JOEY GOUGH - BMX Girl

BBQ'd Fish Eyes. Yum.

2009-07-08T20:22:00.008-01:00

BBQ's at the trails are great, no burning food cause you're too impatient to wait for the coals to be ready, keep on riding and it's good to go before you know it! Went for spicy bean burgers and cooked tomatoes in pitta bread this time, but becca stuck to the beef burgers. Not quite sure what the cows just the otherside of the barbed wire thought about that. Becca got round 2 more jumps on our tech backline, awesome. Only 2 more to go! Scooby got no handers at our place for the first time and I finally learnt to table the right way round!

I picked up my semi fisheye lens that I had for my video camera too, thought it might be fun to play with holding it in front of my stills camera. Becca and me both had a crack at it and got some cool shots. Here's a few, click here for the full album. Top to Bottom: Scooby, Joey, Becca, mmmm spicy bean burgers

Over the weekend Scooby and I also made big digging plans... what started with us innocently filling a rut in the first lip, ended up with us making big plans to build a line to the right of the mains involving numerous hip and transfer combinations. We got right on it the next day when the rain fell, building up the first set, 2 more lips, a new landing, digging out bowls and shifting a shed load of dirt. The old first set is now a little taller and it worked a treat today, going slower and higher over it even though it's a tad soft. Brilliant.

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EZO Wisley Edit

2009-06-25T06:27:00.002-01:00

Check out the full vid featuring Jimmy Pratt, Sam Reynolds, Mike Smith, Gareth Howell etc...

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Wisley

2009-05-31T09:49:00.002-01:00

Last weekend I went to visit Dave in Eastbourne.

On the saturday we ended up dropping by Spooks to have a look. There were some guys down there riding and chilling and they said come and ride! So we went back and grabbed our bikes and had a fun session. The big stuff at the bottom wasn't running but the rest was really fun and felt like a roller coaster at times, twisty lines where you'd all of a sudden pick up crazy speed.

On sunday we trekked up to wisley. Little bit of a trip but really worth it. It was a cracking day, Gareth and Digs had the BBQ on the go and were making pizza's in with there dirt pizza oven! awesome!

Jimmy Pratt, Sam Reynolds and Mike Smith turned up, they were a treat to watch, they seemed to be having so much fun when they are riding it just makes you smile. Also I never fail to be amazed by how much higher Jimmy goes than everyone else!

I had so much fun that day I rode till I couldn't ride anymore. Thanks to Gareth, Digs and the other locals for letting us ride and making us feel welcome!

Here's some footage Tom Wheeler took of me riding there. There should be a full video about soon with footage of Jimmy, Sam etc so keep your eyes peeled for that one, it'll be worth watching!

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50-50!

2009-05-19T20:31:00.003-01:00

Tried out the new hip today. The whole bowl is still soft, but thought I'd see how far I could get... Turns out, not very!! haha! At least I deployed the safety foot. Apart from being soft as hell, think making the set before bigger will help too. More rain please!

Summer is here

2009-05-17T20:57:00.003-01:00

Summer is here, everything at the trails is green again! Here's a couple of clips of becca and me at the trails on saturday. And a new twisty lip I got building, it'll join up with the mains eventually.

Went to watch the interegional at Peterborough today. Good turnout. Good to see tuffy racing again, he's a joy to watch, effortless. Also, he went STUPID high off the big doubles on the back straight and landed flat in his first moto!! Tuffy is nuts...

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MK regional

2009-05-09T08:32:00.003-01:00

Yes I actually rode a regional! I got to admit I hate mk track, there is nothing on it and its got the flattest start hill in the world. However I know when I go to race there I always have fun and today was no different. It kinda worked out ok to because it was pretty windy at times, but with no jumps higher than 3 ft it didn't really matter! ;o)

Hardcore Hobbies unveiled the new 10 yr celebration shirts, here's the crew sporting them on the HeartFM website! Check out www.hardcorehobbieshq.com for info on how you can get a free 10yr tee..

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Not so bad!

2009-04-19T20:21:00.002-01:00

Woke up feeling pretty sore this morning, so I had a laze about! Got to the trails and it wasn't really happening, the pain got worse every time I rode. Scooby was in a similar boat. I took some ibuprofen though and it seemed to give me the kickstart I needed! The more I rode the better it got, and although I didn't feel anywhere near 100% I had a lot of fun in the end. Got some good tables and Scoob got on the no handers, so not so bad after all, I think it actually done me good I feel better now!

