We were due a good ‘with cousins’ holiday… and this was a corker. Phil, Anne & family had had their arms twisted that a ski holiday could be affordable and achievable if we drove, and I told them we could. Katie and I had driven to the Alps before (in 2012-13 New Year) and we knew is was kind of no big deal. So we booked a chalet and off we went for February half term.
The teens are here. Very weird how it all passes so fast – it never ceases to be weird. Lily… the little baby who slept for hours on end in a pram, got carted up mountains and on countless runs in a 3 wheeler jogger is now a huge giraffe-like girl who does the jogging herself.
Since we got the caravan early last year we’ve been building up mentally to the big one. It’s very special for me to do a road trip like this with the children in the caravan because it bears an amazingly close resemblance to my own memories of the same in the mid 1970s. My dad would take us all down there over two days’ driving (on what was, presumably, less fast but less busy r ...[Read More]
So… I’d had a season off ‘cross and was enjoying a bit of gentle riding, when there was this strange calling to get racing again…
1 x 10 gears. 1 x Ti 29er bike. 1 x happy rider. This setup is proving totally bombproof. I’m up to 120 miles of heavy winter / spring abuse of my Titus Fireline Evo Ti. I made a few personal adjustments – I’m impressionable, but at times I’m old school. I still like to clip in, am not a fan of the extra weight a dropper seatpost brings unless I was riding in the alps on a ...[Read More]
Whilst the nation is grasped in the four-yearly passion for curling, it occurred to me that this rather fascinating and addictive niche sport may just be the way to get the sport I love – cyclocross – into the Winter Olympics for 2018. There has been much debate about the potential for the IOC to open up the Winter Olympiad to sports normally practiced in winter (such as cyclocross) &# ...[Read More]
Don’t get me started on the ‘they grow up quick’ thing. Lily, who was a babe in arms the day before yesterday, was eleven yesterday. Lovely quiet but perfectly formed day including a day’s leave for me bit of tolerable shopping for Converse for both girls Ten pin bowling with Elsie and Lily Lunch for us all at Pizza Express Picking up Lexie and Leah, and a visit from Lucy t ...[Read More]
It’s normal for a ten year old to have a bit of love for animals. Lily’s always been very enthusiastic about dogs, big cats, and horses in particular. They’re definitely her thing. You can feel the enthusiasm glowing from her when near animals, and it demonstrates itself quite a lot when you try and chat to her about them (and generally get corrected on your inaccuracies ̵ ...[Read More]
I recently wrote about a love hate relationship with Strava. The app that bikes back doesn’t want to go away. Some try to sue them, love, some hate, but it’s not quite like Marmite – as we all seem to love and hate it a little bit. A little bit like real racing, we love it when it goes well. We hate getting beaten. But perhaps most significantly, it does seem to change the way t ...[Read More]
The Haygarths were very lucky in 2012 and squeezed in a ski holiday into the New Year on top of two other lovely family breaks in Scotland and Sardinia. Our first outing as a family onto the slopes has been talked about for years after a massive break from skiing for me (basically, since we had children…!) and finally we were prompted into action when friends Rach and Jon booked their holida ...[Read More]
It’s the National Championships at the weekend, and time to reflect as the season approaches its finale. Cyclocross is a strange sport. It breeds and harbours obsessives. For a discipline that involves belting around muddy fields, there is an inordinate amount of fine-tuning, preparation and finesse… from the meticulously exact tyre pressures for the conditions in the correct tubulars ...[Read More]
A short film about the hill on my doorstep. I’m very lucky to have such a great, varied and interesting bit of moorland to the immediate west of my home. This film shows the fun and play aspect of Mountain Biking which melds into the grind of cyclocross training in the early autumn.
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