Tuesday mtb

We set out a bit later today because of the minus 5 in the night was still hanging on to the morning:)

Roger arrived in brilliant sunshine at about 11 ish, it had taken him tw0 hours to ride the 15 miles that normally takes him about an hour. 

Once we were off road it was beautiful deep and soft squeaky snow. At first it was quite tricky to ride and I couldn't stay with Roger at all ( after all he'd had 2 hours more practice than me :)

Across the roughs the snow was very deep and a couple of time we had to push the bikes to a shallower bit.

Once over White Down the going got bit easier and the girly squeals lessened as the font wheels slipped less :)

From here we crossed the A25 at Abinger, then took the bridleway around the back of Shere. After a loop to Albury and back we headed into Shere for tea and toast.

Sitting at the back of the cafe were Gary and Eric! After some gossip and toast we headed back over the Roughs.


At White down me and Roger elected to ride up the road hill, while Gary and Eric carried on off road. The on road was much more difficult than off, as the snow was compressed solid. I dabbed twice, it was that slippery! Once over the top we cruised steadily down the hill until we came out into the sunshine where the ice had softened. Suddenly Roger's front wheel slipped and in slow motion he slid to the ground in front of me. I could do nothing and landed on top of him, a surprisingly soft landing! We lay in the floor tangled up like a game of twister and giggled for a while. No physical damage done maybe some ego bruising though :-)

Box Hill

No biking today, we have 180mm of snow......hurrah!

Unable to buy a sledge me and Jane went to Box Hill where there were loads of people boarding, skiing and sledging. On the way back I found an old skate board with no wheels......excellent!! 

..it hasn't rained for at least three days and it's been below zero and windy. This means dry, fast trails, it also means that we freeze :)

The Santa Cruz is in Greg's to have lots of stuff fixed - bushings, headset, fork service and maybe a BB. So I get the Marin out of the attic.  I bought it as a complete bike to do la ruta de los conquistadores on a few years ago with my bonus from André when I worked for him during Wimbledon.  I hated this bike with a passion, it was uncomfortable and handled like a pig. When I got back from la ruta, I switched all of the bits to a hand job frame and chucked André in the attic. Recently I rebuilt it with a new magura Durin 80mm fork, didn't like the look of it and chucked it back in the attic. Today I had no choice, I nothing else to ride! 

Me, Paul and Jane did a fantastic three hour ride around Shere, Albury and the North Downs on hard packed trails. The bike was fantastic! It was light, flickable accelerated incredibly quickly and just felt great. It's amazing what a good fork can do................ I like it now :)

I've just gone into the garden to weigh it and it's covered in snow!!  Hurrah!!! Snow riding with Roger on Tuesday

Pen Cerrig

Pen Cerrig was to be the first mountain of the year in our monthly hikes in Wales this year.

One of my patients had said that earlier in the week there had still been snow on the top, so this gave us good reason to choose this particular lump :)

It was frosty and the wind was biting, but it was bright as we set off toward the table mountain. Past table mountain it started to get much colder and once over the steep step to the moraine area the cloud came in and we started to crunch on the ice and snow. We pushed on past the trig because now it was very cold. Just after the trig there is a hollowed out cairn in which we crouched and ate some peanut brittle.

As we set off some of the cloud began to lift and the sun warmed a little. as we came out of the cloud and lost height it became like a summer's day: blue skies, brilliant sunshine and the wind dropped. We passed several groups of walkers coming up as we descended, none of them believed us when we said that there was snow at the top! :)

In Crug Hywel we went for coffee and toast!

happy new year

31st
Today was our ride with the guys from Kandani.
So in the morning I thought I'd look the bikes over as Juanita's brakes were rubbing a little bit on the back. I was startled to find the qr really loose! I tightened it and found the the wheel wouldn't turn at all. so, I moved some of the spacers and the it was still not moving. I removed the brake completely and the wheel still wouldn't move unless I backed the qr off to almost nothing. I don't have the tools to strip the hub down so off to Kandani to buy some new wheels for her. but, as usual Juanita finds a way for me to convince myself pay for them. And by the time we get to the shop they've become her next birthday present! :)
We meet the guys promptly at 3.30,unusual! And we're gone by 3.40. Only seven have turned up today, that's because as we find out later there's a big ride new years ride tomorrow at 9.30 am. and these are the guys who are going out on the town tonight :)
What followed was a fantastic two hours of of off-road caminos and singletrack, they didn't have a spanish word for singletrack but had a catalan one! Something like corredon.

Romper la cadena

No rain for a week, and 11' C .....fabulous!

