Beautiful day

Phew what a scorcher etc, etc. A nice bit of weather and no mistake, first BBQ of the year on saturday and a proper t-shirt ride on sunday. Me and burk hit the peaks, we took roych clough and rushup edge up to Mam Tor, a quick downhill then straight backup and back the way we came. There were loads of people out including a few para gliders, we got told off by a ranger cos we had missed the 3"x3" tippex bridleway sign directing us to a trail 10 feet (and one dry stone wall) to our right. And I nearly killed myself on the way back, dropping down Mount Famine at silly speed I spotted a deep water bar, I hopped it ok but landed heading straight for a bigger ditch at a very shallow angle, I just had time to heave on the bars, launch the bike skywards and pray that the suspension would soak up the hit when my back wheel hooked up on the far side (and that my brakes would stop me before the rapidly approaching dry stone wall on the far side). Scary but I managed. Then it was just downhill at warp factor 9 to the car in hayfield, pretty good day out and a lovely weekend, hope the weather holds up for next weeks swaledale ride.

Switching off

On the way home from work yesterday I was on form, I was cleaning stuff that I haven't done for a while (up the two flights of steps at blackfriars rd) and riding some stuff I haven't tried before like the steps near agecroft (tight turn in, steep stairs, tight turn out) And following the first rule of cleaning new stuff, I went straight back and did it again, and then again with my saddle at full height. Nice way to finish a pretty stressful day.

Watched the last half hour of The Hospital last night, it depressed me, no doubt it was edited to provoke a reaction but some of those young mums wound me up. Stamping their feet cos they want their pregnancy/labour to go their way despite all the health care professionals advising against certain things, then afterwards the girls saying, (surprise, surprise) next time they'd be following doctors orders. One girl was gasping just walking down the street but carried on smoking throughout pregnancy anyway, then after being presented with her healthy baby saying smoking's not as dangerous as everyone says. This was the same girl who takes the word of her mates over doctors/consultants about whats best for her and her babies health. It's not their stupidity that depresses me (I was a stupid kid once too) it's their refusal to accept that they know bugger all about bloody important things that don't just affect their lives but their babies as well.

Sunshine Underground

One of those times when your mp3 shuffle matches your ride perfectly, I came to the top of winter hill with the chemical brothers in my headphones and it was building to the crescendo as I started belmont descent and finished as I hit the bottom, brilliant. Back up and off the back of winter hill to Primal Scream's Rocks, Ice Cream Run had 'I love rock and roll' (how apt) and when I flatted near the bottom 'Grazed Knees' kicked in to chill me out when it was taking forever to get that UST tyre back on. Basketcase to finish on Jon's 200. Cracking little ride only 11miles but 2200ft gained and descended.

Just exactly how ace is my ETSX ;-)

Roller coaster

A trip back to Llandegla for me and Burk on saturday, weather was nice, probably the first time I've ridden in wales when it hasnt rained! The Car Park was getting full when we arrived at 9 but we must have been moving at a similar pace to everyone else cos we didn't run into many riders. I took the hardtail and it was just right for the overgrown bmx course that this place is, slightly hairy where some big old braking bumps have now developed on the approach into some of the berms, but great for getting air* off the jumps. Slightly dodgy moment on the last bit of black, the downhill from the bridge with all the jumps, as I came to the first of the double I wasn't going fast enough so I tried to pedal to find I was still in a really low gear from the climb, no time to change gear just concentrate on jumping it, phew made it. I did one and a half laps again (back up offas dyke for a second go of all the good bits) Burk decided to just carry on so I was trying to catch him back up, no chance but I did manage to trash my legs. On 'Dave the fox' I was climbing to the top halfway along and saw a guy on a monster downhill bike all padded up, full facer and goggles setting off, I got to the top a few seconds after he'd set off so obviously tried to catch him, I kept him in sight and started to close a little but didn't catch him till he stopped for badgers rise where he stopped to take of his goggles and full facer and push up badgers rise. The downhill was about a minute long, is it really worth dragging that beast of a bike around? Mind you he was keeping up with me on the climb due to the fact the trail takes a long twisty, turny route up the hill and he was just pushing straight up the hill. It pisses me off when people do that, the trails are built and reinforced for the heavy use that trail centres get so stick to them! Anyway good ride and a nice early finish so I had loads of time for doing....erm.... nowt, just had a leisurely soak in the bath then round to the inlaws for a few beers and a curry.

