Friday, 7 October 2011

Overcoming Mental Challenges Of Extreme Sports

In life, we regularly have to mentally challenge ourselves; be it for a new job, a calculation, or simply, making a decision, we all have to do it. 


But how about choosing a career, or hobby, knowing that you will have to face big mental challenges that could mean having to make yourself aware that you WILL receive injury, or perhaps long term damage to your body? 


That becomes a whole different situation.


So how do we manage? I love stunt riding. Every time I get out on to my stunt bike, I face another mental barrier that I need to cross. For example, learning a new trick. Not being able to do that trick already, I have to tell myself that I will come off the bike learning it. But will I get hurt? What part of my body will I fall on? Will I be able to ride again after? All of these questions are the main factor to overcome my personal mental barriers. 


Once I have tried the new trick a few times, my brain starts to become familiar with it, and allows that barrier to eventually begin to lift. 


Is it more difficult for a female to overcome these challenges? Yes. In my opinion, it is. Why? Because we are often less competitive, more aware of our appearance, and have a smaller, weaker body frame than men. 


Does it take us longer to get good at our chosen Extreme Sport? Not always. If you can find a way to overcome those challenges quickly, you will find it easier the next time. Persistence is the key - Alongside taking your time, and not rushing into harder challenges too quickly.


What about the confidence that we need to be able to stick a it? Or to know that we can be just as good as anyone else at our chosen sport. This is something that we all have to work on which simply comes with time. 


Have you had an experience similar to this? What Mental barriers have you had to overcome and how did you do it? I would love to hear your thoughts on this! 

Friday, 30 September 2011

Chesca puts on another top performance at Snetterton for the Bennetts Ultimate Track Day!

Bennetts put on a top event for bikers at Snetterton Race Track on Tuesday 27th September. The turnout was fantastic and the weather was gorgeous! Chesca put on a great show on the start-finish straight at 2pm! What a day it was and we look forward to next time! 





Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Saturday, 2 July 2011

Chesca Performs at the first Shropshire motorcycle show!

Chesca miles and Rider Alstar put on another cracking performance at the Shropshire Bike Show on 26th June. Among the stunt display, there were a fantastic variation of musicians playing, motorcycle Gymkhana and much more.  




Thursday, 30 June 2011

Chesca Performs at Frasers Of Gloucestershire!

Chesca performed for Frasers 40th Birthnday on 25th June.

It was a fantastic turnout at the event with many bikers, family and things to do with celebrity guests, a wheelie machine and of course a fantastic stunt show! 



Thursday, 26 May 2011

Chesca rides a BSA Spitfire as the 'Bond Girl' for the new Bond novel launch in St Pancras train station


LONDON - Fittingly for the launch of the new authorized James Bond novel “Carte Blanche,” there was a luxury car, champagne on tap, crack British troops abseiling from the rafters and a long-legged girl on a vintage motorbike.
The promotion of American crime writer Jeffery Deaver’s book about 007 and his latest escapades, which hits shelves on Thursday, was more like Hollywood than the usually more low-key world of publishing.
But Bond is still a potential money spinner in book form as well as on the big screen, explaining the high-profile event at London’s refurbished, vaulted St. Pancras train station and its swanky champagne bar, billed as the longest in Europe.
Deaver, best known for his Kathryn Dance and Lincoln Rhyme books, arrived at the bar in a modern Bentley.
He was led in by stunt rider and model Chesca Miles, who appeared as a Bond girl on a motorbike riding a vintage BSA, and was handed a copy of the new book by a member of the Royal Marine Commando display team who had abseiled from the roof.
Deaver has said all along that he had the “chameleon“-like qualities needed to get into the mind of a quintessentially English character, although plenty of research did help.
“I became a Brit for about the eight months it took me to write the book,” he told Reuters at the launch. “I did have to learn, for instance, that when we say ‘pissed’ over here (in Britain) it means drunk, it doesn’t mean angry.”
Deaver believed his previous novels had plenty in common with a good Bond story by the character’s creator Ian Fleming, but that Carte Blanche did present an extra challenge.
“I know what my fans want, the millions of Jeffery Deaver fans around the world,” he said.
“They want a book that is essentially a roller coaster, moves very quickly, lots of twists and turns, big surprise ending. Well, that’s what Carte Blanche is going to be.
“But I had the extra question — what do Ian Fleming fans want? So I went back and for six, seven months, researched everything that Fleming had written.
“I of course re-read all the James Bond novels and I think I had a very good sense of how to bring his character into my story.”

