Back to Cheltenham for 24 hrs

NeighboursHad a great trip to see Sarah and Alan – our old neighbours – last weekend. There’ something very reliable and reassuring about old mates. Such a great time – just hanging out and nipping out to Crickley Hill for a walk. Thanks for a great stay guys… Piccies here

Cyclocross: National Trophy Round 3, Mallory Park, Leicestershire

Cold… blowing rain with a strong north-westerly wind.  The exposed hillside on the edge of a motor racing circuit.  The grass is saturated and worn to a brown mess with much in common with 1917 Flanders.  I can’t feel my hands – any part of them, and my heart rate has averaged 178 bpm for the last 60 minutes.  I can only see properly out of one eye; the mud has rendered the other one next to useless.

I’m a happy man.  The tough bit of the cyclocross season’s here, and I bloody love it.

I finished 23rd today.  Not the dizzy heights, but my best ever finish in a UCI event.  I’m chuffed enough with that.  I love it when it gets difficult!

Cyclocross: National Trophy round 3, Mallory Park.

More info on the UKCyclocross website

White Handlebar Tape and Cyclocross

White Bar TapeJust came across a few photos from last year’ cyclocross races in January. In the national championships, I’d decided that white bar tape was the way to go. The muddier it gets, the better white bar tape looks. Let’s face it, everything gets utterly filthy on the best cyclocross courses, you might as well get something white which shows off the filth well.

See all the pics here.

A visit from Rachel and Bea

DSCF0030Four years on, we finally got to catch up with old college friend Rachel and her daughter Bea this weekend. Great to see old mates and ponder how the hell the girls have grown up so quickly. Had a nice evening at the bonfire at the White Horse down the road, and some traditional sparkler fun.

Trains and bikes – a match made in hell

I’m on a train at the moment, a Virgin Voyager train from Watford Junction to Manchester, as it happens.  I make this journey about every six weeks or so, to stay with my friend and colleague Dave Bancroft in Amersham.

To be sensible about the environment and be good to myself, I always take my bike; panniers laden with laptop and overnight stuff, and I cycle to Manchester, then on from Watford for the final 12 miles to Dave’s house.  It’s quicker and easier than the car, and I get to ride my bike… win – win.

What I HAVE to write about though, is the Virgin Trains ‘policy’ on taking my bike along for the journey.  The trains all have a good section in the front or rear of the train capable of taking a few bikes, I book well in advance, including a very clear request for a cycle reservation, so there shouldn’t really be any problems.  Should there?

Well, on every time I’ve made this journey, there has been what approaches mayhem in simply getting on the train, and off it.  Today’s return journey sums that up:

Having booked my tickets three weeks ago, and being very clearly told that I don’t need a ticket for my bike (just a reservation reference number for it), I arrived in Watford, ten minutes to spare, to be asked for my ticket.  I explained that I was told that I didn’t need one, and then had to explain this to one other person (from a different company), before I was allowed through the gate.  They made it very clear that the reference number was none of their business and they had to see a ticket.

When I got onto the platform, I was asked by not one, not two, but THREE separate people from Virgin trains whether I had a reservation for the bike.  Each time, I showed them the reference number on the piece of paper.  One of the kind people, called Dave, as it happens, helped me onto the train, with my bike.

When I got on the train, the ticket inspector checked my tickets, and I thought it wise to let him know that I had a bike in the train and would be alighting at Manchester.  He asked if I had a reservation number, looked at it, then I started to lose it.  I asked him what the reservation number meant; he said he didn’t know.  I asked him who (on the train staff or the station staff) actually saw that there had been a reservation for a bike; he said that no-one sees this.  I then asked the obvious… why did I have to make a reservation?

I honestly feel like a criminal the way they ask me, each time, whether I have a reservation for my bike.  Now I know that the number itself doesn’t cross-check with anything, I’m doubly annoyed.  Pah!

