy (thought they did).

Bigfoot Holiday 2011 – Janet has some excellent ideas for club trips, off to Italy perhaps with Riviera Bike, maybe June flying into Nice for £540 excluding flights but including hotel and most meals. Sounds a good deal – Janet to find out more and post the details up.

Coast to Coast: St Bees to Robins Hood bay, around 200 miles all off road! Another event worth considering for next year. Supported either by a friendly relative or via a commercial holiday company offering their services and to be done over four or five days. Another excellent sounding adventure – again Janet to post more details up after a bit more research.

Another year, another shopping bike ….. yes the Bigfoot BBQ was a success with food, fun and prizes galore.

The BBQ was expertly driven by Jason who after practicing with his can of GT85 on the Bigfoot Alps Holiday, had it all down to a T!

The Shopper Challenge was once again a popular event with many riders facing their biggest test to date.  The course was approximately 1/8″ of a mile long circuit which had to be completed once.  The starting point was slightly uphill and this kept the riders on on their toes when it came to choosing which of the 3 Sturnley Archer gears to begin with.  After the start it was a straight run towards the climbing wall where riders had to execute a sharpish right turn whilst avoiding the hidden grassy dip.  This was followed by another straight when the rider had the opportunity to ‘LOOK GOOD’ on the bike and adapt some classy lady-like riding poses.  Any use of the bell scored very highly.  After circling around the trees the rider was faced with a short slalom course which proved tricky for many experienced shopper mountain biker.  Then it was a short trip through the woodland glade emerging at the picnic table where the rider must unload their basket and arrange the shopping in a ‘Tesco or Sainsbury’s’ like manner.  The last pull was into the Quoits ring where the rider had 5 chances to score as high as posible whilst circling the ring of deadly house bricks.  Some riders threw all 5 rope rings at once judging this to be their best chance, whilst others circled the ring throwing each rope individually.  Whilst this proved to be a more accurate way of scoring, it little for the BIKE HANDING SCORE’ as riders found themselves riding into the bricks.

As Commissionaire, I can confirm the scores were calculated on the following categories and totalled by taking the rider’s total time in seconds and counting off the scores.

TIN STACKING SKILLS

QUOITS SCORE

SHOPPER BIKE HANDLING SKILLS

LOOKING GOOD

TOTAL TIME TAKEN

 1ST PRIZE : Jason – 38. – winner of the Quoits game

2nd PRIZE : IanR – 47 – winner of the shopping

3rd PRIZE : Matt – 58 – winner of the shopper bike and a Bigfoot mug.

Current members: 57, and excellent increase on last month. There are also a couple of riders still trying us out who might also join soon.

Cash: £997, we have a large amount of float due to the deposits for the jersey order. It’s expected that after this completes will have a bit less! PJ has been given £150 from Steve @ NextDayTyres and also has a few more jersey deposits.

We have decided to shift banks to an HSBC community account, it’s free and will give us counter and Internet services that we’re lacking currently. Just need to get two members near a branch to setup – Janet/Jason/Pete/Ian to see if we can get this arranged.

Rides – all Wednesday rides are up and sorted. Sunday rides should follow shortly, including an away day to Rhyder. Last months ride over to Cannock Chase proved an excellent trip out with great trails. Mark has offered to run a Mendips ride this weekend.

The Relaxed Rides on a Sunday are proving to be very popular too and are becoming a regular fixture on the weekly calandar.

Thank you to the guys that put up an alternative Cwm Carn ride which proved to be very popular, even amongst the hard tail riders!

Thank you to everyone who put in suggestions for alternative places to ride, we’ve taken those onboard and should be able to run some alternative Sunday rides shortly – probably including a North Nibley run.

Intro ride is going to be on the 21st this month, I offered to help Jason out.

The Forest Enduro is also coming up this year at the end of September and would be a good ride out for club members who fancy a good ride around the fine Forest trails.