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Transferrrrs and pain

2009-04-18T22:54:00.003-01:00

Hit up a new transfer today, I was a bit scared cause now one had tried it yet, but it turned out ok! and was really fun! until my third attempt, when somehow I leant back too much and couldn't get the front end back down. i looped out big time on the landing, landed on my back and smacked my head on the ground. It hurt a lot but kinda went away again so I rode as much as I could before I stiffened up too much to ride... I was pretty sore when I stopped riding...neck, back, cocyx, shoulders, head... but the ibuprofen is sorting me out good so we'll see what tomorrow brings!! Scooby also had a nice trip over the bars so we spent the evening taking it in turns to moan.

The one where I fell off:

The one where I didn't fall off:

French Edit

2009-04-14T19:12:00.004-01:00

Stone has stuck this video from france 09 up on Vimeo, check it out. Makes me miss it, was such a good week, can't wait for next year!!

FRANCE 09 from stoney on Vimeo.

The weekend was a productive one:

Photos...top to bottom:
We built a new hip in record time :o)
I learnt wild one footers!
Scoobs been getting the no handers down and getting sychronised with Matt
And Matt's been doing some nipple twisting!

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Race in yer face

2009-04-13T19:18:00.005-01:00

Jonny, Jay and Stone are all seriously into the full regional series this year, so me and scoob decided we want in on the action. We got some serious training in today, check it out, it's the future... grass sprints whist pulling a water container. This will seriously increase power and we will be wasting the race!!! We have started off light with just 10 litres but the full capacity is 30 litres we'll be working up to that in no time. We don't mess about.

Saying that, Stone is going to have to miss a couple of months of the series now. On friday he got caught by a nasty gust of wind at the trails...result = 1 damaged shoulder, 1 sprained ankle, concussion, 1 dislocated thumb, 1 broken bone in the other hand and some egg shaped swelling on his knuckle. That really sucks. Get well soon!

Before all that happened we've had some awesome fun jumping over each other at the city trails, check the pics...

Top to bottom:
Stiffler and scoob jumping over stoney and jonny
Joey jumping over stoney
Stone, post race 360!

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Jacob

2009-04-06T20:30:00.002-01:00

If you have 10mins to spare, check out this cool animation an old school friend created...

"Young Jacob lives in a fantasy world of super heroes but is rudely awaken when his obsessive compulsive, overbearing mother decides she has had enough of the clutter and burns his precious comics and toys. If super heroes have taught Jacob anything it's that justice must be served, and so Jacob sets out for vengeance the only way he knows how... by becoming a Super Hero!"

The Friday Night Train!

2009-04-03T21:36:00.004-01:00

Here's a few clips Stu took of us at the city trails tonight, how much fun?!!!! Transfer and jumping over people madness! I love the light nights! Matt and Tucker have the trails running super good at the moment since Matt bought a big bin to fill with water and lug up the trails every session, commitment. Weather looks good all weekend so more of the same is in order I think..

Local Trails Video

2009-03-30T19:14:00.007-01:00

Emily Horridge and Rich Auden came to visit last week, they hit up loads of different spots in the area and rode a couple of days with us. Emily made this pretty cool video of the weekend. It has Scoob and me doing a new transfer at city trails, that was really fun! On saturday night we chilled at Scooby's with a few beers and numerous BMX videos... PA woods, FBM jam on Props, Fit trails tour from France, to name but a few. Good times. Stone got a bit emotional over the fit video! ahh!

South East Trails Trip from Emily Horridge on Vimeo

Also Rich took a couple of cool photos at our trails, thanks guys, a good weekend!

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French sun and English sun

2009-03-18T09:16:00.004-01:00

I haven't updated since France I know... sorry about that, but it was such a good week that it was pretty depressing being back home. Also, there will be a report in the next Fastlane BMX mag written by the one and only Jonny STD, so check that out for the low down! In the mean time, check out my Flickr album from the trip, pictures say 1000 words anyway. Good Times.

Flickr French Roadtrip Album

Oh yeah, check out this vid of Scott Waterhouse's attempt at the Montelimar triple that Tuffy did last year...crazy!

Ross sent me a couple of his pics that he took of me at Montelimar. That track is so fast, I love hammering down the first straight. I was pretty stoked at clearing the big roller table into the first corner this year at the first attempt!

Last weekend the English sun finally made it out and Jay, Stoney and Ross headed over to Norwich for the day. It started off pretty chilled, we were all a bit fuzzy from the night before! Tucker and Matt had spent all winter digger a crazy deep roller to bomb hole, into a 6ft tall steep lip into a big stepped up landing. It took a few goes to get my head round the speed you pick up so quickly. With no Matt to show us the way, Stoney manned up and hit it, followed immediately by Stiffler, so with the pressure on, I hit it too! As the day went on more and more locals and kids showed up, we all started training the jumps it was so much fun. Some crazy kids cleared the step up too, then it started going off and everyone started tricking the big step up! It was like a 90's flyout dirt comp! Such a good atmosphere, loads of poeple on the jump watching and taking pics, Stiffler T-downed it, I tyre grabbed it, Ross no-handed it and Stoney 360'd it!