Cyclocross National Trophy Round 2, Ipswich

Ipswich-1A little treat away for 24 hours concentrating on bike racing. It makes a difference when you can spend a bit of time preparing more meticulously. I travelled down on Saturday evening to Ipswich to stay in an Alan Partridge-style travel inn and talked bikes and sport most of the 24 hours.

Getting up and eating a healthy breakfast then having four hours at the venue before your race is a great help; we rode the course, changed tyres, practiced lines in and out of difficult wet, sticky, muddy bends, and generally immersed ourselves in being cyclists. Also had a good warm up and some excellent pit support (thanks Stuart and Pud), meaning that the day went pretty well.

Ipswich-2Rob crashed heavily and lost a couple of places as a result, and Lewis’s ride was marred by a poor start and a crash near the end, but they finished 7th and 9th respectively, which could have been a lot worse. I was just happy again to avoid getting lapped. I rode a technically near-perfect race and stayed upright. My fitness dipped a bit ten minutes or so in but I picked up again, and finished 27th, pretty much the best I can get in the national trophy races at the moment.

Ipswich-3The course itself was really good; any time you got to freewheel was spent braking hard and pretty much every corner was slimy and hazardous. The rain had come hard in the morning and that suited me – I just still was lacking a bit of oomph when the race settled down, particularly on the drags. Lessons learnt and I’m back into the training already!

Results here on the British Cycling site.

The Wedding Present, 26 October 2007, Manchester Academy

The Wedding Present, 26 October 2007, Manchester AcademyI’m not going to attempt a well written review of a gig here, I’ve got too much bias with a band that I’ve loved to follow, (pretty fervently for c. 21 years) to do a good, balanced review, but it’s nice to capture my thoughts on last night’s performance whilst fresh in my head.

TWP have never shied from gimmickry (12 singles in a year, for example, back in the 90s), and somehow they decided to take to the road to mark the 20th anniversary of their defining album, “George Best”. Great idea really; whole album, start to finish, in the right order. Like a dream gig in many ways for me.

To add to it all, the ten or so songs that they chose to sandwich George Best with were a well picked balance from the massive repertoire. ‘Blonde’ to come on to stage one-by-one, for example and a very well chosen ‘Kennedy’ to pick things up immediately after the George Best tracks.

Most surreal point of the evening was without doubt the full fluffy bunny costumed helper who came on stage with five big white number cards to count down the audience into the epic first four words of ‘Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft” (play below)

I took a few snaps on my phone but they were so poor so I had a play in photoshop – the lovely thing about gigs is the colour lights….

The Wedding Present, 26 October 2007, Manchester Academy The Wedding Present, 26 October 2007, Manchester Academy

We’re off the see the wonderful wizard of Gedge

Katie and I are off to see the Wedding Present this evening. How excited can one 37 year old little boy get?

The tour’s to mark the 20th anniversary of their best selling album ‘George Best’, which makes me think how quickly the last 20 years have flown by. The set includes them playing the whole album, in order, which’ll be nice. People won’t have to ask for requests in between the tracks.

Enjoy this little gem from 1994 in the mean time… yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah…

A great half term day out

It’s Lily’s first ever half term – and yesterday we had the day together – and what a corker it was.

Moore to doWe dropped Katie off at work in the morning then went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to look at the Andy Goldsworthy retrospective – a really good choice. I’ve enjoyed Goldsworthy’s tactile simplicity in his art ever since I first came across his work in the late 80s, but it was lovely to see a five year old girl doing ‘wow’ and genuinely being taken aback by the semi-magical feel to some of the large scale installations. Very satisfying.

A time to ReflectLily was also interested in the other artworks dotted around the sculpture park, and made a point of rushing up to every male bronze figure and ‘touching their diddlers’, almost methodically.

We walked three miles during our trip so were a bit tired when we headed away.

The afternoon took us to the cinema to see Ratatouille – a fantastic film from the Pixarstudios.