Grizedale North Face loop – a mad evening dash

I grabbed at a small window of opportunity this evening when mum had invited Lily to go to the theatre in Lancaster – to see The Jungle Book. I thought I’d throw the MTB in the car and belt up to Grizedale for a quick dash round the North Face Loop there. With an off-road triathlon coming up at Coniston on Sunday that includes a lap of the loop, I was keep to suss out just how much technical stuff there was to decide how to set up the bike. (more…)

A Lancashire Heat Wave? Well – it’s not been bad.

It’s amazing how a bit of warm weather makes life so pleasurable.  Home life for the past week seems to have been a perpetual cycle of playing in the garden, going to the park, sitting outside, eating outside, riding bikes and generally not being indoors to do much other than work and sleep.  I even heard talk of a heat wave earlier today ont he radio – the very prospect thrills me, I must say. (more…)

An overnight visit to Kirkby Lonsdale

We had our first overnight stopover at mum’s house in ages this weekend. It’s been an odd year with the sleep patterns of a baby and going to someone’s house has generally represented hassle for me since Elsie came along, but she’s been sleeping so well for the last few weeks and Katie & I wanted to get oursleves out for a meal without children – so going to see mum was a really ace opportunity to kill a whole flock of birds with a very small stone.

On top of it all, the sun shone despite a dreadful forecast.

I had two ace bike rides – one on the way up; the ‘usual’ way over Gisburn Forest I ride – and the next morning I opted for a (mildly hungover) hilly and gobsmackingly scenic ride from Kirkby Lonsdale to Barbon, Dent, Deepdale and Kingsdale – on my way to Katie’s family’s house in Ingleton. (more…)

MTB Ride: Mary Townley Loop

Had a lovely day today. My training rides these days tend to be not much more than an hour in length. This has its advantages – you can go out and totally hammer yourself for an hour or so and get all the training benefit; I really believe that if you want to be fit to race well you can gain little from pounding out the miles. Greg Lemond agreed too in an excellent article in one of last year’s ProCycling magazine articles.

However, training theories aside, there comes the odd day when you really just fancy a long ride on yer bike! (more…)

Elsie’s first birthday – and a mini street party

The sun seemed to shine on the righteous this Bank Holiday weekend, as we had a bit of a houseful to celebrate Elsie’s first birthday. Much as we did the same with Lily – and not being the type of folks for Christenings, we thought we’d get friends, family and neighbours together and have a right old knees up. (more…)