I just wish I had a photo of the scene that day but nevermind ay, I have the memories!

Pic below: Stoney on the city trails step up, photo by Stu Dickson

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What snow?

2009-02-18T14:48:00.007-01:00

While everyone else has been moaning about the snow, or in some cases enjoying it, our trails have still been running! I know you probably don't believe me, no-one ever does. There is something strange about that place that makes it drain so well. Some of the lips are still crumbly and I even found some dust whilst digging last week. Made some more adjustments to the mains and the were all running super good at the weekend. Backlines been fun, working just how we always wanted it. I finally have that left hand hip to table!! :o)

Have been watching loads of Supercross on Motors TV lately, what a discovery that was. It's so good, I never get bored of watching it, it's impressive lap after lap. The triples they are jumping into tight bowls, it's just nuts! Chad Reed is just amazing, so smooth and stylish.

Well, only a few days to go till the French Roadtrip 2009...20 of us going this year, it's gonna be good. Can't wait I'm in dire need of some sun and warmer weather. Chack back in a couple of weeks for the lowdown!
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DC to the NYC

2009-02-06T20:08:00.004-01:00

Over the last month Lauren had been planning fellow blogger DC's surprise leaving party for the 31st January. He is moving to New York for a year, so it was to be NYC themed too. All went well until we decided to meet up with Lauren and check out Derby's new track on the way up. It was quite windy but the second straight was running good and I made use of the 3rd straight jumping it backwards. Ross went for the roller to middle of the double gap on the 2nd straight, a good attempt, but he had to press the eject button and somehow stayed on his feet. Big props for giving it a shot! Anyway, we had been there a few hours and were just winding up to get moving, when we heard Dan was on his way over... actually he had just arrived! Lauren was still there too and had told Dan she had gone home. Dan seemed a little upset that so many people were having a great session there and we hadn't told him, especially with him leaving so soon. We said our pretend goodbyes and continued up to Al's house where we warmed up with a cup of tea and fish and chips. Thanks Al for letting us stay!

Ross got into his hip hop style and Scoob and I had prepared ghost busting packs with hoover hose and carboard boxes. We had taken the NYC theme a lttle more loosely than intended! Still we turned up expecting lots of gangstas and no one had bothered! Boo! Shame on you. We didn't care... we had guns that fired silly string hehe.

Dan turned up to a big cheer and I don't think he knew what was going on to begin with. When he realised he looked a little overcome with emotion, good job he hadn't had an emotional coffe as well. I think all was forgiven for not telling him we were at Derby. There were so many of his family and friends turned up, many from the race scene, it was a bit like a winter drinking national! Dialled Mike and Paddy were in the corner with the biggest colour chart I've ever seen trying to decide on a colour for this years frames. I think whichever was chosen may look rather different in daylight with less booze... who knows what they will turn out like!

It was a great night which pretty much ended with Dan and boota wiping out the dancefloor and getting thrown out! Still, much fun had been had by then and it was late enough to hit the sack in my book.

Sunday morning we woke up keen to go ride bolehills. It started to snow just as we left, it didn't stop us though! We biked up there and found BF, Steve Taylor, Ivesy, Terry etc all already there and keen. It was snowy, cold and windy as hell, but the ground was frozen nice and solid at least! The wind was going the wrong way really, so we decided to call it a day and get on the journey home.

Nice one Lauren for organising the party and also for sorting out such a good track at Derby. Dan, good luck buddy, hope you have an awesome time!! You'll be sorely missed in France though! :o( Bon Voyage.

Photo Rich Baybutt

Corby Skatepark

2009-01-22T16:02:00.003-01:00

Bit of a change of scenery this week. Scoob and I trekked over to Corby Skatepark on tuesday during the day while it was nice and quiet.

I've never ridden much park, but it's drier and a bit warmer in there and pretty fun to rag about over the jump boxes. There is of course the foam pit too... I'm ashamed to say I did have a go at sending a flip into the foam. I got just far enough to bury my head in there real good! Thing is, although the foam is fairly soft, landing head first still gives your body some grief. I only tried it a couple of times before I'd had enough. The next day I had sore shoulders, a bit of a headache and a sore ankle from rolling it jumping out of a 360. I don't normally have that many ijuries riding dirt! False sense of security comes to mind. It's also bloody hard work climbing out of there, especially when your head is buried lower than your legs!

