rubbish

he;s me, riding through the puddles on the way in this morning.
this weather is shite and really starting to get to me
it hailed today.
30th july in the northern hemisphere!

and the hail was 10mm in diameter...

racing

last sunday, as part of the special olympics/one healthy day festivities, the city council and (bizarrely) the nhs supported an afternoon of criterium racing around the city centre.
this should have been a big deal. 1.2km of city centre streets were closed to traffic and lined with barriers, security staff and first aiders.
races for under12s, through hand-powered bikes to elite level were organised but seemingly without any publicity. i am a keen cyclist and live in the city, but only stumbled across details of the event and could quite easily have missed it.
the weather was pretty dismal too and i'm sure this didn't help. not even the shoppers bothered to stop and watch for a while en route between primark and h&m.

so the few racers that did brave the newly laid, slick granite slabs that got more slippery the more it rained took it seriously and battled hard but the general feeling was one of extreme disappointment.
maybe i expect too much. but this sort of thing isn't going to happen again unless it is seen to be a success. the fact that not even the club members of the local clubs could turn out to support such an event is so sad.

it should also be said however that organisation of the event, the facilities, stewarding etc were all excellent and a credit to the organisers.

watch/do

bike 180 - ride day 135

i took half a day off from work to ride home and watch the individual time trial in the tour and to root for wiggo (as he seems to be called these days)

my dad always says that you should DO until you can't DO any more, and only then should you should WATCH.
well, i'm watching this afternoon but racing in a time trial myself later, asuming this bonkers weather behaves

racer

bike 180 - ride day 131

today was my first attempt at road racing. i didn't get on very well, but i learnt a lot of lessons.
the race was 30 laps of the mallory park motor racing circuit and as soon as i arrived i realised i might be in a bit of trouble. lots of shaven legs and very fit looking men on incredibly expensive bikes. sure enough, the opening couple of laps took me by surprise as we belted along at 40kmh. riding in the bunch was fun apart from the spray being kicked up off the wet track.
after 7 or 8 laps, i had got into a rhythm where i would get towards the front of the bunch at the bottom of the climb and then let people pass on the way up, before being pulled back down the other side in the slipstream. this time though, i found myself with only one rider in front of me and when he swung off, i though 'ok, time for a pull on the front'. half a lap later i looked around to see who was going to come through and take a pull next. but there was no-one there. so i am in oxygen debt and 50m clear of the field. my inexperience left me wondering what the hell to do next...
i eased off and let the bunch swallow me up. but rather than accelerating back up to join the back of the bunch, they went straight by and i was left to face the main straight, into the headwind on my own.
that was the end of that. three laps later i gave up chasing and trying to get back on and sat up to wait for the bunch to come back around and be lapped.
i tagged on but only lasted a few more laps before being blown out again.

i knew i'm not very fit at the moment, but i wasn't prepared to be quite so humiliated. people didn't openly laugh. i didn't hear sniggering as i was overtaken but that may have been the roar of the carbon wheels...

so lessons learnt. i'll try again because that time spent just being dragged along by the bunch is great, but i'll be very carefull about my positioning within the group and might try a bit of training first.

that's me at the back!

bad tired

it is friday and i'm tired

i was tired on monday morning too

the thing is, friday tired is after a week of long hours looking at a computer, stressing about decisions, getting things right, on-time, accurate

monday's tired was from paddling into the wind for too long and travelling too fast on my bike

monday was great tired. the tired i like.

friday tired is rubbish tired.

loking forward to monday.
and being tired!

id

something i'll be carrying on the remaining rides of '09 and beyond.

from road id

first heard about it in a publication that you may have heard about

i'm not riding anywhere near as much as last year and my wasteline is beginning to show that. tomorrow i plan to run to work, ride home before going to a canoeing club in the evening...

oh and while i stopped putting sugar in my tea, the digestives stay!

lakes

friday

i travelled to the lakes today but even finishing work an hour early and not 'sparing the horses' didn't get me there in time to get onto the low wray site on windermere as i'd planned.
instead, after joining the m6 at junction 15, i did 25 miles in the next hour and a half.
so low wray was full, ullswater was a bit far (it was already past 8) so i headed for coniston and the coniston hall campsite there.
it is a lovely site, right on the water's edge and with good facilities but unfortunately it is almost exclusively populated by chavs. there also seemed to be a gathering of Europe's loudest children. there was litter blowing across the site; people were already being sick from drinking too much and the whole place throbbed to over-sized car stereos playing bob marley and dire straits (of all things)...

i pitched and went for a walk. i returned as it got dark, took this picture, fitted my ear-plugs and went to bed...


saturday
in an effort to stay away from the campsite for as long as possible, i was on the water by 7.15. i paddled from the site down the entire length of coniston water and back again. i had a few stops, one to get out of the rain and another on peel island.
this lump of rock is owned by the national trust and sits in the middle of the lake doing very little. there is a small beach to land on and being only about 8am by then i felt like the only person on the planet - quite a contrast to the swingball and breezers on the campsite

after getting back and marvelling that the lunatics had travelled to the lake distict just to have a(nother) bar-b-q, drink some more and sit outside their tent swearing at their children(apart from the ones who were driving around the campsite as fast as they could, wheelspins and drainpipe exhausts) i had a bit to eat, changed character and became a mountain biker.
then it was off through the shoppers in coniston and over the ridge between me and the grizedale trails.
i last rode these trails on the day after new years day. the many sections of 'north shore' style planks are far more fun when they don't have ice on them

quite a work out - 9 miles of paddling and then 20 odd on a singlespeed

after eating in the pub with a couple of beers and then this coniston ale on the shores of the lake i was asleep in no time - a good day


sunday
after yesterday's exertions, today was more of the same.
i woke at about 6 with the rain on the tent encouraging me to stay exactly where i was, but i had other ideas.
i wanted to paddle windermere today and after yesterday's peace and quiet on coniston, i really wanted to get there early and have the place to myself.

so a quick breakfast and on the road by 20 past. i was tempted to thrash about and make loads of noise, revving and wheelspinning the car as the stereo blared, but something told me the people who had been so noisy late into both of the previous nights were going to have a miserable enough day anyway, given the way the site was gradually filling with water.

i was on the water by 7 and paddled around the top end of the lake and along the brathay and rothay rivers as far as i could. my arms and shoulders reminded me how far i'd been yesterday

i have to tell you blogland that sitting on a piece of plastic at 7am on a sunday morning, with 220 feet of water beneath you on england's largest lake, with not a ripple on it apart from the drops of rain, hearing that rain create a hiss all around you, watching a goosander lead her chicks out into the stillness, or a heron fishing... well, its pretty special...