One Of Those Days

It really was One Of Those Days. Mel left first thing in the morning, she's away for three days on an outdoor training course. I'm jealous and will miss her. I had a glass of juice and a bowl of cereal, nice and relaxed. I picked up my commute bike. Overnight puncture. Arse. Now in a rush, I grabbed up the newly built (or rather bodged) touring bike. It needs some reworking, and reminded me about it all the way to the office.

Work was too much, well, work. Nothing went to plan, and seemingly nothing got done. I found-out that my Challenger team-mate, Chewy, is injured and plans for the Dynamic at the weekend, and our trip to Cyprus in a few weeks are up in the air.

I rushed out as soon as I could leave, looking forward to the long way home. Then on the first off-road section I binned it over the bars at a fair old speed. My left foot failed to come out of the, well past it's use-by date, Time pedal. I landed on my knees and chest, for a split second it want that bad, then the rear rack crashed down on my coccyx. Argh. I lay there for a moment, checking I was OK. A bit bruised and battered but not that bad. I picked myself up, and headed home on the road. Within three miles I nearly got hit by the same number of cars. First one cut a corner at speed, second one overtook me then turned off a few feet later, then a red light jumper. Some really bad driving.

Sometimes I really wonder how we live so long! I think I deserve a beer and another couple of chapters of The White Spider. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day!

"You can't stop the thunder"

Cheers for the logo Deano!

Full!

Looks like the race roster is full!

SW 'Cross

Last night was James and Raluca's leaving party. Bristol will miss them. Seeing as it hasn't stopped raining since they moved here perhaps we'll have a dry winter though...

Nice to catch up with Dom and Louisa, Sam and Deano.

Today was the local Cyclocross race. I finally got my X0 out of 3 Peaks build in to it's normal drop-bar form, and had my first proper use of the tub wheels I got cheap from Dom. Unfortunately I couldn't find my chain whip so I ended up on too steep a gear- 39:15. The course was leafy and quite hard going in places despite there being no real climbs.

I took of with the leaders, sitting happily in 5th until half way through the second lap when I high-sided it in to a bush. Got it back together and made my way back up to 6th. Had a good battle with Dave from John's Bikes, but he eventually got the better of me. Towards the end I was reduced to running past lapped riders. Despite the bike going well and me feeling strong. Finished on the same lap as the winner, 6th. 39:17 for the Cris' 'Cross back there.

Pic by James' brother David.

I am not a number!

Ok thats not true I'm happy to be Racer 35. Woop!

I found the lost member of the Happy Days gang

Really.

Yesterday afternoon I went out with our work Challenger World team. The plan was for the 3 teams to do a mock stage. The basic jist was running and Mountain Biking orienteering to collect sets which allowed us to answer questions and play darts to score more points. Tom and set of on our bikes while Chewy and Pete set off on foot. We were having a fun ride despite the mud. We rode up a white lane to Charmy Down, a deserted World war 2 Night Fighter base. It's a strange spooky place with cows grazing on the runway and loads of derelict buildings. I'll have to have more of a look around (perhaps on a trip out to here). On our way down a guy in a nice old Merc was stopped on the road, we had a chat for a few minutes. Apparently they want to build a car park over the airfield, but he's been trying to stop it. He also mentioned that there are now wild Boar in the area- I'd not heard of them so far south. Interesting. Anyway, as he drove of, Tom and I realised that we both recognised him as an actor, but couldn't put our finger on who he was. I had to search he web when I got home, but finally found him.

Despite a really good ride, which our team completely got the wrong end off the stage. Consequently we completely messed the event up and came last. Better now than in the real event...

Cheers Griff!

I got a package from Uncle Griff at Trek. Thet's a big pile of Bontrager bits I need for the build kit.