Today's ride sort of went like this:

It's too hot

Paul breaks his chain

It's freezing standing around

We get going and it's too hot.

Paul breaks his chain

We freeze

We over heat

Paul breaks his chain

We freeze

Other than that it was a good ride, just the right side of slippery! we put in a few good climbs and some nice singletrack.

Jane was very strong, Paul was strong and I was ok in the technical stuff :)

winter mtb rides

It's soooo cold at the moment, but so beautiful. We've had a couple of days of high pressure and blue skies.

Paul was racing at Thetford and JD is either working or in America (she seems to oscillate between these two states at the moment) So me and Jane went for a steady ride around the downs. We didn't encounter much mud, as lots the ground was frozen. Neither of us had much going on in the legs, we had ridden to Gatwick and back yesterday for a biochemistry lecture - which I did enjoy. Except that because there's no
God in science anymore, quantum mechanics is the new explanation for everything. ie

" How can that happen?
" It's entanglement"
"What's entanglement?"
"Well you take a cat, a box and electron at this end of the universe and one at the other end." " ....er ok and..."
" Well no one really knows, it's best not too question it too deeply you just have to believe it"
" Ok, so it's a belief system?.......like er ...... " :-)

Anyway our legs were at the other end of the universe, so we plodded through the beautiful crispy day. We managed three and a half hours with one stop at Peaslake. Where Greg and Lisa were hosting a Moosecycles test ride day. MOOSECYCLES

It was lovely to see them and they gave us cake... hurrah!

Ground Zero

Now after two weeks off the bike I'm ready to start getting fit again.

I did a small ride with Jane yesterday and and when I got back Ironbike had offered me a free entry to the race for next July!

I think the pain of this race has almost gone :-)

How do I get fit for this race though?

thetford round one

Paul's report:

The weather forecast said 6°C with 29mph SW winds. It was at least 8°C if not 10°.
A bit chilly perhaps but not cold.
I had unfortunately put two layers on regardless, so hot but not, not sweaty. Their were salt marks on my arm warmers when I finished.
This wasn't helped by the fact that the wind was 29mph at least. I even felt it in the trees at times. There were a couple of descents I pedalled down in a smaller gear than I know I've ridden up in the past. And one ascent into the wind just became speed sapping rather than a hammer grind. But as it was a southerly wind I think that's why it wasn't so cold.

The course was very good, I wasn't. Lapped on the fifth lap. I only just got through in time for a seventh lap too (five minutes to spare - they let one guy through with a second to go though) so could have been two laps down on the leaders.
Mainly dry with lots of singletrack. This was good but for the 'two hour' boys behind us bad I imagine.
They usually set off 15 minutes after the 'four hours' which gives a good time for everyone to spread out.
Today though we had two minutes silence for remembrance then a memorial poem was read out. Then the 'four hour' ladies went, then with a two minute gap we went and the 'two hour' lot left 5 minutes after us. This meant they were on us about half way through lap two having passed those behind while we were still in bunches - hard work and annoying
.
I had one off incident. Whilst riding in a chain of about six of us, I was in about fourth following hard when I guess we caught up with a slower rider with nowhere to pass and all came to a very sudden stop. The only place I could see to avoid the rider in front was the floor so I chose that option. Soft without roots I'm not sure I didn't just bounce back up again and carry on. In fact I'm not actually sure I hit the floor, feasibly I somehow stuck my foot out and kicked myself upright again from a very acute angle.

I faded from what was only a reasonable speed anyway during lap five and just kept hanging on for lap six, but about two miles into the final lap I saw two guys ahead I knew were on the same lap as we'd yoyoed earlier and was sure one was a veteran.
Having just had a gel, some Clif Bloks and some energy drink I chased, caught and passed them then kept going hard to the end because one of them gave chase - the bugger. He finished less than 100m behind me.

Another great day and though there is a semblance of mud on my bike, it's not too much.
With race numbers going up to 935 I am no. 3 for the series. Lets hope I'm top ten at least then.

Results: timelaps 10th excellent, well done.

Ibiza

The obligatory sunset beach pic! :-)

Just back from a nice week biking and hiking in Ibiza. I love riding the stiffee.

We went to see a local race in Cala Bassa and met up with Art the friendly kiwi ex-pat from Can Trull where the night races are organised and Juan Ferrer the organiser of this race and owner of the big specialized dealership in Eivissa. Juan offered to take us out to show us the riding on the west of la Isla Bonita. Some new trails for us at Xmas! Hurrah!

Now is a very scary time for me, I'm going to take two weeks off the bike! A week is the most I've stayed of the bike for many years.

I feel that I need a good rest for for my tendons and other connective tissues, so no running or hiking either.