This morning was an early start - I left the house at twenty past seven! - as I was off out karting with a few people from work and a few more people that some of the people from work used to work with... I think that makes sense. We stopped at Marcs last night so I had to get from Bingham to Lichfield for a nine o'clock start.

The race we were doing was a 5 minute qualifier and then a 30 minute endurance race.

I qualified 10th out of 12, so not the best start. Especially considering Andy spent most of the qualifying session sat in the pits having his brakes fixed and he still managed 7th.

The race was pretty good - I made up a couple of places on the start only to lose them again by spinning on the 4th corner. I got lapped a couple of times by the eventual winners as well, but did manage the odd spot of overtaking of my own.

In the end I finished 8th, having completed 66 laps with a fastest lap time of 24.83 seconds. John won with 69 laps and a fastest lap of 24.01 seconds.

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Last week we (Me, Miranda and Marc) took Friday off work and went down to Cornwall to see our friends Mand and Jus for a long weekend. Mand and Jus moved from Nottingham to Bodmin about a year ago. We drove down on Thursday night after work and just over arrived four and a half hours later...

On Friday we had a day out to St Ives in glorious sunshine. I've always been sceptical about the supposed difference of light in St Ives that artistic types are always going on about, but I have to say having finally been there is definitely something strange going on. Everything seems clearer and brighter somehow - I seem to remember watching a TV program a while ago explaining all of this as to do with the direction and shape of the bay, and the way the sunlight reflects off the sea. Either way it is a beautiful sight on a sunny day.

We had a nice wander round in St Ives, with a stop for drinks on the roof of the Tate St Ives gallery and a rather delicious lunch in The Seafood Cafe.

After St Ives we headed down to Falmouth for a bit of shopping (I bought two pairs of shoes, including a quiksilver pair for £17.50), a bit of a drink in a little cafe and then chippy tea on the harbour and home.

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, so we headed down to Fowey for some more mooching around shops and a little coffee and brunch.

After Fowey we split into two groups.... Mand, Mi and Marc headed off to look at plants at the Lost Gardens of Heligan while me and Jus headed for Watergate Bay and the call of the surf.

The surf forecast for Saturday wasn't brilliant and that turned out to be the case... when the waves did come they were in sets of 5 or 6 with a big gap until the next set. Still, there were plenty of people in and it was a warm sunny afternoon and pretty good fun just floating around waiting for a wave.

After an hour and a half and fewer waves than we'd hoped for we called it a day and headed home after a quick pint to wash away the taste of saltwater.

On saturday evening we went out for a meal at the Mariners in Rock, just across the Camel estuary from Padstow. The food was pretty good, but Miranda managed to pick the one dodgy dish of the evening - an asparagus risotto that came out cold, went back to be reheated and came back only marginally warmer. I don't know how she does it, but you can take Mi to any restaurant and she usually can pick the one dodgy dish of the evening...

Sunday morning in Bodmin was cloudy and grey and a little on the chilly side. The surf forecast showed a little more promise though, with 2-3 foot forecast for the north coast.

Mi, Mand and Marc showed no more interest in getting wet than they had on Saturday, so while they headed off shopping again Jus loaded his board onto the car and we headed for Polzeath.

The waves in Polzeath were much better than at Watergate - 3-4 foot and regular as clockwork. They were also breaking a lot further out so you got a much longer ride in when you caught one. Further out also meant you went a lot further under when you bombed - something I did regularly - and the water seemed a lot colder than it had the day before.

We managed just over an hour and a quarter in the sea before it was time to head back for lunch and the joy of a four and a half hour drive back to the Midlands.

Labels: holiday, surfing

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Got one of those little portable FM transmitters for my birthday off my sister (my birthday was in February, my present arrived last friday - don't ask...), so I now have my own little private radio station in my car. :)

I don't have any line in capability on my car stereo, so previously I had no way to attach my mp3 player for in car listening.

It plugs into the headphone socket of any MP3 player, can be tuned to broadcast on any frequency between 87.5MHz and 108MHz, and you get around 6 hours playback from a 3-4 hour charge...

It is a Cygnett GrooveRide and so far it has worked like a charm.

Labels: tech

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Spring is truly here, summer can't be far away...

Went to the first barbecue of the year yesterday afternoon at Tony and Di's...

What is it about hot, sunny afternoons that makes you want to stand around a fire?

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We spent Easter down in Wales visiting Mi's family and the nieces.

Easter sunday started with an easter egg hunt in the back garden, then after a bit of lunch we all headed to Ponty Park for the fair.

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Four day weeks - you've got to love them! I spent yesterday at Sherwood Forest playing around in the trees and on the off road course they have.

Originally the plan was for the day to be a practice ride for this years Adventure Challenge team (Me, Tim, Andy and John), but Andy somehow managed to hurt his back on the Jubilee Wood ride we did on Wednesday, and John pulled out at the last minute, so in the end it was just me and Tim.

We started from the Sherwood Pines Forest Park Visitor Centre which is the main entrance to the forest park and has the car park, cafe, toilets, etc. There are two marked circular cycle routes (family and adventure) but also hundreds of roads and tracks that you can use if you fancy straying a little bit more into the trees. Along the southern edge of the forest there are also some (barely) marked "off road" routes. These are little black arrow signs pointing into the trees off the adventure route, and were where we spent most of the day.

