Excellent

Was looking forward to gettiong offroad again, just a short one tho so I drove up to the meet point, just as I got to horwich I realised I hadn't packed a jacket, doh! too late now. Was looking like I'd have to ride in baselayer and my carrier bag emergency showerproof, fortunatley Si had a spare jersey, phew. Perfect conditions, not a bit of wind, clear skies, not too chilly and for the first time in ages a brilliant view from the pike. Took it nice and easy but as I gently spun up hole in't wall I realised that for an unfit person (which I should be classing myself as at the moment) this climb was pretty hardcore - oops. 2lads and wildeswood are almost completely dry, at times I was reaching summer speeds....and then hitting a mud section where I hung on for dear life and tried to stay loose as it all went squirelly, luckily I made it through. School climb I walked/rode/walked/rode and then ICR to finish, loadsa fun and despite both of us pinging off lots of big rocks no punctures yay!

Light at the end of the tunnel

My chest has slowly been getting better, I did have a splitting headache all day yesterday but woke up this morning clear headed so chanced riding in to work. Took it nice and gentle, road bike, gears, flat route, easy peasy. Hacked up about half a pound of horrible green gunge when I got to work but other than that I feel fine. Short night ride tonight and starting to plan a ride for weekend. Wahey! back in business.

How Much?

Nipped into halfords for some antisieze, you have this small tube at £3.49 or you have a big tub at £7.99 but look a bit closer, the tub is £16 per kilo, the tube is £175 per Kg, bloody hell thats some mark up. Having said that I bought a small tube over 3 years ago and it's only just run out, I imagine this tub will be named as part of my estate in my will, to be handed down to whoever has shown themselves to be the least cackhanded mechanic of the future generation. My dad and his dad where very mechanically minded, I'm hoping it's only skipped a generation with me.

So it's going to be like that is it?

Quite a nice day yesterday wasn't it? Just right for riding, on saturday I'd already decided to downgrade my plans from a big lakes ride to a short blast round rivi, sunday I awoke with a huge bout of coughing, awesome. Charlie's had a cough for a few days now and I had most definitely got it. Walking upstairs had me panting for breath and coughing a lung up. Bugger! OK so scrap the riding, I'll do some painting instead. Getting some stuff from under the stairs I notice a valve on the heating pipe work is leaking, hmm will have to sort that soon. Painting the skirting boards I go to switch off a rad valve and that starts leaking, argh! The day is not going well. Shut everything down, drain the system and off to B&Q for some new valves. Manage to get everything sorted with some advice from Johnnie (cheers) then after re-filling the system one of the stop valves at the boiler starts dripping slightly. Grrrrr, right I'd had enough, a few beers, a soak in a hot bath, some new tunes (kings of leon) and a read of the new singletrack chilled me out and cheered me up. Turns out the drip was just condensation, feeling well rough today tho, got a ride planned next sunday I hope I'm ok for that, I'm looking atleast another week off the bike tho.

Maybe I should run a poll/sweepstake, how many weeks of riding is dave going to miss this year due to illness/injury?

As promised

Samuri's ebook, available at all good bookshops Amazon, well worth a punt.

Springtime=spannertime

Just coz I've been resting my knees doesn't mean I've been sat on my arse. Tis the time of year to get all my bikes in tip top useable condition for the riding season. Unfortunately as Johnnie and others have pointed out I'm a bit hamfisted so things didn't exactly run smoothly. Stripped and replaced all seals on my fox shock, been worried about this but was quite easy actually. Replaced bearings in pompino back wheel, no worries. Built a wheel, new rim for my old hope xc hub, got it almost right then broke a nipple. Hmm apparently building wheels with no oil on the spoke threads is a bad move. Ah. Unbuild, replace mangled nips and rebuild, looks OK now, yet to ride. Replaced hub bearings, knocked them all out no probs, replaced freehub bearings with socket and vice easy, knocked the wheel bearings in with hammer and a 20mm socket and then noticed that 1. the socket wasn't quite the right shape, it had slipped and mangled the seals and 2. I had neglected to fit the axle before hammering in the 2nd bearing. Doh. Bearing out axle in bearing in replace seals with old ones spin wheel, sssgrunch sssgrunch, hmm, will do for now but need to replace the bearing that got mullered knocking it in/out/in again. Just fit a headset using a flypress and blocks of wood, having a workshop at work rocks. That's it so far but brakes to be bled, blinglespeed to be built and forks to be serviced.

Even more road rage

Another driver loses it at a cyclist, but on a more positive note police are backing up the cyclist and seem to be taking it seriously AND it's currently the top story on the BBC website. With a bit lot more exposure and backing from the police hopefully this sort of behaviour will (rightly) be stigmatised by joe public. (and hopefully in any future events the passing motorists might say/do something rather than just drive around the incident)