Mmmm

Morrisons sour cherry and chocolate brownies, gorgeous, a top post ride refuel option I reckon, can't be sure tho as I haven't actually ridden anywhere this weekend. Pretty good post playstation refuel anyway :-)
Still not been offroad since the crash, I'll be losing confidence as well as fitness if I'm not careful. Feeling pretty grotty this morning might be a cold on the way :-(

Attention People of Salford...

More specifically drivers of salford, even more specifically drivers on salford precinct and the height roundabouts. When on a roundabout you indicate left immediatley after the exit road before yours, not after the entry road before your exit and 0.01 seconds before you swing left. If your on the inside of a big 2 lane roundabout indicating right don't be surprised if I enter the roundabout to take the next exit - Tools. And stop driving on the mandatory bike lane approach! Grrrr.

Workshop

So I brought my ageing Z1 bombers into work to have a go at stripping and replacing the seals, I've had them 10years and only got them professionally serviced once so about time for another one, amateur this time. I'd heard seals were a bugger to get out but the first leg I had no probs at all, stripped down, seals levered out easy, popped the new ones in with a 30mm socket as a drift, piece of piss. Second one again no probs fitted the new seal had a look inside whoops forgotten to fit the bushing, carefully lever seal out fit bushing seal back in, hmm thats gone too far, damn I forgot the spacer, lever seal out, fit spcaer push seal back in. Repeatedly fitting and removing seals doesnt damage them does it? :-0
Saw this pic on trios site it reminded me a long time ago me and my mate were riding round there and it was in a similar state, he bet me to ride in the river I accepted aslong as I used his mountain bike (I was on a racer he had a nice purple and green peugot anaconda i think - mmm slack!) I had a right laugh, he took a pic, all you could see of the bike was the bars and saddle. River riding is cool - aslong as you use someone elses bike I think every bearing on his bike died soon after

More shiny things

Had to nip to Merlin to pick up my 9 month old bombers with a blown oil seal. Fixed under warranty thank you very much, see how they last this time, fingers crossed. Whilst there I took a look at the fox float RL 140s they had at a silly low price (for fox) Nice. Too nice. I now have another set of forks, I now own 7 mtb forks and only 4 frames. They are QR15s so I'll need a new front wheel. They're also post mount and the 2 bikes I was thinking about putting them on (heckler and etsx) have IS brakes. Ho hum, new brakes too then. Doubt they'll see the trails till spring, EdO reckons use your best gear in winter when you need it most, I say trash old stuff in winter save shiny stuff for long summer rides. Might singlespeed and slap some old forks on my kinesis for winter too.

Oh and my legs stopped that burning thing so I'm finally getting some decent sleep again. Yay.

Injurywatch

I've got some amusing shades of bruise on both legs, left thumbs still dodgy, got a wierd hard lump in my calf and oh yeah my leg burns. Whenever my leg is still (ie slobbing on the couch) the next time i move it my calf burns, the longer I'm still the more it hurts so changing position at night during sleep means it burns like buggery and wakes me up. It's a weird throbbing burn, like really bad lactic acid and it's doing my head in losing sleep. Went to the docs and he confirmed it's not thrombosis (which is nice) but he shrugged when I asked him what the burning sensation was and what to do about it. Hope it wears off soon.

I am a mountain biker, hear me roar whimper!

So, later than advertised I made it back onto 2 wheels. I rode in on friday, pedalling wasn't too bad walking is a major pain tho. I think I my pedal twatted my calf in the crash, there's a big lump and it's seized up. Standing up straight with feet flat on the floor is tricky and I can only hobble along. It's not much better today, I can stretch my calf out a bit and then I can manage to walk properly but it soon tightens up again and moving my foot much causes a burning/throbbing sensation in my calf. As I said pedalling is OK but bumpy ground is most definitley not. Going over some broken tarmac in swinton the other day caused me to swear quite a lot and I've been avoiding that patch since. So I'll stick to the blacktop for another week or so and try to keep stretching my leg. Not a happy bunny, only myself to blame - bloody stupid idiot hitting stuff so fast in the wet. Worst crash since spain in 2007 (that was me being stupid too).

Ow!