British publisher Hodder & Stoughton was keen to keep the story under wraps before publication on Thursday. Carte Blanche is set in the present day, and partly in Serbia and Dubai.
“For my readers I think there’s an immediacy to books set in the present day,” the author explained. “I want a book to be the most intense emotional experience it can be.
“If you go back to a period piece we don’t really get the sweaty palms, we don’t sit on the edge of our seats quite so much as if what Bond is solving today could be a problem, a terror, a threat that we all face every day.”
But he added that the immediacy did not mean he tried to convey any political point of view about real-life events.
“In Carte Blanche we certainly do touch on real life events to some extent, but Ernest Hemingway once said if you want to send a message go to Western Union, don’t put it in your novel.”
Deaver was first identified as a potential Bond author when he won the 2004 Crime Writers’ Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for “Garden of Beasts” and spoke at the ceremony of his indebtedness to Fleming and Bond.
Deaver has previously written 28 novels and sold over 20 million books worldwide. He continues a long tradition of post-Fleming Bond novels authorised by Fleming’s estate that have included Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and Raymond Benson.
More than 100 million Bond books have been sold in total.


Wednesday, 25 May 2011

Chesca Stars as 'Bond Girl' in the Launch of the new James Bond book, Carte Blanche.





The first copies of the eagerly awaited new Bond book, Carte Blanche, arrived in style at St Pancras International in London today (Wednesday 25 May 2011). Copies of the book by the best–selling American thriller writer Jeffery Deaver, published in the UK tomorrow by Hodder & Stoughton, were delivered by the Royal Marines Commandos in a stunning display involving abseiling, a fast car and the beautiful Bond girl, Chesca Miles, on a motorbike.

In a scene which could have been lifted from a James Bond novel, Jeffery Deaver pulled up at Europe’s longest bar – The Champagne Bar at St Pancras International – in a special Carte Blanche red Bentley Continental GT flanked by the Bond girl clad in black Dainese leathers.

It was by air, however, that the author received the first copy of his novel. In a dramatic twist to the launch, four members of the Royal Marines Display Team descended from the iconic roof of St Pancras International onto the concourse below, bearing copies of the novel. The books were handed over to Deaver in front of members of Ian Fleming’s family and invited guests, before being put under lock and key in an undisclosed location. The plot of the book remains, until midnight tonight, a closely guarded secret.


 
Despite the secrecy surrounding Carte Blanche, it can be revealed that each part of the launch had particular relevance to the new novel and to Ian Fleming, the creator of the original James Bond novels, who would have been 103 this Saturday, 28 May. St Pancras International, at the heart of London, is a fitting venue for a very British icon who became an international phenomenon whilst the Bentley Continental GT is the car of choice for Deaver’s Bond. Chesca Miles, was our mysterious Bond girl, who drove a BSA 1966 Spitfire motorbike to the launch, and was inspired by one of Bond’s love interests in Carte Blanche, whose passion for speed and fast engines rivals Bond’s own.

As an integral component of the Naval Service the role of the Royal Marines Commandos is also pertinent. A Commander in the Royal Navy, Ian Fleming worked as Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence during the war years and was responsible for the creation of a specialist unit of commandos known as 30 Commando or the 30 Assault Unit: trained commandos specialising in targeting enemy headquarters to secure documentation with an intelligence value. In Carte Blanche, Jeffery Deaver’s 21st century Bond served in the Royal Naval Reserve, including a tour in Afghanistan, before joining the secret service.

