Kids eh?

A while ago whilst talking to some (mainly female) work colleagues I described kids as expensive little bundles of pain and misery and I was pretty much lambasted for it. So now I have one of the little bundles of my own what do I think, well lets see. Expensive, you betcha, have you seen the price of "travel systems" and baby furniture? Not cheap. Charlie certainly caused his mum a fair amount of pain during birth and the amount of emotional turmoil we've been through since could certainly be classed as suffering. So spot on I reckon. Highly reccomended tho :-) Kind of like climbing big hills then, slag them of all day, nowt good to say about them but the results magic.

Even more gorgeous-er

Charlie @ 5mins, originally uploaded by D0NK.

Yes he's got an odd shaped head, he's got flaky skin, one eye is lower than the other, one of his ears is folded over and his cheeks droop down like a sullustran but he's mine and he's beautiful. World meet Charlie, Charlie this is the big wide world (web)

A few hills before bed

I was kicked out of the house saturday evening cos my sister-in-laws were coming round, now I could have done the blokey thing, gone to the pubs spouted endlessly about a bunch of obscenely overpaid guys kicking a pigs bladder around, drank 10 pints of gnats piss and had a kebab and a fight on the way home, but I'm not a blokey bloke so I went for a ride :-) Had been painting in the house allday with one eye on the window looking at the gorgeous weather I was missing, so there was no way I was staying indoors, plus I had my new spangly hope 4's* to try out and they were fricking awesome, had them bar mounted with my joystick on my helmet. A massive flood from the bars gives much better shadow and definition on drops and stuff, most of the time the joystick wasn't illuminating much as the 4's flood was so good but it was a nice extra. Most stuff could be taken at pretty much downhill speeds, the 5modes is a bit of a pain to cycle through, low medium high ultra and flashing, either scrap the flash or take it out of the loop. Did winterhill, rivi, winterhill, tockholes, Darwin tower and Whitehall. I was seriously considering going up to Peel tower for the full set but it was getting late and I wasn't sure my legs would hold out so I went home via turton. Superb night ride - probably cos the trails were so dry (normally nightriding=winter=muddy trails) Sat in the takeaway in town covered in mud waiting for my kebab (ok a bit blokey) I was watching the usual saturday night crowds, smug in the knowledge I had had the better night and I'd still be feeling pretty good in the morning too. Top ride top lights looking forward to more night rides.

*I was going to get the maxx-d but I saw a group buy on the 4's quite a bit cheaper.

Drop dead gorgeous

Up in the lakes again on friday, driving down the side of derwent water and saw the view, absolutely fantastic, perfect reflection of the hills over the lake. Fantastic!

Was a brilliant day, started out riding borrowdale bash, well after trying to get Johnny's front brake to work we set off. Birketts leap and Frith wood are proper steep so he did pretty well with only a brake brake and a minimal bit of friction from the front. One of my fave bits of trail steep and rocky - a donk trail as Johnny calls them, too steep to ride up too steep to ride down :-)
The climb to castle crag was nice loads of cheery walkers for a change. Mental rocky downhill followed.

We cut it short after grange, went back to the car and went up to latrigg and did blencathra loop, another cracker with fantastic views. The climb up is long but do-able until the last steep rocky section to crest the top of the lonscale path, it's always defeated me before. This time tho with water running down it looking proper slippy I just seemed to float up it. Dunno how I did it and probably won't manage it again but I was well made up and the descent to the car was a cracker. Smoking hot brakes by the time you get to the bottom.

Ride ride ride

Been getting out plenty lately. STW ride last weekend round rossendale area. Met up at Lee quarry and did a few moorland bits then joined up with the mary townley loop again doing cowpe at the end, corking downhill. Was a good ride decent weather bit damp under tyres but not too bad. Saw a few offs but did ok. Afterwards we went round lee quarry, I nearly stacked it on a jump and decided to call it a day. Before that me and junkyard had been to the lakes, did the ambleside and elterwater ride, weather not so good that time, rained quite a bit and we got soaked, didn't do the longmoor loop, did a different route up Iron Keld which started off with a drop along a stream but it had swelled quite a bit with the rain and was about 6" deep and deaqd slippy, good fun tho. Jonny went over the bars and I had a near miss when we both hit sandtraps, looked like hardpack grit but front wheel sank right in. We were lucky a couple of lads from Darlington who we ride with sometimes did a lot worse when they hit some sandtraps (also in the lakes), one broken shoulder and one knocked unconcious - ouch!

There's a ferret in my front room what am I gonna do?

ferret, originally uploaded by D0NK.

Nice day today, had the backdoor open while I was decorating. I heard the Mrs shout "Urrrrr what the hell's that?" assuming it was spider or sommat, I went in and this thing was running round the front room, under the telly and units. It didn't want to leave, I had to chase it out and shut the door but it stayed there for a while and when I went out later it tried to get back in! Proper random. what the hell is a ferret doing running round my front room?

Mountain biker inside

Saw a brilliant thread on STW this week, "signs that a house belongs to a mountain biker". I identified with a lot of stuff said on there eg
Mud on garden path from washing bikes*
Bike clothes drying everywhere
Shower trap full of mud
Piles of old bike mags
Camelbak hung up in kitchen
Kitchen cupboards and drawers full of bike parts
Pedal/tyre/handlebar scuffs on doors/walls
Always a bike in the hall (unless I'm 100% certain I'm not riding for atleast 24hrs)

Other stuff that people pointed out that my house features made me realise, "oh that's not normal" -
More bikes than people
rear car seats permanently folded down
Dirty marks on doors from greasy hands
bike and fork boxes around the house
Small bike parts/bolts/allen keys on window sills

I may apologise to the wife later for being so oblivious to what is and isn't normal. (apologise but not necessarily change my behaviour :-)

*remember that bit in saving private ryan where the sergeant gets a tin of soil from every country he's been to - I do something similar :-)

August and everything after

So my biggest offroad mileage this month, not bad but could have been better, several weekends wasted spent doing house/couple stuff. A few good rides including the 3 passes and finally checking the mary townley loop off my to do list, lot's of offroad commutes which has been nice. September has not got off to a good start, crap weather meant a switch to the black top and bike/car confrontations have ensued but I'm trying a new tactic not to get wound up by it all, the adrenaline spike you get during near death experiences is a hard one to fight tho. (TBH these latest have not been very near but have included plenty of profanity and gesticulations)
Lightwise I've gone with the Hope4s for a very reasonable price from a random stranger on the internet. I mailed the guy to tell him I'd transfered the money and he responded with "Thanks dave, thats perfect! Muahahahahahahaha!"* hopefully this is all kosher and the lights will actually arrive.

*ok maybe he didn't add the evil laugh