A hard day’s not cycling
I organised a bike race on Saturday for the first time in a good few years. It was a really very satisfying experience. The ones I used to organise at Cheltenham – mainly road races and time trials – seemed to be such thankless experiences, where riders expected so much of you and were’nt willing to put themselves in your shoes. Not all the time, but most of the time, this was what it was like.
Organising any event like this isn’t particularly easy. You can be lucky with some things (the weather was near perfect, no-one crashed enough to warrant first aid), and other things you can plan (the venue itself was really good – self-contained non-prescious parkland with a course to challenge all abilities).
What you can’t stress enough though is how you rely on other people so much. My name was down as the organiser, but for Katie, it was just as long a day, and probably more tiring in many ways, because she doesn’t have the ‘things will be okay’ kind of attitude that I have at times like that.
The best bits of the day was the realisation that the North West Cyclocross community is a very strong one – and people were genuinely willing to help out wherever they could without being asked. It really lifted me up.
So BIG ‘thank you’s go to: Katie, Jean and Bill, Matthew Pixton, Louise Gore, Stuart and Billy Reid, Josh Varty and his marshalling friend whose name I can’t recall, Wheelbase (for the generous prizes), Mick Spiers, Ray Pugh and everyone at Bury Borough Council Parks, especially David Wells. Finally, thanks, of course, to mum, for babysitting Lily. The day with Lily at my side not moaning and getting on with things would have been blissful, but utterly unattainable.
Would I do it all again? You betcha.
The race report and photos can be found here.
A trip to see Dips, Jane, Flo and Libby
|
|
Our good friends Dips and Jane came up with their two girls to stay in a holiday cottage at Ireby, near Kirkby Lonsdale for a week, and we popped over to see them.� Had a lovely but brief visit, and a little walk along a line of some sheepfolds created by artist Andy Goldsworthy.
Click on the image to see 29 photos – these include some great ones of Lily on the swing at our local park too. |
A few of the 15 minutes of fame ticked off.
Part 1 – the video diary
Part 2 – the race
In a slightly odd and certainly unpredictable series of events, I had the enjoyable and very memorable experience working on a video diary with Sam Bailey of BBC’s Countryfile programme the other week. It was all strange in many ways – not least because I’ve worked for the Countryside Commission and then the Countryside Agency for almost twelve years now and have been keen to promote my work on the programme, but when my turn came, it was because of a bike race!Most of the readers here will know of my obsession with the Three Peaks Cyclocross race, a long, hard, mountainous cycling race every September. Every training ride I do is taken over by thoughts of riding the Three Peaks, and part of my obsession has manifested itself in the race blog I keep. Anyway…. to cut a long story short, it’s because of the blog that, when the BBC heard about the race and were doing a feature on the area, they contacted me to do a video diary.I had a great day filming with them (the five hours or so was useful training and mind-preparation!), and the video diary and race were shown on 8th October. Click on the images to the left to watch the coverage, split into two episodes!
In at the strike
There’s something amazing about this for someone interested in photography. It’s quite simple in many ways – almost too simple. I’ve no reason to think it’s a hoax – statistically it was bound to happen to someone. It’s just a story about someone experiencing an electric storm nearby and trying to capture it on camera, then as the shutter opens (on admittedly the fourth attempt), a bolt hits just 20 metres away. Split second timing – or just luck – it’s the ultimate in ‘caturing the moment’.
A brief stay on a bright October day with the Hughes family.
 |
A lovely stay with our friends Andrew, Denise and Will. We were travelling down for the national trophy cyclocross race in Cheltenham on the Sunday but had a great chance to catch up and enjoy a lovely walk together, complete with the usual Hughes hospitality. What prescious times!Piccies include some possibly slightly odd people enjoying re-enactment of the Battle of Ripple |
National Trophy cyclocross round 1 – Pittville Park, Cheltenham
This is quite a ‘precious’ event for me as it goes back in its early days to myself and Pat Alexander organising the first ever cyclocross in Pittville Park. I was slightly disappointed to not have a good race on what should have been a good course for me.
I finished 38th in the end but should have really been a bit better than that. I can’t blame anything and hate using excuses – I just wasn’t fast enough. Need to work on that.
The course itself was really enjoyable to ride and I had the bonus of some welcome support from ex-clubmates at Cheltenham as well as a good family contingent.
Having to work on the fitness now!
Dave Haygarth’s latest tune
This blows my mind a little bit. I was doing a six(ish) monthly search on Google for “Dave Haygarth” – it’s amazing what turns up, when I came across a band from Watford called the Desires, whose lead singer/guitarist is called Dave Haygarth.
You can listen to a not very bad at all song of theirs, too.
Click here….
A brief intermission for some ‘objects’ from Lily’s early life
|
|
Just rearranging a few things on the hard disk and came across these things that I’d put on an early version of this website but were’nt there any more. I think they’re worth having albeit in the archive.
Varying from some pencil drawings of Lily and her cousins Matthew and Angus, to some early artwork by Lily and her very first sporting certificate !! |
Slurping noodles and lounging on a mattress, aged two and a bit.
 |
A ‘found’ video – found this footage and it had never been watched so a very quick editing job. It proves how valuable video is when you’ve got children. She’s at such a great age in this footage – a real person but so much less grown up than she is now – virtually double the age in this film. Simple things in it just make Katie and I laugh. |
Lily’s fourth birthday – film.
 |
Just finally got round to uploading the video of Lily’s fourth birthday party to youtube. It’s only four and a half minutes long but is a bit of fun with all her friends from Nursery etc. | |
