It's almost the end of the year. I always seem to find myself in a thoughtful and reflective mood around this time, and started thinking of happy memories of Afan, beautiful trails, the DropOff cafe and the post-ride buzz in there in the evenings, setting up tents at midnight in the snow... and how much I'm looking forward to repeating all that next year. That got me thinking more about what else I've experienced and what I would like to do next.

2008 has been quite a year... After swinging my leg over a bike for the first time since my teens in 2007, I think 2008, or at least the first half of 2008, was the first time I began to think of myself as a 'mountain biker', albeit one at the very start of the huge learning curve this sport has to offer. When I used to ride when I was younger, I never really ventured further than the local woods and usually rode on my own, since I never really knew anyone else who wanted to get out and ride. Since then I've come to realise that that's a huge part of what mountain biking is really about - getting out there with your mates, and loving every minute of it. It's about post-ride tea and cake, chatting over those few seconds where you suddenly found your flow, or laughing at yourself for overcooking it on a sketchy rock garden and only just managing to hang in there (or not). I reckon that's every bit as important as the riding itself.

I say 'the first half of 2008' since in the summer I bust my collarbone, which pretty much halted my riding for the rest of the year. It was an enormous blow to suddenly be unable to do something I'd been enjoying so much, especially in the height of summer when the opportunities to ride seemed never-ending. Oddly though some positive things have come out of it. For one thing, it was a valuable lesson in how not to attack a jump, although I've still got quite a way to go there! I was also hugely impressed by how much everyone, some of you who I hadn't even met at the time, looked after me. To Shazi and Dan who scooped me up and got me to A&E, Dan who spent his day there, taking my mind off it with endless stories of horror crashes (lol), the super confidence-inspiring Marcel and Tom who kept checking up on me and promising we'd make it to Wales soon, and everyone else - thank you. 2008 was definitely a year of new and excellent friends

Anyway, I don't want to dwell on that, especially since I'm booked in to have my collarbone plate removed on the 9th of January. Six weeks after that and I'll be back on my bike, and should be able to tackle something gnarlier than my daily commute before March. Gahh healing bones is slow, but it looks like I'll finally make it to Wales pretty soon, hey?! All of a sudden I'm excited about being able to go riding properly again, so I thought now would be a good time to put down a list of inspiring stuff to do next year. I've never been one for new years resolutions, but I reckon a few ideas to look at every now and then can't hurt. Also, if I put them down here early then hopefully it might inspire a few more people to come and join me

So, in no particular order, here's want I want to do in 2009:

• Get to Wales as often as possible
• Ride another Gorrick enduro
• Be able to bunnyhop without cheating with SPDs
• Learn to bleed a set of brakes
• Attend a few demo days and see what all this full-suspension fuss is about
• Hit all the tables and doubles in the Swinley maze smoothly without resorting to rolling them
• Ride some DH routes
• Do the London Rat Race Adventure again in September (team iBikeRide?)
• Be able to manual in a straight line for a few seconds
• Discover more singletrack in Epping forest (my new local)
• Not break another bone
• Ride a lot more than I did in 2008 (shouldn't be hard!)
• Visit the Lake District again and ride the new Whinlatter forest trail
• Scotland?
• Contribute more to iBikeRide - preferably more photos and riding-related stuff rather than the fluff from inside my head
• Some kind of multi-day cycling trip, either here or abroad

I guess that's enough for now. Mostly I hope to become a better and more able rider, but it's good to have some fun goals for the journey. So, what does everyone else have in mind for 2009?