Scooby got back into the swing of pulling 3's, landing a few on the resi and doing Doyle-esque table 3's into the foam. Bosh!

Digging & test riding

2009-01-14T21:04:00.008-01:00

Scoob and me have been getting in the shovel work recently, ressurecting the back line mainly this week and turning it into something fun and flowy rather than the hard work it was before. Digging out bowls, extending landings, making the lips and landings taller... it's all made it super fun! We also built up our jump into the berm, so now you can jump into the top corner and it's like a rollercoaster from there on.

On wednesday we made a few more tweaks and tested it all out in the fog. We couldn't see much but it all worked good, it was pretty fun. Scoob was determined to try out our new taller 3rd landing on the mains too, but it was so foggy that when you took off you struggled to see the landing. I took the first run up and just kept expecting to be able to see the jump a bit better when I got there....but it never seemed to happen! Still, it seemed to work pretty good, so we are looking forward to the rain when we will build the lip up to match it.

Incase we hadn't given our bodies enough abuse, we went to boxing training afterwards for a tough session. Really good though, we had steam coming off our heads. The skills are finally starting to come together a bit now as we are practicing the moves a bit faster.

Photos, top to bottom: Scoob in the fog; new bowl on the backline; Joey table on the hip; Scoob MXing it up on the hip
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Christmas week

2009-01-11T21:43:00.002-01:00

Christmas week was pretty good for us nor-folk. Despite the cold temperatures, we managed to ride trails nearly every day! We had a bit of a jam at our place one day with the Bury boys and Tricker visiting. It got a bit hairy in the high winds but it's all good fun.

New Years day we headed to Snape for what has now become a bit of a Hardcore Hobbies crew tradition. We always have fun there and this time was no different, highlights of the day were Williams pulling out a one foot x-up, Rebecca and Stifflers race around the dirt bowl and Rebecca making it through the first 3 of the main line. Everyone was stoked for her and she was doing them so smooth too! So much so that she was presented the achievement of the day medal! There is another similar medal floating about for crash of the day but that one is not so saught after....Scoob keeps trying to get rid of it but keeps on winning it back much to his annoyance.

Last monday a few of us headed over to Bury to hange out with the HArdcore Hobbies crew and watch the new S&M Bikes video. It's a really cool vid with a fair bit of trails in too, check it out :o)

This past weekend me and Scoob hit the shovels and made some big improvements down the trails, making the 3rd set a foot or so taller and the back line way more flowy and fun! We have so many plans for tweak here and there, we are gradually getting through them but it is so dry at the moment t's difficult to pack in a lip. Carpet seems to do the trick though. Some of the dirt was frozen solid today too which didn't help. Hopefully we'll get some more done during the week.

Started back at boxing this week and we discovered the guys who run it are FMX riders. They've done loads of displays and built there own foampits and stuff, pretty cool. Oh yeah and I hit Scoob on the nose a couple of times...accidently of course!

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The Killer Question

2008-12-21T19:44:00.009-01:00

Ok so I've been a little slack on the updates. On Sunday I made the effort to get the camera out, a trip down the trails on the shortest day of the year, and they rode so good! It was even fairly warm. It's the first time we've got to ride the whole main line again since beefing them up. The last set is a boomer!

From the top: Scoob, Matt, Ross, Joey.

Have you watched whole in the wall? What a stupidly brilliant concept! Call me easily amused, but people falling over in comedy fashion gets me every time. Scoob and I thought it would be a good idea to have a 'killer question' wall on the finish line at races...it'd be the utimate contest, speed, skill and intelligence! Not to mention funny. We would also have a wall in the middle of a set of doubles with a horizontaly placed rectangular hole, making it essential to pull a big fat table. Hehe. It's on a par with mine and Steve's supermarket sweep wheelie challenge, where you have to wheelie past a row of stalls at a car boot sale with a basket on your bike, picking up as many items as possible on the way, against the clock. All hosted by Dale Winton of course.

Big Ben is back for Christmas too, it's been good riding the track with him, we had an awesome last straight session the other day. I even got my camera out then too. Everyone hit up 80's night on friday for a bit of festive fun, can't say too much, you had to be there!

From the top: Ben. Ross and Ben pre 80's night. Ben, Rebecca, Scoob and Ross.

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Norwich track & top 5 tunes

2008-11-18T10:32:00.003-01:00

Norwich track has finally been completely re-surfaced! After 4 weeks of re-shaping and re-surfacing the track is running better than ever and it's good to see it swarming with kids in half term (except when they sit right in the middle of a jump playing with their mobiles). Everything was peaked up a little and the second straight has had a minor change to help it flow a little better. It's riding great so far in the winter weather so if your in the area check it out. www.norwichbmx.co.uk

Also check out the my current top 5 most played tunes at www.dirtmag.co.uk !