*(a teeny tiny bit of air)

Electric Storm

Blackberry storm, blackberrys seem quite fashionable now and from an IT point of view not bad. Email is a breeze to setup as long as you don't mind divulging you work email credentials to your service provider, calendar syncing over the air is a little more tricky as blackberry don't bother including the necessary sync tools but no biggy. One of our users got a Storm recently the blackberry that wants to be an iphone so much it hurts. It blows big time. It's slow, freezing for no apparent reason occasionally, takes an age to boot up and 5mins+ for a factory restore, it causes downright strange behaviour with 3rd party apps but the absolute worst thing is the interface. The whole screen is a button, run your finger across the screen to highlight an icon, tick box or keyboard key then click down on the screen. Unfortunately its crap whenever you click it selects the button immediately above or below the one you want, normally the one that causes most disruption. e.g. I spend 10 minutes filling in the settings page using the phone text style keypad cos the predictive one is useless for server addresses and the proper qwerty keyboard wont work with all 3rd party apps, bring up the menu highlight SAVE and click, the highlight flips down to CANCEL and you lose all the settings you just put in. When it happens for the third time you get a bit pissed off. The gyro on it which tells it which way you are holding it is quite glitchy, navigation is not intuitive at all and once you do know what you are doing its clunky and doesn't work as it should all the time. Steer clear. The curve with its track ball and full keyboard is much better, if a little big.

Doe a deer...

...a female deer, well 2 female deers actually. I've seen deer up turton moor way before but not down Darcy Lever, that was a nice surprise this morning, also saw a pheasent some coots and 2 herons, the swans were hiding tho. Lots of wildlife about, there was a plague of frogs round the jumbles on Tuesday night too, I had a hard time dodging them all, think I may have clipped a couple of the poor buggers.

Last nights commute home was gorgeous, sunny, proper shorts an T shirt weather, a glimpse of what the next 5-6 months could be like (interspersed with large bouts of wind and rain obviously) I just took it nice and easy enjoying the loveliness of even this little slice of countryside nestled between the burgeoning masses of manchester and bolton. Pushed up the climbs, sat for a minute at gates and enjoyed the view, freewheeled the downhills. Nice. Knackered today, already done over 100 xc miles this week and in March I managed to clock up more xc miles than road which I think is a first. I'm going to be having a rest this weekend, with all the riding I've been doing lately MrsDonk is starting to feel like a mountain biking widow.

Down in the Valley 3, originally uploaded by D0NK.

This is the one

Frosty ride - winter hill, originally uploaded by D0NK.

I like this bike, no I really like this bike, the STW ride was great, it climbed well and it descended with the best of them despite being amongst plenty of full sussers. It was perfect for lee quarry being a bit more precise for those balance beams than a full susser. It flew home across holcombe moor, uphill it felt like I had a tailwind behind me but nope the wind was gently blowing against my face me when I stopped at a gate. All round a bloody good ride.
So is this the one perfect bike for me? No, a couple of weeks ago I was praising my rigid singlespeed for it's simplicity, before that I was gushing about the heckler pinning all the descents and climbs in the lakes and next time I take out the etsx I'll be reporting how fantastic that is. So are all my bikes the best in the world? Do I have such a short memory I can't objectively compare them back to back? Or is it that a bike is a bike is a bike and which ever one I currently have my leg swung over is the best in the world?
Bit of all of the above I think, long may it continue.