Earl Crow bars, 25mm rise
King Earl post, 330mm
Race X Lite Stem, 110mm 7 Degree
Race X Lite grips
Bar ends
Inform RL saddle
26x2.20-2.50 tubes (lets see if they work!)
Trek Angel cage

Random factor, like a tractor

That was a random weekend. Very little in the way of riding but got a lot of things sorted. Managed a 3 hr ride straight out of work on Friday then a quick shower and dashed to meet Mel and head to the airport. Ran in to two sets of friends in the bar- Dylan, Clare and baby Cadel and The Boy Wonder. Time for a quick chat then jumped on the Queezyjet to Glasgow. By coincidence we ended up sat by a guy, Liam, who was on his way up to DJ a gig. He’s in to dirt jump bikes so we got chatting, turns out he was friends with Parry from my old local shop- Psyclewerx. A couple of drinks later and the flight had (ahem) flown by. We said our goodbyes and headed of to Trina (her photo again) and Jon's flat. Jon mixed up some of his famous Bloody Marys and we chatted until past our bed time

Saturday morning I had to get measured up for a Kilt, for my wedding next year. As predicted it was a very easy, but expensive morning. One more thing crossed of that list. After a bit more shopping we headed back to the flat. For some reason we decided to start mixing cocktails... The rest of the night goes a bit fuzzy, but suffice to say some mixes were worse than others, but I cant remember which were which. I slept well.

Sunday saw us rise earlyish and head over to to the SXC race in Peebles. As I hadn't brought a bike I borrowed Jon's trusty Roshambo, while he rode his “Supra Beasto” with an Endomorph front tyre- not very 'cross. That said, he was dressed as a Ninja, which you don’t see a lot of in Belgium either. The field was about 100 strong and the course was very good. Euro-style I guess- lots of grass and tricky, slippery off-camber corners but several fast tarmac sections. Fun! I didn't have a very good start but I had a few fun battles with the people around me. About 20 minutes in I finally got in to a rhythm and put in a few quick laps and enjoyed picking people off. I kept feeling stronger towards the end and finished feeling pretty happy with myself. No idea where I came but that doesn't really matter, does it?! After a quick change it was time for the kids race, which also had a large field. They all seemed to be loving it and it was great to watch them, elbows out against each other. At the prize giving they all won something and got an enthusiastic cheer from the crowd. We scoffed birthday cake and bacon rolls. Anja won the women’s category, much to her surprise. I won a beer for having a beard. All good.

After that there was just time to get back to Glasgow, cook and eat some bolognaise and catch our flight. Really feels like it was more than a weekend.

Rollapaluza at Mud Dock

Since running in to Casper and Winston at SSWC07 I've been trying to get Mud Dock to host a Rollapaluza roller racing night. Last night it finally happened. There was a good turn out with about 70-80 racers and a lot of spectators. Unfortunately I got knocked out in the round (I blame the endurance training!) but that gave me a good chance to spectate, enjoy a few glasses of the Portuguese red and catch up with some friends. The normal crew were all there, but it was especially good to see Gord and Gooner who had both made quite a journey. The crowd was noisy and the racing close. fantastic!

Although he only came second, ride of the night was definitely Duncan Ferris who posted the 7th fastest time ever!

It was a top night hopefully it'll be repeated soon!

sorry about the camera phone pics...

Lunchtime in the woods, lunch at the desk.

I went out running this lunchtime. It's the first time I've managed it in a while- I'd forgotten how much fun it is. 45min to 2hrs out in the woods certainly breaks up the day! Today was fairly short but eight people were out, which was a nice size group. I hadn't planned to in out today so i'm now enjoying the excuse to fill up on junk food.

12 hours of Local

Last Friday Mikey decided to go for a big local ride. 8pm to 8am. We rode all our favorite trails, had some good chat and then went for breakfast. Unfortunately Mikey managed to smash the one GPS we had with us so I have no idea how far we rode. Ah, well. Are hours in the saddle or miles more important? All in a great fun ride though, this is set to become a more regular feature of our riding.

Picture is us at 7:30 am, Ashton Court with Bristol behind us.