Distance	15.2 miles
Time	1 hour 54 minutes
Max Speed	29.9mph
Average Speed	7.8mph

Labels: biking

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We went round to Marc's house for a drink and some food on Thursday evening. Mi also had a hair appointment round the corner, so as it was a beautiful evening and I had my bike with me I went out for a bit of a ride to see what the Bingham Trail was like. I've driven past the start of it every time I've been round to Marc's house, but never been down it.

Like so many of the trails in this area, the route is a dismantled railway line. The first mile or so have been resurfaced and are nice and flat and smooth. This changes quite dramatically as you pass through the tunnel that takes the track under the A52. Once out the other side the surface descends into barely covered trackbed with huge chunks of gravel everywhere making the going pretty rough and bouncy.

The track so far had run through a cutting. Soon after passing under the A52 you head out onto an embankment with stunning views of the surrounding farmland in the early evening sunlight.

I'd planned this ride to be a short one, but the decision of when to turn back was made for me in the end... Two and a half miles in, and somebody had stolen a bridge! The track was blocked by a fence and fallen trees, with a steep stepped diversion down the embankment and then back up on the other side of the gap. I couldn't be bothered trying to negotiate this with the bike, and as time was pressing on - nearly time to head for the pub - I called this the end of the journey and turned round to bump my way back to Bingham.

I arrived back at Marc's at the same time as Miranda (now sporting a swish new fringe) and a quick change later it was down to The Chesterfield for a couple of pints of Black Sheep.

Distance	5.1 miles
Time	26 minutes
Max Speed	22.6mph
Average Speed	11.5mph

Labels: biking

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Andy got his new bike yesterday, so today we went for a quick test ride after work. Jubilee Wood is a small area of woodland near Nanpantan, about a 2 mile ride from work. Technically it is a "No Cycling" area, but we figured that there probably wouldn't be many people around after 6pm, so with blatant disregard for the sign at the entrance we headed off road and into the trees.

As it turned out there were more people than we expected around - we passed a few groups of joggers on the main path - but those we saw seemed to have no objections to the fact we were on bikes, and some even exchanged hellos. Once we turned off the main track and onto the narrower bits we saw nobody for the rest of the time we were there. We headed up the hill on a narrow and not really very suitable track, having to get off and walk for some bits.

At the top of the hill we rejoined a bigger track for the fun freewheel back down the hill and then out onto the road and back to work. On the road down the hill from Nanpantan that was such a chore to ride up I reached a practical maximum speed for my bike of around 34mph - a speed at which I was struggling to pedal fast enough to make a difference, even in top gear.

The result of the trial - Andy isn't sure he likes his new bike as much as his old one, although I think there is still a bit of tweaking to be done with the setup.

Distance	5.8 miles
Time	32 minutes
Max Speed	34.2mph
Average Speed	10.6mph

Labels: biking

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The first time I came to Carsington Water was last August when a group of us decided we really needed some canoeing practice before the challenge. Carsington do pretty reasonable canoe hire, and have a nice circular cycle route around the reservoir, so we all turned up armed with bikes and a change of clothes and had a morning canoeing and a bike ride in the afternoon. Back then I thought the ride was tough because of the hour and a half canoeing beforehand. Now I'm not so sure.

This time it was just me and Tim, and no pre-ride watersports. The route around Carsington is a relatively short 8.5 miles, and we started out clockwise from the main visitor centre carpark - point 7 on my Bike Trails Map.

The track follows the reservoir fairly close to the shore along the western edge, before it suddenly moves away from the water completely and crossing the B5035. At this point it takes you up a deceptively steep road around through Carsington village before cutting back onto a track and across the B5035 once more just before Hopton.

From here the route crosses the northern tip of the reservoir before once again veering away from the water and into the woodland along the eastern shore. For a route around a reservoir - by definition a pretty flat surface - there are an awful lot of rather steep hills at Carsington. The first of them is here as the track climbs sharply into the woods. The loose gravel surface really doesn't help you here, so most of this stretch is a slog and a scrabble. Once you are up, the track levels off for a bit before dropping steeply down the other side. This is the fun bit.

For reasons I've not quite fathomed, the first big downhill section riding this way round (and a few more further on) has gained tarmac speedhumps. Whether this is a drainage thing to stop the track turning into a river when it rains, or whether it is supposed to slow cyclists down I'm not sure, but they made great little jump ramps. The bottom one was a little hairy as by this point I was doing around 25 mph and there is a fairly tight left hander just after it. Tim was less successful at the jumps as he has a heavy steel framed bike and rear suspension, which absorbs the kick on the rear wheel needed to get it off the ground properly.

The last bit of the journey is either along the road below the dam, or across the dam itself. Last time we took the road, so this time we went for the dam. The crosswind coming off the water was unbelievable - strong, constant and coming at such an angle that I had to ride leaning into the wind just to stay in a vaguely straight line! Maybe the road would have been a better idea as this drops down behind the dam and so would have offered more shelter... I know for next time...

Distance	8.4 miles
Time	58 minutes
Max Speed	25.1mph
Average Speed	8.8mph

Labels: biking

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