Utter Bastard :-(

Come Cnuting Fcuk stole my Kona off the train yesterday :-(

hopefully he'll die in a hideous incident

gutted, i loved that bike

Bah Humbug

For some reason riding up Bell Hill/Stoner Hill into work nearly killed me today :-(

didnt even notice it yesterday

Last night the idiot customer service person gave me the wrong advice, contradicting a colleague of his over where to get off the train to get back to Southampton. He was wrong, his colleague was right it turns out.

You should get off at Hilsea, not Havant, or you have to wait an hour, in Havant, in the drizzle, with nothing to do.

The only vaguley interesting magazine on sale was Top Gear as well. I've since found out its not even vaguely interesting, but banana muffins are nice

Mountain Mayhem 2007

Riding in a mixed team with Gary, Juan, Jon and Nicky. We adopted a casual attitude to racing at the start, and this only got slacker when the rain came down, on Jon's second night lap, surprisingly :-)

The general verdict was mud mud mud mud and mud, oh and ferns and grass.

Slippery Slippery Grassy Gloop
(Photo by Nicky)

And a fairly embarrassing stack at the start when my foot shot out of my SPD whilst sprinting and my knee jammed behind the fork crown - resulted in a gouged lower back from the saddle and a rather nice friction burn just below my knee cap now that keeps drying out, and then when I move it again it cracks and weeps again.

Dont use your skin as a braking surface:
(Photo by Nicky)

A singlespeed with conti 1.5s was the best option it seemed, but my Mount Vision didnt get clogged too badly, although there were plenty of non rolling bikes around, and lots of snapped mechs/hangers.

We did 17 laps overall - Gary - 5, Jon - 4, Juan - 3, Me - 3 and Nicky-2. Not exactly setting the world alight but we all decided that stopping before we stopped enjoying it was the best idea - ive flogged myself to the point of collapse at 24 hr races before, and if you aren't fit enough it really kills you afterwards. Plus it was very hard going through the mud - half of the course had basically no grip at all, which was in equal measures amusing and frustrating.

Although the solo option is calling me again - I seem to ride better and further when i dont have the pressure of getting up at a certain time and riding - i think its a mental thing - i always get silly nervous before events and then my head goes in the night. I did just shy of 100 miles at CLIC 05 with little to no preparation, so im wondering that if i actually get some sort of training sorted out i might be able to beat that :-)

Although if its at Eastnor again i think that i will be taking both bikes (the kona and the mount vision), singlespeeding both at 32:18, running tiny tyres and unbolting everything that isn't absolutely essential :-)

Work now, cars still broken so riding to work.

Tata

Tim

Yesterdays commute

6 miles in to work via the train station, so I cheated there, but 25 miles back over the South Downs to Winchester, and then the train down from there to Southampton

However, the ride back was quite eventful, a puncture heading up towards Henwood Down, and then realisation that I'd managed (rushing the night before) to trace a chunk of the route between Old Winchester Hill and Beacon Hill along the wrong bit of the South Downs, and hence it featured a lot of footpaths, one of which, between Exton and Beacon Hill, went straight up over the down, and i could hardly walk up it, let along carry a bike up it. Also had fun with a section of bridleway that looked like it hadn't been used for years and was about 2 foot deep in grass.

Still it was a fun ride with some great views from the top of the downs, and the fast bits were just that:

View from Old Winchester Hill

This made me smile:

That is definitely a bridleway :-)

Got back about 9:30pm last night - so 4 hrs including train, not exactly fast but good fun all the same - speedo logged just shy of 38 miles by the time I'd got home for the day

Tired now - at least ive only got to freewheel down little switzerland to the train station after work instead of a repeat of yesterdays efforts !

Worried about Car Security?