Lucy Fleming, Ian Fleming’s niece, commented at today’s launch: “On Saturday my uncle, Ian Fleming, would be 103 years old. If he had been here today he would have loved the occasion.

“With his brilliant plot and clever twists, his perfectly horrible villain and his detailed knowledge of the British intelligence Service, Jeffery Deaver brings Bond straight into the heart of modern espionage.”

Carte Blanche will be published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton tomorrow, Thursday 26 May 2011, just ahead of Ian Fleming’s birthday on Saturday 28 May. Priced at £19.99, the book will be available nationwide. For more information, visit www.007carteblanche.co.uk.

For further information please contact
Katy MacMillan-Scott or Jane Acton at Colman Getty
Tel: 020 7631 2666
Mob: 07786567887 (Katy) / 07971661576 (Jane)

Notes to Editors:

  • Official photographs from the event are available through Colman Getty

  • Jeffery Deaver will be in the UK for publication and is available for interview through Colman Getty

  • Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver will be published in the UK on 26 May 2011 by Hodder & Stoughton priced £19.99

  • Audio and ebook versions will be published simultaneously

  • The Carte Blanche cover artwork is available from Colman Getty

  • All Jeffery Deaver’s books have been published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton

  • Ian Fleming Publications Ltd is the Fleming family owned company that owns the copyright of the James Bond books www.ianfleming.com

  • For further information about Jeffery Deaver, visit:

Royal Marines Commandos


Bentley Motors:

  • To celebrate the release of Carte Blanche Hodder & Stoughton has partnered with Bentley Motors to create an exclusive Bentley special edition. Each copy of the special edition is custom-produced to Bentley’s exacting standards and arrives inside a stunning metal case. The result is a striking and unique collector’s item. The special edition is strictly limited to 500 copies worldwide at a price of £1,000 each.
For more information about Bentley Motors, visit: www.bentleymotors.com

Chesca Miles

  • Chesca Miles is the first and only female motorbike stunt rider in the UK who combines her career as a rider with modelling and singing.  She began riding bikes at 14 and was an experienced rider by the time she was old enough to hold a licence.  www.chescamiles.com
For the launch, Chesca rides a BSA spitfire, courtesy of the London Motorcycle Museum. www.london-motorcycle-museum.org, wears DaineseArai helmet. 

Hodder & Stoughton:

·         Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette. They publish general fiction including bestselling authors David Nicholls, Stephen King, Jodi Picoult and Jeffery Deaver. http://www.hodder.co.uk/

Bond Books

·         Over 100 million Bond books have been sold (and over half the world’s population has seen a Bond film)


·         Ian Fleming wrote 14 James Bond books: Casino Royale (1953); Live and Let Die (1954); Moonraker (1955); Diamonds Are Forever (1956); From Russia with Love (1957); Dr. No (1958); Goldfinger (1959);  For your Eyes Only (1960); Thunderball (1961); The Spy Who Loved Me (1962); On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963); You Only Live Twice (1964); The Man With The Golden Gun (1965) and Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966)


  • Fleming’s other works include the children’s favourite, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1964), which was made into a film and  stage musical, The Diamond Smugglers (1957) and a collection of travel writings called Thrilling Cities (1963)

  • Charlie Higson is author of the Young Bond books which are published by Puffin

  • Samantha Weinberg, writing as Kate Westbrook, is the author of the Moneypenny Diaries

  • Other previous authors of official James Bond novels include Kingsley Amis, John Gardner, Raymond Benson and Sebastian Faulks, whose book became the publisher’s fastest selling hardback fiction title

  • All of Ian Fleming’s original James Bond books are published by Penguin in the UK and the US


Colman Getty
May 2011