I learnt a new trick recently while the track was being re-done...

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Coppull

2008-09-18T20:45:00.003-01:00

Bit of a late update, it's been a rough start to the week. On the plus side it has made me so grateful of my little bike, it's ability to make things seem better and all the friends it brings with it. Tim I won't take the pee out of your special friends speech again, you speak the truth! ;o) Thanks guys you know who you are x

Anyway, Coppull! It's a long time since I have been to Coppull and I don't have great memories of it to be honest, I don't think I won there too often and it always seemed to rain or be freezing cold. This year wasn't looking too promising after driving for 6 hours through the peeing rain. We got there on friday evening and luckily it didn't seem to have been raining so much up there so we got a few gates in. The track was riding fast and smooth and I was really enjoying it.

I was racing 19+ men this weekend and with the low numbers I expected just the top contenders to turn out. But whoever was there it wasn't going to be easy. I was getting good gates all weekend and snapping a lot of people but I should have shut them down before they powered past me! I was feeling a little scared to begin with banging elbows down that first straight, your going pretty fast as it's a big, steep start hill for a regular track. It's the closest I'll get to supercross racing in the uk anyway! I missed out on the A final by one point, but won the B final.

On sunday not only was it dry and not windy but the sun shone all day too I couldn't believe it. I was getting more confident in the pack with those big guys by now, I had some good motos getting a 3rd in the last one which I was pleased with. Unfortunately again I finished 9th in the points table just missing out by one place on the A final again! Doh! Oh well. B final was a bit tougher today I got a bit shut down and got second, but a good weekend over all I really enjoyed it, thanks coppull.

A bit off topic, but if you like stupid comedy or Will Ferrell, or both - go see Step Brothers I didn't stop laughing the whole way through!! Saw this on Family Guy last night too, it cracked me up,

More Murray Jam

2008-09-09T21:01:00.002-01:00

Here's a vid from the weekend from Mpora.

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Oh and Scooby spotted this in the Marrs Bar at the after party on Sat night....too right!!

Murray Jam

2008-09-02T09:33:00.003-01:00

Last Saturday I headed to Worcester with Tucker, Ross and Scoob for the 2008 Murray Jam. We weren't sure how much we would end up riding what with the amount of people going and the intimidation factor, but it sounded like fun anyway and for a great cause.

We got there about 12.30 and it was already heaving, the queue to ride was right back to the ramps. We all got straight on it while everyone else was getting used to the jumps aswell. The queue was quite long but you got to watch some amazing riding while standing in the queue. Martin Murray and the Fortes where so good to watch on the hipped lines, so flowy! I started with the roller line to warm up as doing one jump and queing up again made it difficult to get into things! After a couple of goes on that I switched to the 'farmers line' which starts with a triple. After a few goes I started to relax a little and enjoy it. Meanwhile Ross was trying every line possible.

It was great catch up with some ex-race people I haven't seen in a long time, like the Murray's, Scott Edgeworth, Toby Forte to name a few. It was a great day for a great cause, over £6000 was raised for the Stephen Murray Family Fund! Thanks so much to the Aliano's for letting everyone take over their backyard for the day and everyone else who organised the event.

2008-08-27T16:53:00.004-01:00

Been a bit tied up getting into watching the olympics over the last couple of weeks! How good was it seeing BMX racing in there, seems like it got a good response with Hugh Porter getter over excited in the commentary box and the rest of the BBC presenters looking gobsmacked. I wasn't sure that I would but when it came to it I set my alarm and watched it live at 2 am! I have to admit I had goose bumps when the first quarter final was on the gate, this moment has been a long time coming. The track looked awesome and made the both the men's and women's racing look close, fast and exciting. I had an each way bet on Mike Day and Sfiso which made it even more interesting! Mike Day was looking unstoppable, but when he was left with an outside gate in the final I didn't think he'd get the win, though he did out smooth everyone on the 2nd straight I thought he was going to get Strombergs in the 2nd turn. Sfiso looked to have the edge on strommbergs down the first straight but being stuck outside him he was pushed up the first turn. Still, Day finished 2nd so I made a profit, woo!!

I've not been up to anything too intersting. Training, watching the olympics, and having my weekly fun at the trails! Got a bunch more pics. Tucker took the ones of me, I took the rest. From Top-bottom, L-R, L-R etc! Joey, Matt, Joey, Tucker, Ross, Tucker, Joey, and fnally, some rollers we built.