I'm thinking of getting one of these for my car:

Afan & Glencorrwg - 26-27th May

Drove up on the friday morning with not much drama apart from one sat nav trying to send Tom to Bristol and then mine failing to belive there are two severn bridge crossings - it refuses to go to wales, but will quite happily leave. I have some kind of zenophobic sat nav :-)

After getting lost in Port Talbot (shudder) trying to find a supermarket we found our way to Bryn Bettws Holiday Cabins , which are plush and ace and surrounded by the loudest sheep in the world. Was nice to go somewhere that didn't rip your hand off for money too. Only downside was finding that some dirty gits before us had left their rubbish in the bike store, which smelt so bad you couldn't go near it, and had to be hoiked out with a seatpost (not mine!), leaving a trail of maggots. Ideas of getting a quick run down the wall (the main descent passes straight past the cabins) were postponed due to laziness, a broken rear brake (knackered pad spring caught on disc spokes) and the pressing need to find a shop to get food and most importantly...beer. One quick trip, after much deliberation with the cabin owners, led us to Tescos and the friendly, and unbelieveably welsh checkout women, who wouldnt believe we were 18. Much curry and beer later we were so rock and roll we fell asleep, only to get up as i realised there was no-chance -in-hell that my handbrake was going to hold on the 1in2 gravel slope it was parked on :-)

On a side-note there seems to be no 'standard' totty in Wales. They are either stunning or 'not-even-with-yours'.

Saturday:
Rose bright and early, felt sick from excess curry and alcohol, took a shower in the weakest power shower ever and after meeting up with Rob and Weller (Swansea Uni) buggered off to Afan Forest Park.

Penhydd:
A horrible first 6km climb took us seemingly forever, but inbetween burping chicken tikka and listening to tom wondering whether his Coiler was overkill we made it to the top of Desolation. 2 lovely fast dry singletrack sections later, and a few climbs and we were at Hidden Valley, which is possibly the best section of trail ever. Wound our way along the trail and popped out into the car park in seemingly no-time. Wellers bike was becoming a nightmare (dropping the chain every two mins) so him and Tom set off to Skyline Cycles to find a cheap chain device and the rest of us decided the best thing to do was eat a massive amount of chips and get half-ripped on coffee.

The Wall:
After the crushing dissapointment (for Tom) that the uplift wasn't running, and for Weller that there were no cheap chain devices seemingly in Wales the climb commenced. Bit of a slog, but punctuated by some nice singletrack, and some short descents. The downhill is well worth it though. Lovely rocky singletrack with jumps and bumps all over. Very hard on the body though, and by half way down i could hardly brake and was struggling to keep up with the guys in front. Georgie was flying along, sticking to Tom's back wheel. Wellers chain had fallen off again, and Rob seemed unfazed by any of it :-) Downside was riding up the last 100m slate climb into the visitor centre, and legs locking the cramp and collapsing off the bike at the top onto the grass, legs shooting out involuntary, to the amusement off everyone else there :-)

Spaghetti, more beer and some Dragonforce and Kasabian finished the night off, plus more bike fettling.

Sunday:
Woke to horizontal rain and horrible creaking sounds from the cabin (may have been from Georgie though in hindsight).

Got ready slowly, ate breakfast slowly, put bikes in car slowly, drove slowly to Glencorryg slowly, all the time wishing the rain away. It got heavier instead. Ended up kitted up and sat in the Drop-Off cafe, drinking coffee, eating bacon sarnies and watcing the weather (oh and listening to Tom, who didn't have a jacket, whinge about the rain) :-)

After some positive reinforcement from the cafe staff ("you soft southern jessies"), and slightly concerned about the amounts of body armour and travel appearing from Whites Level, we got out onto the Trail.

Weather turned out to be a bonus as we disappeared into the treeline, making the brilliant technical singletrack climb of Whites Level nice and atmospheric as we cut through the mist, and stopping us from boiling in the still air amongst the trees. I was timing us up there, but i smacked the button on my computer, and with all the grit, it stuck down, erasing all our max speeds and mileage in the process. Arse

At top we met Ian from the cafe, who had chased us up the hill, and set off down the black section, round the lovely berms, over the twin doubles and down the rocky drop to a fireroad. Part of Whites was shut for forestry work, but it was a weekend their was no-one about (except for someone asleep in a car next to a caravan) and we road up the fireroad to the top of the trail again, only missing a small section. Carried on down the singletrack, over the slippery shore section (fall into nettles and brambles if you get it wrong - nice!) and worked our way down the trail. Awesome bit of trail.

Can't wait to go back, although i am now eyeing up some Pikes and bigger discs!

Pics coming when I manage to get them from Georgie

Busy busy busy

Afan write up to come

Few upgrades and replacement bits to be commented on

Mountain Mayhem this weekend

Some more pics to come when i get them

I will pull my finger out!