Congratulations and bloomin’ well done to all our teams who entered the Bontrager 24/12 this year, we won the Mixed 12hr Pairs and came 3rd in the Mixed 24hr Team, our Mixed 12hr Team also came a very respectable 7th place in their category.

T Shirts for podium winners – it was agreed to keep this scheme going for club members who were podium virgins. Andrew to update our ‘Shop’ with the new logo. Jason also requested a Bigfoot Hoody; I’ll see what I can find.

BBQ is on 14th August, pitch booked thanks to Jason and will be available from 10am, the key is with the Lodge. Pete to give Jason £25 for booking the pitch. Pete to sort Janet out with expenses for the Shopper Challenge (c £5.50).

Plan for the day is for everyone to meet up for a ride at 10am, then be back for general fun and games to start from around 12.30pm. I’ll stick an invite round so all the members know they will be welcome, including families, friends and hangers on.

Budget of £30 to go to Jason/Janet to get some supplies in but people are welcome to bring their own food to put on the BBQ (plus drink, err, don’t put that on the BBQ though)!

Jerseys – PJ is on the case and will be carrying around samples to the rides he attends to folks can have a look. Judging from the sizes we tried out it’s probably best to go up a size, ie. Medium goes up to Large. PJ’s going to check sizing with everyone know we know about the sizing issue.

PJ to chase up the last of the deposit hold outs.

Andrew and PJ to confirm artwork with Endura, the easiest thing will be to send them an existing jersey which I’ll do, to say ‘we want it like this’!

A suggestion was made for a ‘For Sale’ Classifieds section on the website – Andrew to investigate and come up with something.

Friend of Bigfoot Steve @ NextDayTyres is organising an Enduro on Sunday 31st October, the Nish Nosh, on the Huntly Estate near the Forest which is normally not open to bikes, and is looking for help in organising the event. This could be help in laying trails out beforehand or help in marshaling/organising on the day.

Lots of people expressed interest in riding the event but there were fewer people interested in helping to run it, Andrew to put an article/simiar up to gauge interest amongst other club members both for riding and helping out and let Steve know what we can do with him.

The ride could be ideal for leafleting cars/making good use of the left over Bigfoot calling cards.

A collage of snaps from the recent Bontrager 24 /12 event at Newnham Park, Plymouth where Bigfoot had 3 teams and a soloist entered:
24 hour mixed open team – Mark, Abi, Jason, Andrew and Peter
12 hour mixed open team – Ian, PJ, Janet and James
12 hour mixed pairs – Rach and Tim
24 hour solo male – Big John (Plymouth Bigfoot division).

The 24 12 is a regular event for Bigfoot due to it’s relaxed atmosphere, excellent facilities (including hot showers and free bike wash which came in very handy at 2am) coupled with awesome single track which even in the most awful weather (and did we have that throughout the night) it is still a joy to ride.

As with all events Bigfoot enters, all teams and soloist performed exceptionally and we were rewarded with a First Place in the 12 hour pairs of Rach and Tim (this is becoming a VERY regular occurrence) and a Third Place (out of 22 teams) for the 24 hour team of Mark, Abi, Jason, Andrew and Peter.  The 12 hour team placed a very creditable 7^th out of 24 teams and finally Big John in the 24 hour solo male placed 7^th out of 53  – he must be mad!

More details can be found at http://www.twentyfour12.com/

**** UPDATE 9th AUG 2010 ****

Hi all,

Ok first off BBQ is still on!!!

Some of you may have also noticed a ride has been put up for Saturday starting at 10am.  This ride is starting at the same venue as the BBQ so if you fancy a spin before hand for an hour or so please come along?  This ride is suitable for all members so fun not fast!! http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/?p=2962

The actual BBQ you can start turning up from 12:15 onwards.  A selection of BBQ food, snacks, treats and drinks will be provided by Bigfoot but you are all welcome to bring along a little something i.e. home made cakes, burgers, salads, pastas, cider..well anything you can think of if you so desire.  We have a BBQ pit booked which is the one by the climbing wall, which is solely for our use.  We will have the Bigfoot banner up (Andy can you remember to bring this please boss) so you can easily see where we are.  I would also recommend people bring fold up chairs to sit on as there is limited benches.  Parking is pay and display so bring some cash for this.  Beechenhurst lodge has a café and toilets so if you hate my BBQ cooking you can always pop next door.