You know that fast sweeping right hander before you enter the trees on wildeswood descent? The one with the little gulley you can drop into and use as a berm to rip round at speed? Well you can't anymore. I noticed too late last night that it's just a muddy mess now. Front wheel slid out of gulley, bike got all out of shape and I hit the ground pretty hard. Head, face, shoulder and knee hit the ground and I got bike tangled up in my legs. When I finally dagged myself of the ground I noticed with satisfaction that the rear wheel was still spinning - sign of a proper crash :-) I'd snapped the peak of my helmet and my right knee and calf were pretty sore but I carried on, met up with Jonny and Si and set off up rivi. Made it to the top but legs was hurting and head was a bit swimmy so I decided to split, it's mainly downhill all the way from there but my leg had started to seize up and every bump caused my calf to jolt and hurt a lot. Painkillers, ice, elevation etc when I got home, bit of trouble walking this morning, but not too bad, back on the (road) bike tomorrow hopefully. There's a chain of thought that says if you're not crashing you're not learning, that quite frankly is bollocks! Crashing hurts I'm not intending to make a habit of it.

Oh I should also mention it was jonnys debut singlespeed ride, he loved it, he has nothing but praise for monocogs :-)

progeny update

Charlie is doing fine, he still sleeps well at night and doesn't cry very often or loudly. He's even got used to having a bath, it was one of the few things that made him cry but he's dead chilled about it now and takes it all in his stride. He's also started to smile, despite the fact that he's pretty stupid* he still manages to sense when there a camera anywhere near him and promptly stops smiling, so as of yet no one has managed to get a picture. Turning into a proper chubber too.

*sorry but he is, when he's hungry he sucks on his blankets/clothes and if I pick him up with my hands under his oxters he'll clamp his gob round my thumb and suck for a good few minutes before he realises there's no milk.

False promises

I'm disappointed, got up yesterday looked out the window and saw the frost, cool nice frozen trails. Nope very wet and sloppy trails just a lot colder than normal. Got to work pretty filthy but it was kind of picturesque with the mist down in the irwell valley, nice start to the day. There was mist on the way home too but this wasn't nice it was horrible. It was dark, I only had my head torch and it was reflecting off the mist, it was like riding through a snowstorm, millions of tiny sparkly particles rushing towards my eyes. Very off putting and seemed to be messing with my balance too when the clouds of mist flowed left or right. Ended up having to hold the light while I rode along.
Also my mud proofing acquisitions haven't been a success, the bombers I got have sprung an oil leak, only 8months old and not done a lot of miles, bombers are supposed to be indestructible. The Maura's are proving difficult, fiddly to setup, if you want to take a wheel out you have to remove a caliper and when you refit it chances are you'll have to faff to get them in the right place again. Not too bad for the back wheel which stays put but I need to remove the front wheel to stash the bike in the house. The TPA (moving the pistons in as the pads wear) doesn't work properly, the pads never centre properly, looking on trials forums this TPA thing is a well known issue. Power is reasonable, pads wear faster than normal but I don't shred them in one ride like I was doing with discs the last couple of winters. Time will tell whether I'd have been better off spending the money on lots of disc brake pads instead.

LOL

Stupidest thing I've heard in ages, guy just came into our office,
guy "is the server down?"
colleague "which one?"
guy "the one I'm trying to access"

Very very frightening

No night riding planned this week but as we were leaving work last night Si suggested a night ride, he's got a pimpy new orange 5 to break in. I was 50/50 cos of the weather but I only got mildly damp on the commute home so I thought the night ride would be fine. Quick change of bike then back out, met up with Si and we climbed up winter hill, aren't these waterproof jackets great eh? We were doing OK warm and dryish in the light rain, then it started to rain harder and as we got to the top lightning lit up the sky! Belmont down hill was very wet and the best line was along the stream of water. We were soaked by the time we got to the bottom, gloves, shoes, shorts/longs all water logged and it started really belting down. Another ride cut short, we went up scout road and did a new route through smithills (educated guess but it worked out ok). Not a bad ride but my hands and feet were freezing when I got home, getting my keys out of the camelbak and opening the front door took ages. Wetest night ride ever.

There was an...

old woman...young bloke who swallowed inhaled a fly I don't know why he inhaled a fly perhaps he'll die. Or perhaps he'll spend the rest of the ride coughing/heaving/wretching trying to get the little bugger back up.
I'd wussed out of going on the STW lakes ride but don't feel too bad about it, sounds like they had a similar ride to me. Got wet, got puncture, got cold, went home early. Difference was I didn't have to drive over 150miles for the privilege, no cameraderie either but I'll live. Def need some better winter gear, if I had gone on that ride and been waiting for others getting up hills, fixing punctures etc I'd have been freezing and got really cranky. Quick ride round the jumbles, nowt too taxing but I kept out of the wind and still a few power climbs to work the legs a bit on a SS.