Entertainment would have been supplied by Rach’s Andy but we couldn’t afford the alcohol bill to get him to a suitable state, so instead Janet and co will be running the Bigfoot Shopper Challenge.  Full details are below.

Families and friends are invited as well and the Beechenhurst lodge and surrounding area is great for a wonder around, so you can always use the BBQ area as a base for a few hours if you want to go for a stroll.  Other than that, bring what ever else you like and fingers and toes crossed Saturday’s weather should be fine and dandy.

If you can thing of anything else, just add a comment and go for it!!

*****
Hi all,

Just to give you all a bit of a heads up, the “Bigfoot BBQ Fun and Frolics Day” is on for Saturday 14th Aug

(http://www.bigfootmbc.co.uk/?m=20100814&cat=5).
We have booked a BBQ pit and some picnic tables at Beechenhurst Lodge in the Forest of Dean (click HERE for location) which will be the base for the day. Food will in the form of a BBQ, which will be manned by MEN only, as well as other uber healthy options for the athletes amongst us! This will be coupled with a range of activities and challenges to test both skill and nerve including the World Famous Mystery Shopper Challenge.

This is an open event to all club members as well as their families so mark this in your diary as the MUST event for 2010. We are looking to kick off from 12 and going onto around 6pm, but you can cruise on up any time during the day.

Dirt jump show in the middle of Chatel after the PassPorte Du Soleil

After a long day in the saddle (and ski lift) riding the PassPorte Du Soleil we were relaxing in Chatel when we spotted a couple of rather steep dirt ramps setup in the town square…

Sure enough there were some pro’s throwing themselves over the ramps and pulling the required dirt jump shapes. To spice up the action they then ‘invited’ some members of the audience to come up and stand on top of the landing ramp. Janet was one of those lucky ‘volunteers’ who found out just how high the ramp was – she also made a new friend

Janeet makes a new friend… from Bigfoot MBC on Vimeo.

A healthy, unbroken, wrist (luckily like mine).

Current members: 53.

Jason, Janet and Pete are all carrying spare banana guards/dry bags if anyone’s not picked up their free gift yet.

Cash – we have £775 which is nice…

Rides were sorted out/added and jotted down, thanks Jason. Away days to Cannock and possibly one other?

Action: Request for volunteers to show us their favourite areas to ride please. We’re always looking for suggestions on new places to go so don’t be shy in coming forwards. Don’t worry about the pressure of leading a ride as we can always help out with that while we check an area out. Thanks!

14th August will be the BBQ day – we’ve already got an idea of the site we’d like to use in the forest which has BBQ pits for public use.

Action: peeps to check out the forest BBQ site on this weekends ride and report back. Janet to investigate the ‘Shopper Challenge’ bike and course/obstacles (Shaun might have some woodwork etc?). Food and general BBQ details should be easy to sort closer to the day.

Jerseys. Ian (PJ)’s now on the case with the Endura order. Confirmed that the club contribution will be £5 for each jersey (not per order). Steve @ NextDayTyres will be contributing £5 per jersey up to a max of £150 at which point the discount will be divided amongst however many jerseys are in the final order.

Action: Ian to mail members to see if we can get any more orders in. Deadline set of Friday 16th for getting £20 deposit per jersey so we can then get order together. Endura to send us a set of samples when we’ve got the order in. Gillet requested by Jason and Janet if possible, Ian to check minimum order on garments.

Stickers, design now sorted out, total order cost will be £72 (possibly excluding VAT).

Action: Andrew to get Gil to go ahead with order, confirm cost and get Pete to send him out a cheque.

AOB – the thin Alpine air must have got to Janet ‘cos she actually gave away a pair of riding specs! Pete was the happy beneficiary.